6-8 page research paper base on the topic and the abstract

Chapter Title: Doing It for Her Self: Sin yŏsŏng (New Women) in Korea

Book Title: Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea Book Subtitle: New Women, Old Ways: Seoul-California Series in Korean Studies, Volume 1 Book Author(s): HYAEWEOL CHOI Published by: University of California Press. (2009) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/j.ctt1ppg5t.11

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The phenomenon of New Women [sin yosong] in the 1920s and 1930s marks a signifi cant milestone showing Korea’s progress toward modernity that began in the late nineteenth century. The discourse on modern wom- anhood that had been dominated by male intellectuals began to be trans- formed by the fi rst generation of educated women in the print media and urban space. It also started to reveal growing tensions between competing narratives put forward by Korean men and women intellectuals as they had more exposure to Western and Japanese modernity. In a signifi cant way, the New Women were both the culmination of and a challenge to the Christian and nationalist drive for “civilization and enlightenment.” As Theodore Jun Yoo aptly points out, the newly emerging class of educated women was a product of efforts by Enlightenment-oriented male intel- lectuals who regarded newly educated women “as symbols of modernity, civilization and nationalism.” At the same time, these New Women began to pose unexpected threats to “the stability of the family, compromising sexual morality and denigrating national character.” 1 It was this nego- tiation of feminist agendas that the vanguard of educated New Women struggled to cope with in their work and everyday life.

The emergence of New Women in Korea was signifi cantly aligned with a global trend. The term New Woman was fi rst introduced by Sarah Grand in the North American Review in 1894 and was effectively employed by English and American women who struggled “against the constraints of Victorian norms of femininity” in their pursuit of an alternative life.2 Refusing to have their proper place defi ned by men, the newly emerging group of women began to agitate against centuries-old gender norms and engage in new cultural production and political activities. In this vein, Rita Felski argues that the New Woman became a “powerful symbol of

6. Doing It for Her Self Sin yosong (New Women) in Korea

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modernity, change, and the future.” 3 Commonly identifi ed “with the mod- ern and the disruptive, that is with challenges to existing structures of gendered identity,” 4 New Women were intimately linked with capitalist consumer economy and a changing political climate, generating dynamic gender politics in a wide range of issues including citizenship, education, work, fashion, leisure, the body, and sexuality.5 By the 1910s, the concept of the New Woman had been translated into various Asian languages (sin yosong in Korean, xin nüxing in Chinese, atarashii onna in Japanese) and had sparked a new women’s movement in East Asia by addressing the unique female constraints imposed by Confucian gender norms.

While it was a global phenomenon, the New Woman was also inexorably tied to the specifi c historical and cultural elements of each distinct society it emerged in. In particular, the ways in which the forces of (semi)colonialism, nationalism, and modernity framed and appropriated the woman question shed light on local variations of the experience of the New Women that went beyond the mere importation of Western-originated ideas of New Women.6 The New Women’s movement in Korea was inevitably shaped by its unique historical circumstances of Japanese colonial rule, anticolo- nial movements, and a growing desire for the new and the modern. Within this broader political and cultural context, various factors contributed to the emergence and development of New Women in Korea, including the increased population of educated women,7 the shift of the Japanese colonial policy toward “Cultural Rule” after the 1919 March First Independence Movement, the gradual industrialization and urbanization of the Korean economy, the explosion in the number of social and cultural organizations, and the proliferation of vernacular presses and publications.8 More notably, the intellectual infl uence of Western and Japanese women’s movements on Korean women was an indispensable factor in the emergence of the New Women in Korea. In the 1920s and 1930s, translations of a number of foreign writers who put forward new feminine ideals became available, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, Henrik Ibsen, Ellen Key, Alexandra Kollontai, Guy de Maupassant, and Leo Tolstoy.9 Nora, the protagonist in Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House became an especially potent symbol for New Women in East Asia.10

There are a variety of defi nitions of New Women in Korean scholarship.11 However, the popularized image of New Women in 1920s and 1930s print media was often associated with the image of “girl students” and a small group of elite women in urban spaces.12 They attracted the admiration of the public, especially those who studied overseas and had accomplished something unprecedented in the fi elds of art, literature, education, or jour-

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nalism. Simultaneously, they also drew relentless criticism for challenging Confucian gender norms, advocating gender equality, rejecting the sacred nature of motherhood, engaging in scandalous love affairs, and indulging themselves in the worldly pleasures of shopping, reading romance stories, watching “motion pictures of crude Americanism,” 13 and wearing Western- style clothing, high heels, and bobbed hairstyles. A growing number of readers and writers propelled the ever-more sensationalized image of the New Woman. A few prominent examples of the New Women became minor celebrities, famous for simply being themselves.14 They were often in the spotlight, and their private lives were constantly scrutinized, particu- larly in the event of divorce or love affairs. A mix of praise and harsh moral judgment fi lled the pages of the print media. As Barbara Sato points out in her analysis of a similar social situation in interwar Japan, the popular- ized and sensationalized image of the New Women was not based on the actual life of “real women” but the “possibilities for what all women could become.” 15 In this sense, the image of the New Women reveals “the temper of an age symbolized by changing women’s identities” in the making.16 The New Women in Korea shared this symbolic power, offering exhilarating hopes and possibilities for the new era. At the same time, they also invited deep anxiety and uncertainty about the new order of gender relations, espe- cially among male intellectuals.17

What is unique about Korean New Women vis-à-vis those in other cul- tures is that they had a signifi cant connection with Protestant Chris tianity. As the New Woman Hwang Sin-dok observed in 1931, the sheer majority of New Women had exposure to Christianity through mission schools and churches.18 Many of them came from Christian families and were bap- tized as children. Christian spirituality was one of the bonding solidari- ties among students studying overseas.19 Some married in Christian-style weddings and were professionally involved in national and international Christian organizations, most prominently represented by the Korean Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), founded in 1922.20 Just as the early Enlightenment-oriented male intellectuals were deeply infl u- enced by Christian civilization, so was the fi rst-generation of New Women in Korea. To these women, Christianity was more than a new religion. It offered them a wide range of novel experiences through church attendance, rituals, music, sports, and group activities, which served as a platform for understanding the world beyond domestic routines and developing their identities as individuals.

