Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea: Education, Labor, and Health, 1910–1945 (Asia Pacific Modern)

Asia Pacific Modern

by Theodore Jun Yoo

This study examines how the concept of "Korean woman" underwent a radical transformation in Korea's public discourse during the years of Japanese colonialism. Theodore Jun Yoo shows that as women moved out of traditional spheres to occupy new positions outside the home, they encountered the pervasive control of the colonial state, which sought to impose modernity on them. While some Korean women conformed to the dictates of colonial hegemony, others took deliberate pains to distinguish between what was "modern" (e.g., Western outfits) and thus legitimate, and what was "Japanese," and thus illegitimate. Yoo argues that what made the experience of these women unique was the dual confrontation with modernity itself and with Japan as a colonial power.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Japan, Gender, Japanese History

328 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Theodore Jun Yoo is Associate Professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea. He is the author of The Politics of Gender in Colonial Korea and It's Madness.

Reviews

[Benemint]

Not very exciting deep analysis.
Lesson: Don't try to "cover" & "represent" women (or other groups) as a general category. Find an interesting site and dig deeper rather than scratching the broad area if there is not enough time for collecting massive data and doing a major synthesis.

[Kate]

While it was not as deep a story, the author covered several broader aspects of modernizing women in Korea during this era- and it would not be a bad place to find some resources for primary research. I would love to look more deeply into the pieces written by those women missionaries who taught in girls' schools and newspaper columns on healthy pregnancy.