However, the responses of New Women to Christianity were by no means uniform. Quite the contrary, the ways in which these women incor-

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porated Christian religion into their public and private lives demonstate the variety of their religious encounters with Christianity. Ranging from a lifetime commitment to Christian spirituality to outright rejection, the choice of New Women for or against Christianity reveals their individual strategies in carving out their public and private spaces. The tensions they felt between their religious and secular interests and between collective (read: nationalistic) and individual desires resulted in remarkably diverse life paths. In this chapter, I focus on some examples of New Women whose public discourse and private lives shed light on the complex relationships they had with Christianity, Japanese colonialism, Korean nationalism, and secular modernity. Analyzing several key debates on modern woman- hood, I pay special attention to the points of connection and disconnection between missionary and nationalist mandates and Korean women’s own understanding of the modern.

Chr ist i a n Moder n a nd New Women

A number of mission publications regularly cited examples of the new ideal for “Oriental” women who had been transformed by Christianity. In par- ticular, those who were sponsored by missionary teachers to study overseas drew a great deal of attention because they would potentially become lead- ers in the woman’s world upon returning to Korea.21 For example, Esther Pak, who became the fi rst woman doctor trained in Western medicine in the United States, was proudly presented by her mentor, Rosetta Sherwood Hall, as an example of “one new life in the Orient.” 22 Pak’s transformed life and her devotion to healing the bodies and minds of Korean women exemplifi ed the ideal outcome of women’s missionary work. Kim Maria and Kim P’il-lye, both of whom studied in Japan and the United States, were hailed as ideal Christian women who represented the future of Korean womanhood.23 Just as converting women to Christianity was crucial for the proliferation of Christian communities because “no nation can become Christian without Christian mothers,” so fostering Christian women to become future leaders was imperative to ensure that present and future Christian women were under good guidance. The Korea mission produced a good number of Christian women leaders who left a signifi cant footprint through their work at mission schools and a variety of small and large scale Christian institutions. Most of these organizations primarily aimed at the spiritual growth of their members and the instruction of a Christian life- style. However, they were also deeply engaged in social “enlightenment” activities, largely through offering literacy training to children and women

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in rural communities.24 These diverse Christian groups and organizations were an important platform for New Women to learn leadership skills, strengthen solidarity, and reach out to other women in all walks of life.

“Grace Sufficient”: Kim Hwal-lan

If Ewha Girls’ School signaled the beginning of new womanhood in the late nineteenth century, the establishment of the Korean YWCA in 1922 manifested a certain maturity in Chrsitian womanhood that provided women with greater opportunities to get involved in educational, social, and economic issues. Kim Hwal-lan (1899 – 1970), who represented both Ewha and the YWCA through her leadership of both of these institutions, symbolized ideal Christian womanhood and exemplifi ed the most desired outcome of Christian education in Korea. Kim is no doubt one of the most infl uential women leaders in twentieth-century Korea, especially in the area of women’s education, but she is arguably the most controversial woman intellectual because of her collaboration with the Japanese colonial power during the Second World War.

Born in Inch’on in 1899, Kim attended a primary school, Yonghwa, which had been founded by a Methodist missionary, Margaret Bengal Jones, in 1892.25 When her family moved to Seoul in 1907, she entered Ewha, where her two older sisters were already in attendance. She was admitted on schol- arship by Lulu Frey, the school’s principal. After she fi nished high school in 1913, she wanted to pursue college education, but her father objected strongly, mainly because she was already “of marriageable age and going to school for fi ve more years was unthinkable” to him.26 However, with a “determination to prepare my self through education to serve my people and my nation” and with the support of her mother and missionary teach- ers such as Jeannette Walter and Alice Appenzeller, she pursued a college education at Ewha and went on to study overseas. She received a BA in1924 from Ohio Wesleyan University, an MA in 1925 from Boston University, and the PhD in 1931 from Columbia University.27 In 1939, she became the fi rst Korean president of Ewha (see fi gure 13). Given this background, it is impossible to separate the history of Ewha from that of Kim Hwal-lan. She was fostered by American missionaries throughout her education and career, culminating in her position at Ewha. Furthermore, since Ewha was one of the two institutions that offered college education to women until Korea’s independence in 1945, Ewha and Kim together symbolized modern education for women.28

Kim Hwal-lan also left a signifi cant mark on the Korean YWCA, the fi rst Christian women’s organization with nationwide networks crisscross-

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ing different denominations and that engaged not only in religious activi- ties but also in secular social and political movements, such as the women’s movement, the rural community movement, and the nationalist movement. Kim was one of the founding members of the Korean YWCA, along with Kim P’il-lye and Yu Kak-kyong.29 In 1922, Alice Appenzeller introduced her to Kim P’il-lye, who had been interested in organizing a Korean branch of the YWCA since she had fi rst been exposed to the organization during her study in Japan in 1908.30 Kim Hwal-lan accompanied Kim P’il-lye to Peking (Beijing) to attend the Student Christian Federation Conference to explore the establishment of a Korean affi liate of the World YWCA.31 Korea’s status as a Japanese colony complicated such an affi liation, but they were able to get support from their Japanese counterpart, which agreed to allow Korea to stand as an independent member.32 Kim followed up on this preliminary success at Peking when she attended the World Committee Meeting of the YWCA in Washington, D.C., to request formal affi liation. She described the diffi culties in convincing the YWCA to hear and accept her arguments for the establishment of a Korean branch of the YWCA, because “through all YWCA history, in no other country had the women of the land taken the entire initiative and responsibility for the beginning of their organization.” Despite the lack of any precedent, she was able to gain a “pioneer member- ship” awarded to the Korean YWCA,33 and its pioneer membership changed to the regular full membership in 1930.34 Kim Hwal-lan served as the presi- dent of the Korean YWCA intermittently from the mid-1920s to the late 1930s.35 As Ch’on Hwa-suk rightly points out in her study of the Korean YWCA, the establishment and development of that organization cannot be reduced to the role of a few prominent leaders. Rather, it represents the growing modern consciousness among Christian women and the ever- expanding grassroots organizations centering on mission schools and local churches. Nonetheless, as Ch’on also notes, its leadership was dominated by a few women, including Kim Hwal-lan, Kim P’il-lye, and Yu Kak-kyong, and these leaders came from either Ewha or Chongsin — the fl agship girls’ schools run by the Methodist and Presbyterian churches, respectively.36 In this vein, Kim Hwal-lan’s long-term leadership in the YWCA marks a key linkage between mission education and other Christian activities, between the local and the national, and between Korea and the world Christian community of women. Kim was exceptionally prepared to play this leader- ship role through her education at Ewha and her exposure to the world as a student at American institutions of higher education and participant in missionary meetings worldwide. In her autobiography, Grace Suffi cient, Kim Hwal-lan remembered the powerful inspiration she drew from fellow

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Christians she met at international mission conferences. She detailed the experience when she fi rst attended the Executive Committee Meeting of the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1923. She recalled how inspirational it was to see “hundreds of church- women come together to pray and work for their common objectives and responsibilities concerning missions in all parts of the world.” The poised leadership of the president of the committee strongly impressed young Kim, and she took the president as a constant source of inspiration.37

Throughout her career, Christian spirituality was the backbone that pro- vided her with support. When American missionaries were forced to leave Korea by the Japanese in 1940, Kim recalled that she felt overwhelmed with a “sense of loneliness and helplessness.” She had to face not only fi nancial problems without the subsidies from the missions but also increasing Japa- nese oppression. However, she said, she was “fully aware of the presence of Almighty God everywhere, ready to help, comfort, sustain, and continue to bless Ewha and all these who remained with her . . . During those dif- fi cult days courage and fortitude, wisdom and guidance were needed daily and hourly from above. We had all these blessings commensurable to our needs.” 38 Under increasing pressure to collaborate with Japan during the Second World War, Kim Hwal-lan offered her services to the colonial power in the form of public speeches to mobilize men and women for the war effort and actively engaged in pro-Japanese organizations.39 Along with other prominent women, such as Pahk Induk [Pak In-dok], Mo Yun-suk, and Ko Hwang-gyong, Kim Hwal-lan propagated the slogan naeson ilch’e (Japan and Korea are One Entity), a Japanese propaganda effort designed to eradi- cate Korean national identity.40 When her critics accused her of collabora- tion with the Japanese colonial power in the 1930s and 1940s, she justifi ed her action as being necessary in order to keep Ewha open under the harsh colonial policies. Her collaboration with the Japanese was in keeping with the Methodist Church’s general policy of minimizing confl ict with the colo- nial authorities. The Methodist mission had gone so far as to conform to the policy of sinsa ch’ambae (Homage to Shinto Shrines), taking it not as a religious act but a ritual imposed by the state.41 She further argued that even her public speeches supporting the Pacifi c War and the colonial government carried “unspoken words” that were understood by her students,42 and her sole purpose in collaborating with the colonial power was to protect Ewha.43 Whether her actions were an exigency to keep the school open or were the result of her own personal ambition, her collaboration stood out prominently due to her stature as a pioneer in women’s education, the fi rst PhD holder, the fi rst Korean president of Ewha, and a leader of the Korean YWCA.

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As one of the offi cially designated “Japanese collaborators,” Kim Hwal- lan is arguably the most controversial woman intellectual in twentieth- century Korea. Opinions about her legacy differ vastly depending on the political standpoints of the commentators. A huge controversy arose in 1998 when Ewha Womans University announced its plan to mark the 100th anniversary of Kim Hwal-lan’s birth by establishing the “Uwol Kim Hwal-lan Award,” 44 to be given to an exemplary woman or women’s organization.45 Public sentiment was overwhelmingly negative. Even Ewha students protested the award, criticizing Kim’s pro-Japanese speeches and activities that urged Korean men and women to volunteer to join the Pacifi c War to become true hwangguk sinmin (imperial subjects of Japan). However, the Korean feminist Kwon In-suk has argued that one needs to keep in mind the complex politics of memory and historiography when it comes to the place of women in national history. Kwon observes that there has been “disproportionate public attention” to Kim Hwal-lan and a few other women “collaborators” (6 in total) in comparison with male collabo- rators (708 in total), suggesting that such an imbalance in the treatment reveals “the gendered patriarchal character of current Korean nationalist discourse” and leaves “the simplifi ed impression that renowned women intellectuals in the decades ranging from the 1920s through the 1940s were collaborators.” 46 To be sure, the rare presence of women intellectuals in the colonial era makes them easy, fast, and frequent targets of criticism. But by the same token there have also been a few women intellectuals, such as Kim Maria, who have emerged as heroic fi gures for their anti-Japanese activi- ties. This binary framework in which individuals are either collaborators or freedom fi ghters completely ignores the inherent complexity in the lives of individual historical subjects. The lives of women, especially prominent ones, have been conveniently deployed either to praise their sacrifi ce for the nation or to demonize their self-ambition. The prevailing evaluation of Kim Hwal-lan refl ects this dichotomous approach and reminds us of the ongoing tensions between nationalist and feminist agendas.

While the debate over Kim Hwal-lan’s legacy needs to be further devel- oped, there is a clue that Kim’s collaboration might stem from her persis- tent interest in the advancement of women’s issues. When she attended the 1928 meeting of the International Missionary Council in Jerusalem as a Korean delegate, she gave a speech that reconfi rmed the critical role of Christainity in helping Korean women to fi nd their intrinsic value regardless of gender, class, or age. She further saw the discovery of the self endowed with equality by God as a platform for critiquing the male- dominant church organizations:

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When Christ taught the way of life to the Samaritan woman at the well, He withheld no privileges and made no conditions as to her right to bear witness to Him. The same was true of His attitude to men and women of all classes. But His life and teachings seemed to have been misrepresented since, perhaps unconsciously and in some cases with good intentions, and we find today certain conditions even in churches under Christ’s name that make the vision of Christ a little blurred to the less discerning eyes of youth. For example, while Christ has never forbidden any to bear witness for Him, in some churches of to-day women are not allowed to preach in pulpits, not because they are lacking in ability or in zeal, but just because they are women. I think Christ would pity us women, if we still are timid and hesitate about bearing witness to Him in all the walks of life, not only in domestic life, but also in the industrial, commercial, political and international life of humanity. I think He would say to us, “Women, have not I freed you? Why are you still so timid? Go forth courageously with my message into all the phrases of human life. They need you there, and there you have a distinct contribution to make at this stage of human society.” 47

Here Kim expressed a vision for Korean women that went beyond the private and embraced a public arena. Her expanded view of women’s ideal sphere was further crystallized by the impact of the Pacifi c War on Korean women. Like many intellectuals at the time, Kim publicly described the war as a “sacred war” led by “righteous Japan” in order to “rescue the Asian people from the invasion of the Anglo-Saxon race.” Focusing on new opportunities, she urged women to devote themselves fully to the war effort, which she believed would bestow upon them the “privilege and glory of imperial subjects.” 48 Although the situations differed greatly, there was an important parallel between Kim’s public justifi cation of the war and the participation in the war effort by Japanese women’s groups. That is, collaborating with the (colonial) state was understood as a way to broaden the scope of women’s work and infl uence. Sheldon Garon argues that many Japanese women activists used the war “as an opportunity to elevate the position of Japanese women within the state” and the state recognized “their value in promoting economic development, social stabil- ity, and wartime mobilization.” Furthermore, Japanese women’s groups that “embraced the modern state’s ideology of separate spheres for men and women (the ‘good wife and wise mother’)” were more successful in advancing their agendas than those feminist women who challenged the state and demanded political rights.49 In this vein, while Kim’s advocacy is typically understood as the work of a colonial puppet, it can also be understood as a historical intervention, one that privileged the expan-

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sion of women’s spheres of infl uence while downplaying Korean national identity. Better yet, her speeches and actions in support of Japan could be understood as falling in the interstices between outright collaboration and feminist advocacy. Kim Hwal-lan’s life and work refl ect the volatile public history of Korean women in the face of continuing patriarchal gender norms, an increasingly oppressive Japanese colonial authority, and demands for allegiance to the Korean nation. The prevailing interpretation of her life has been highly nationalistic in its orientation. However, a more nuanced approach is needed that pays attention to the full complexity and ambiguity embedded in her political, cultural, and individual choices.

The case of Kim Hwal-lan adds one more dimension to this ongoing debate: the role of religion, specifi cally Christianity. Kim was perhaps the best-known protégé of American missionary teachers at Ewha, who had groomed her to become a leading woman educator. She received advanced degrees from American universities with missionary sponsorship, pioneered in founding Christian women’s organizations, and represented Korean womanhood on the world Christian stage. In a signifi cant way, she acquired intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the big organizations through a close working relationship with missionaries and national leaders. She learned a great deal from her Methodist missionary colleagues about how to deal with the precarious relationship between religion and politics. To protect churches and evangelical work, missionaries took pains to comply with the policy of worship at Japanese Shinto shrines. In a similar fashion, in order to protect Ewha she bowed to pressure from the Japanese colonial authorities to mobilize Korean men and women for the war. To her, pro- tecting Ewha might have meant more than simply preserving a women’s college. Ewha was a critical platform for the expansion of the scope of women’s lives and work, and Christianity was a major enabling agent in it. As Kwok Pui-Lan argues in the case of Chinese women, “Christianity offered women new symbolic resources with which to look at the world and themselves, helping them to affi rm their sense of worth and dignity.” 50 Similarly, Kim understood that Christianity inspired women to fi nd their own intrinsic value and individual dignity that had been ignored. Thus, her primary mandate was to proliferate Christian education for women as a way to ensure the advancement of women’s status and rights. One may argue that Kim Hwal-lan’s complete devotion to and trust in God was part of her strategy for both coping with the turbulent political situation and bringing a new womanhood to realization within that context. Given the historical and symbolic statue of Ewha and the impact of Christianity in the history of women, Kim’s vision and her critical choices for Christian

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education for women in these most trying times reveal the profound ten- sions between the expected role of women in nationhood and the presumed role of nationhood in the advancement of womanhood.

“Korea’s Joan of Arc”: Kim Maria

In ways different from Kim Hwal-lan, the life of Kim Maria (1892 – 1944), another prominent Christian woman leader, sheds light on how Chris- tianity, nationalism, and feminism intersected. Although Chris tianity was central to both women’s lives, they differed signifi cantly in their visions for Korean women and for the nation. Whereas Kim Hwal-lan has been singled out as an imperialist collaborator, Kim Maria has been hailed as a patriotic independence fi ghter. While Kim Hwal-lan gave highest priority to women’s education and spiritual devotion, Kim Maria regarded Korean national independence as the ultimate goal. In her article on women’s education published in the magazine Yojagye, Kim Maria wrote that the “characteristic of modern civilization is said to be ‘liberation.’ Political lib- eration, occupational liberation, abolition of slavery, academic freedom and liberation of women; these are the spirit of the civilization today. Human beings are not human beings just because they are born as human beings. They become human beings only after they develop the full capacity of their body and mind. We need to teach Korean women so that they are appropriate and useful to Korean society and can devote themselves to Korea.” 51 The “liberation” she emphasized was both national and individ- ual, and her life illustrates her attempt to weave the two together. For her devotion to national liberation, she was called “Korea’s Joan of Arc” among Korean students studying in the United States,52 and a popular magazine, Samch’olli, referred to her as an “immortal sovereign of the stars.” 53

Kim Maria was born in Sorae. Her family included pioneering Christian leaders. One of her aunts was Kim P’il-lye, mentioned earlier as one of the founders of the Korean YWCA, and some other relatives were actively engaged in independence movements. Her family also had close ties with Canadian and American missionaries such as William McKenzie, Horace Underwood, and Oliver Avison, as well as Christian Korean leaders such as An Ch’ang-ho and Kim Kyu-sik. Like her aunt and sister, she attended Chongsin Girls’ School (Presbyterian) and later taught there. While teach- ing at Chongsin, Kim was encouraged by the principal of Chongsin, Margo Lewis, to continue her education in Japan. Lewis, who came to Korea in 1910 and served the Presbyterian mission until 1940, became a strong advocate for Kim Maria fi nancially and morally throughout her life. Both remained unmarried for life, devoting themselves completely to their

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respective passions: the mission for Margo Lewis, and national indepen- dence and Christian education for Kim Maria. Despite their close relation- ship and mutual respect, they sometimes experienced tension especially around political matters. For example, when a rumor spread in early 1919 that King Kojong was poisoned by the Japanese, students at Chongsin put black ribbons in their hair as an expression of anger and despair. The mis- sionary teachers were afraid of retaliation from the Japanese authorities and tried to ban the black ribbons. Those students who defi ed the school policy were ordered on probation. Outraged students went on strike — the fi rst strike in the history of Chongsin. Lewis sought help from Kim, who was in Japan studying at Tokyo Women’s College at the time. At Lewis’s urg- ing, Kim returned to Korea. But Kim disagreed with Lewis on the school policy, and upon her return she threw herself into organizing anti-Japanese women’s organizations together with Na Hye-sok, Pahk Induk, Hwang Esther, and others. These leaders were arrested for their role in organiz- ing the anti-Japanese demonstrations around the March First Movement in 1919. Kim Maria was released from prison in July 1919, and when she returned to Chongsin, the vice principal, Lillian Dean, invited her to stay at her house. Soon the house became a key site for the independence move- ment.54 Kim was arrested again in November for independence-related activities, along with other key members of the Taehanminguk aeguk puin- hoe (Korean Association of Patriotic Women). Kim was severely tortured, her body and mind devastated.55 In May 1920 she was released from prison in order to receive medical treatment. While undergoing treatment she began to contemplate exile for good. She eventually managed to escape, going to Shanghai in disguise in June 1921. However, she soon discovered the factional strife within the Korean Provisional Government located in Shanghai.56 Disappointed, she went to the United States in 1923 and enrolled at Park University in 1924 with a recommendation from George Shannon McCune, who wrote that she was the most ideal Christian among her fellow Koreans and that no one was better known.57 After graduating from Park, Kim went to the University of Chicago and Teachers College, Columbia University, for advanced degrees. There were only a small num- ber of Korean women studying in the United States at the time, and in 1928 Kim founded another women’s group, Kunhwahoe (Association of Sharon Rose), to promote patriotism and solidarity among Korean students.58

When Kim fi nally returned to Korea in 1932, the Korean media wel- comed her with high praise for her patriotism, courage, and determination. Yi Kwang-su, a prominent writer and intellectual, wrote a poem in her honor in which he encouraged her to devote her youth, love, and life to the

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future of Korea.59 Kim was still under intensive surveillance by the Japanese police, so her public activities were greatly constrained. She was appointed as a professor at Marta Wilson Women’s Theological Seminary, founded by a Canadian woman missionary, Louise H. McCully. She devoted her time to training future women leaders in Chrsitian communities as well as engaging in the revitalization of rural communities. She also became vocal about gender discrimination within the Christian community, citing and reinterpreting the Bible.60 And she remained uncompromising around the policy of Homage to Shinto Shrines. Her resistance ultimately affected Martha Wilson Theological Seminary, which was forced to close in 1943. After its closure, Kim Maria had a stroke from which she never recovered. She died in 1944, one year before Korea’s liberation from Japan.

“Korea’s Nora Has Left a Doll’s House”: Pahk Induk

The life of Pahk Induk (1896 – 1980) succinctly captures the turbulent transi- tion from old to new womanhood in Korea, and the tensions between Chris- tian ethics and secular modern desires. Born in Chinnamp’o and educated at mission schools through college, Pahk was one of the most prized students among missionary teachers. She had an exceptional reputation during her days at Ewha, known for being “well-spoken, fl uent in English, talented in music, and exceptionally beautiful.” 61 She was particularly good at public speaking, which eventually led to contracts for numerous speaking engage- ments in Christian missions overseas. Her academic excellence, exceptional speaking skills, and religious devotion prompted Alice Appenzeller, the prin- cipal of Ewha (1922 – 39), to consider sending Pahk to the General Conference of Methodist Churches in America as a representative for the Methodist mission in Korea. It was eventually decided that Pahk was too young to be a delegate, but Appenzeller thought that Pahk should go to the United States as a student. A month later, Appenzeller informed Pahk that she had been granted a full scholarship to Ohio Wesleyan Uni versity. This exceptional opportunity arose while Pahk was being pursued by a wealthy Korean man, Kim Un-ho. Pahk wrote that her “emotions were stirred” for the fi rst time in her life. Throughout her school life, she had looked up to her missionary teachers as her models. Her teachers had been, for the most part, unmar- ried professional women who had given full dedication to their mission, so she had rarely given much thought to marriage. Indeed, “the right of a girl to remain unmarried” was being gradually recognized at the time, and the Christian educator Ch’oe P’il-lye even called it “the greatest freedom of all.” 62 Further, Pahk “loathed the Confucian scheme of using girls primarily as instruments for continuing the family.” However, the attraction she felt

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for Kim Un-ho was “beyond her analytical thinking,” and she found herself hopelessly drawn to him. The problem was that he was a divorced man. She recalled, “although it was legally right to marry this man whom I loved, the Church was greatly opposed to marriage to a divorced person and almost if not completely ostracized members who so married.” 63 Torn between her feelings for Kim and her loyalty to the Church, she ultimately chose to accept his marriage proposal and turned down the scholarship. Her decision greatly disappointed many people. Alice Appenzeller, in particular, “was heartbroken with disappointment” at her decision and said to her, “Induk, you are very unwise; you don’t know what you are doing. This emotion will pass. Go to America and study for a couple of years and then if you still want to marry this man on your return, how beautiful your marriage will be.” 64 Despite all the opposition from her loved ones, Pahk married Kim. She recalled that her “quiet wedding,” which took place with only a few close friends present, “seemed more like a funeral.” 65

A rude awakening hit her shortly after her marriage, which came to be fi lled with betrayal, deception, and poverty as her husband squandered his wealth. While working as a teacher at Paehwa Girls’ School, she confi ded with Mrs. Anna Chaffi n, principal of the Women’s Bible School, that she wanted to pursue further study in the United States and asked Chaffi n if she could help her fi nd a scholarship. To her great disappointment, Chaffi n discouraged her plan, reminding her that her two children would be a great handicap. However, Pahk’s missionary colleague Rubie Lee at Paehwa volunteered to look for possible scholarships for her and eventu- ally secured one for her to study at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. Pahk saw this new chance to study in the United States as “a springboard upon which I would catapult into new life.” 66 Indeed, it turned out to be exactly that. She began her study in the United States as a junior in 1926, taking courses in the Bible, philosophy, psychology, English literature, sociology, music, and physical education. She further developed her tal- ent for public speaking through increasingly frequent invitations to give talks. One of the most important speaking opportunities came when she attended the Quadrennial Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions in Detroit from December 28, 1927, to January 1, 1928. She was invited by the organization’s general secretary to speak for fi fteen minutes on the topic, “What Jesus Christ Has Meant to Me.” In the speech, she told the audience that “[a]ccording to my thinking, of all the discoveries made in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the discovery of womanhood in Korea, as representative of all Asia, was the greatest of all. This discovery was due to Christianity by means of which my mother

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had been privileged to embark on a new way of life and through her I in turn benefi ted.” 67

The enthusiastic reception for her speech resulted in innumerable re- quests that Pahk be given the opportunity to travel and speak to college students. The Student Volunteer Movement Organization subsequently appointed her as a traveling secretary for the organization during the year 1928 – 29. She became “the only secretary of foreign birth at that time and also the fi rst Oriental secretary.” 68 She traveled widely, speaking at more than three hundred colleges. In 1929, she was also invited to speak at the six- tieth anniversary convention of the Women’s Foreign Mis sionary Society of the Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio. Most of her American teachers at Ewha belonged to the WFMS, and she had fully understood the signifi cance of that organization in the work of women missionaries. She had come full circle, from a child educated by American women missionaries to a traveling secretary speaking to the members of WFMS. She expressed her gratitude to her missionary teachers, saying “Had it not been for these women, where would I be today?” 69 By the time she completed her appointment as travel- ing secretary, she also acquired an MA from Columbia University. On her way back to Korea, she decided to travel in Europe, where she was given opportunities to speak to students. Starting out in London, she eventually traveled to Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey, Soviet Union, Beirut, Jerusalem, Egypt, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China. Pahk originally intended to stay in the United States only for two years to pursue her BA, but various opportunities made her postpone her return to Korea. In the end, the almost six years that she spent studying and traveling provided her with unique and unusual opportunities to see the world and people from all walks of life. She felt that “probably I was the fi rst Korean woman in history to have a chance to know intellectual America as widely and intimately as had been my opportunity, and surely few Korean women had ever had an opportunity to encompass the globe with so many thought- ful friends in every country to interpret contemporary life. What could I now do with my understanding?”

Pahk was elated by the dream of contributing to women’s development in Korea. When she returned to Korea, in an interview with Sin yosong she told the reporter that “above all, my plan is to become a friend to ten million women.” Described as cheerful, kind, and fashionable like an “American lady,” she also expressed her views on the status of women in other countries. She noted that she was most deeply impressed by Indian women, who were “gentle, contemplative, and good at organiza- tion,” by German women who were “the strongest,” and by American

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and English women who excelled in their social roles. Most of all, she was convinced that “If we want to work, we should establish good relation- ships with American women because that’s the way we can accomplish things quickly . . . I think American women are the most progressive and advanced. The next group is Chinese women, who are intelligent and cau- tious.” 70 With her overseas degrees, multiple talents, and prominent social profi le, Pahk was positioned and expected to make a signifi cant impact on the women’s world as well as the Christian community.

While energized by the dream to contribute to society, she was agonized by the precarious state of her marriage. Her husband was irresponsible and was rumored to have taken a concubine while she was studying in the United States. Ultimately, she decided to end the turbulent marriage. She recalled that she knew very well that the Christian teachers and fellows would not approve of her divorce and she “would have no infl uence in edu- cated circles; no prestige; indeed, probably no entrée. I would even seem to refl ect discredit upon America.” 71 Nonetheless, she saw contradictions between what she called “the Christian way of life” and her husband’s life of infi delity, irresponsibility, and abuse of power. She said, “unless ills were cured they would go on hurting. I would rather have an arm amputated and live than to die because it was diseased . . . Being bound by age-old concepts and traditions was the worst burden of all. I had learned that the most pre- cious thing in the world is freedom to do what one believes is right and now I must choose between the Korean custom of remaining with my husband ‘no matter what,’ or starting out on an independent way of life.” 72 In the end, she asked for the divorce, “becoming the fi rst woman to divorce her husband for infi delity under new laws introduced by the colonial authorities.” 73

As she expected, harsh criticism followed, both in private and in public. The divorce became a public scandal and even might have triggered public concern about the ever-increasing divorce rate. According to a report in 1931, Seoul recorded the highest number of divorces compared to cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, P’yongyang, and Taegu.74 Pahk’s case provided her critics with the opportunity to challenge the women’s movement and in so doing to reinforce certain patriarchal gender roles. One article published in Sin yosong began by acknowledging Pahk’s infl uential role in Korean society in order then to chide her for her divorce, which the author viewed as selfi sh and a refl ection of her misunderstanding of feminism. To this author, Pahk should not have gone against Korean custom; should not leave simply because a husband is sick, poor, or jobless; should have con- sidered her most sacred maternal duty to her two daughters; and should have been willing to support her family if she truly were a pioneer in

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the women’s rights movement. The article further scolded Pahk for vanity and hypocrisy in claiming that the divorce was a form of sacrifi ce for the younger generation of women by setting a model for the future.75

Another article, which appeared two years after her divorce, offers a more sympathetic view. The title of the article was “Pahk Induk, Korea’s Nora, Has Left a Doll’s House.” 76 Noting the worldwide impact of the iconic fi gure of Nora in Henrik Ibsen’s play A Doll’s House, the article lays out competing views on Nora’s choice to leave her family in order to fi nd herself as a human being. Although there are people who accuse Nora of “heartlessness” in giving up her children for the sake of her own freedom and independence, the article looks for a deeper, more sympa- thetic understanding of her choice. Pahk, as a Korean Nora, is portrayed as the New Woman who had to “escape the oppression of her husband in order to become a human being before she could really fi ll her role as wife and mother.” 77 The impact of Ibsen’s Nora was immeasurable on the newly emerging class of women in East Asia. The story was trans- lated, widely distributed, and performed in theaters.78 Leading feminists admired Nora’s awakening from patriarchal bondage and her courage to lead an independent life as her own individual. Nora was indeed “an ideal of new power and a symbol of revolution” to Korean new women.79 Pahk’s divorce thus could embody Nora’s search for new selfhood in the face of the centuries-old notions of namjon yobi (men honored, women despised) and yop’il chongbu (women ought to follow men). However, she also had to face numerous accusations that her decision was egoistic, callous, and even immoral.

The largely callous response of both the media and her close associates, including family members, led Pahk to withdraw from public view for a while. She landed a few small jobs related to church work and expanded her work to focus on education for women and children in rural com- munities through a peripatetic school. Her interest in rural education began when she visited Denmark on her way back to Korea in 1931 and was impressed by the power of rural development. And by the early 1930s, the revitalization of rural communities had become a central project in the educated classes as part of their efforts in social, economic, and cultural reform.80 Students from mission schools often opened Bible classes in their own communities,81 and night schools for the rural population became common. In an article in The Korea Mission Field, Pahk described her motivation for starting such a school:

Having grown up in the country I know somewhat the life of a far- mer’s wife. She exists within the four walls of poverty, ignorance,

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disease and superstition. Above these is the roof of oppression by her husband. She toils under these circumstances all through her life from birth to death. It seems that it is her destiny, for there is no way of getting out of it. Many of our grandmothers went through such a life, and many women of to-day are going through practically the same routine . . . Because of my own experience in a country village in childhood I have been thinking very seriously how I could help our women to a better way than what they have, and ever since I had the knowledge of Jesus I was more anxious to teach them the way, the truth, and the life of Jesus.82

Echoing her American missionary teachers in their deploration of the misery and oppression of Korean women, Pahk pitied rural women and showed her intention to carry out what her missionary teachers had ini- tiated years ago. She laid out the goals of her peripatetic school: (1) to inculcate the living spirit of Jesus, (2) to advance culture, (3) to disseminate knowledge, (4) to encourage the formation of cooperative societies, and (5) to give guidance in cottage industries. To that end, she offered instruc- tion on Christianity and other subjects, including “hygiene and sanitation, baby care, emergency needs, raising chickens, pigs, cows, rabbits, and silk- worms, budgeting, dyeing, sewing etc. We teach them to read and write. Only ten out of every hundred women can read in these villages. Not only are these subjects eagerly studied but the women love to learn to sing and to play games.” 83

In 1935 Pahk was invited to speak at the Quadrennial Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement in Indianapolis and also at the Chain of Missionary Assemblies in Florida. These invitations meant a welcome opportunity to renew herself away from her now “miserable, lonely and disappointing” life after her divorce.84 In addition, unlike her earlier trip to the U.S. as a student, this time she felt she was “a kind of missionary to America,” sharing the stories of Korea and asking for the “brotherhood of mankind.” From December 1935 to September 1937 she made 642 speeches and covered 80,000 miles.85 She was very successful in raising funds for her rural development projects, especially for the purchase of livestock to help farmers. Those cows purchased were often named after donors. For example, “Betsy Moo” was named after Betsy (Mrs. Dwight L.) Moody with funds raised in Northfi eld, Massachusetts, and “Ox-Ford” was named to recognize the contributions by the Kappa Phi women of Miami Uni- versity in Oxford, Ohio. Other donations eventually were used to start the Training Center for Rural Leaders in Korea.86

When she came back to Korea in September 1937, the Sino-Japanese

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War had already broken out and Japan’s war efforts were on a rapid rise. Pahk established the Tokhwa yosuk (Tokhwa Institute) in 1941, which was designed to offer female graduates from high schools a year-long intensive course in homemaking. It quickly gained a reputation for producing gradu- ates who were “particularly good wives and daughters-in-law.” 87 While her school seemed apolitical and with a decided focus on women’s domestic education, Pahk’s pro-Japanese activities began more explicitly in her capac- ity as Tokhwa’s principal. Her school for future wives and mothers became a site for the fervent mobilization of women as Japan got deeper into the Pacifi c War. Pahk was in full support of the military training for female students because she believed that such training would promote coopera- tive spirit, orderly life, and sound body.88 Just as imperial Japan mobilized its own women in the metropolis, so it did the women of its colonies, with considerable collaboration from leaders among the colonized.89 Joining Kim Hwal-lan of Ewha and Yi Suk-jong of Songsin Girls’ School, Pahk actively promoted Japan’s war efforts and became one of the passionate supporters of its “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.” She articulated the role of women in bringing war victory to home, emphasizing effi cient and eco- nomic household management, scientifi c child-rearing, and active participa- tion in agricultural work. If necessary, she further argued, “women should be ready to devote their energy and work in factories that produce weapons and mines that excavate iron and coal. Further, even when explosives are raining down and swordfi ghts are everywhere, women should be brave in delivering arms to our soldiers. In the last instance, women should carry guns and fi ght at the battlefront. For this, women should prepare them- selves to be both psychologically and physically fi t. In other words, women should be prepared to shed blood, and when the time comes, they must shed blood.” 90 In this way, Pahk seamlessly extrapolated the “national” role and duty of Korean women as imperial subjects in order to contribute to a Japanese victory.

Her high regard for the United States could not but be deeply compro- mised by her pro-Japanese speeches and activities. One of her editorials, contributed to Tae tonga (Greater East Asia) in 1942, succinctly captures her strategic conversion. Praising the imperial navy’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and other Japanese victories against the British military, she wrote, “the shadow of the infl uence from the US and Britain will helplessly disap- pear, and the new aura of the new East Asia fi nally shines through like morning sunlight.” 91 Here she publicly demonstrated full allegiance to Japanese imperial expansion, deploying the discourse of Asian liberation from the West.92 However, she effectively discarded or abandoned her stra-

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tegic allegiance with Japan once Japan was defeated by the Allied Forces in 1945. In her commercially successful autobiography, September Monkey, published in 1954 by Harper & Brothers, Pahk appealed to American read- ers by describing the liberating power of Christianity brought by American missionaries in transforming the lives of her mother and herself. In the foreword, she wrote that her book had two goals. One was to “witness what can happen in a life when the power of God grips a heart, mind and soul. My mother was a village woman born in the days when the weighty tradi- tions and conventions accumulated throughout the centuries had become especially burdensome. Christianity acted as a lever and fulcrum to dis- lodge her from the stony soil of the past and to lift her above tragedy, fear and superstition. It also brought the living water which made the soil fertile again. And in this new soil I was rooted and nourished.” The other goal was to “express my gratitude to my friends who have contributed so much that is endearing and broadening and inspirational to my life on two continents. In my heart Koreans and Americans are all one family.” 93 In her praise for the positive impact of Christianity and Americans on her life, Pahk entirely omitted her collaborationist and anti-Western activities during the Pacifi c War; instead, she not merely distanced herself but made herself a victim of Japanese oppression: “[T]he suffering we were enduring was like birth pangs and the Allied Forces were like the midwives who would deliver us . . . God always opened other and greater doors when one was shut against us.” 94 In a signifi cant way, her connections with both the Japanese colonial power and American missionary teachers served as important catalysts for her to explore and expand opportunities in life. As she taught her students at Tokhwa, she knew “how to conform to the old customs and yet to be resilient, resourceful.” 95 Once her loyalty to the Japanese colonial power began to lose currency as it became clear that Japan was doomed to defeat, she wasted no time in reinventing herself as one of the benefi ciaries of the American missionary enterprise in Korea. Her autobiography, written in English, captured the imagination of the American readers. The Christian Science Monitor interviewed her after her autobiography became a com- mercial success. It described her as a woman who “discussed world problems with a comprehension born of experience, embracing not only the worlds of the East and West, but also, century-old traditions and the new ideas to which they are giving place. She has bridged during her lifetime, the gulf between the age-old customs which threatened to restrict her girlhood, and the modern status of Korean women.” 96

Christian women leaders such as Kim Hwal-lan, Kim Maria, and Pahk Induk were expected to play a central role in creating both a Christian

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Korea and a Christian new womanhood. This anticipation led to mission- ary-sponsored opportunities to study in the United States. As an author in the missionary journal Woman’s Work put it, “it would be diffi cult to over emphasize the opportunities and responsibilities of leadership which await the American-educated Oriental woman on her return to her country.” 97 To a signifi cant extent, they satisfi ed the expectation of their mission- ary teachers as many of them did largely devote their lives to Christian spirituality and its promotion. However, as the Kim Maria’s life shows, some tensions existed especially when it came to the matter of political engagement under Japanese colonial rule. Pahk Induk’s decisions to marry and divorce also caused signifi cant strain on the otherwise ideal relation- ship between the missionary teachers and their protégé. What these three women had in common is that they fi rmly held onto their Christian belief as a spiritual guide as they advocated women’s advancement in society. Yet they signifi cantly differed in their choices and strategies in coping with the colonial reality in their own pursuit of new womanhood.

Secula r Moder n in Pursu i t of Self hood

Of the leading New Women with a Christian background, Kim Won-ju and Na Hye-sok stand out because they rarely identifi ed themselves as Christian and almost exclusively focused on secular feminist agendas through their public writings and private lives. In a signifi cant way, no one is a better fi t than Kim and Na for the most popularized image of New Women in the 1920s print media. They were the symbol of educated, talented women. At the same time, they posed a serious threat to the sta- bility of gender morality and the family. They challenged the oppressive nature of Confucian gender ideology and the double-standard that had been applied to women and men. Their scandalous love affairs funda- mentally defi ed the ideal of chastity. They even questioned the sanctity of motherhood that had been the centerpiece of patriarchal social arrange- ments. Kim and Na led distinct lives, but their paths crossed at signifi cant junctures, and they forged an alliance in their lonesome struggle as public women intellectuals.

Sin yoja (New Women): Kim Won-ju (a.k.a. Kim Ir-yop)

Kim Won-ju (1896 – 1971) was born into a Christian family in South P’yongan. Her father was a pastor, so she grew up with Christian teachings. In an autobiographical essay she recalled that when she was eight years old, she was frightened to learn that those who did not believe in Christ would go

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to hell. Out of her desire to rescue those nonbelievers, she had already made plans to become a Bible woman and work in a distant island where she imagined cannibals lived.98 However, despite the strong infl uence of her Christian father and missionary teachers, Kim grew to doubt her faith. She wondered, for example, “if Christians called Buddha an idol, wouldn’t the sacred pictures of the Christian deity be idols as well? Would God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost — the Trinity — be just an empty surface?” Her pastor father could not help her reconcile her growing doubts about Christianity, and she ended up rejecting all the claims about heaven and hell she had accepted as a young girl.99 Her faith grew even weaker as she experienced a series of tragic events, including the deaths of several family members and the traumatic end to an engagement with a wealthy man. Her grow- ing skepticism might have been one of the reasons why she almost never mentioned her missionary teachers at Ewha in her writing. Nonetheless, one can still detect the infl uence of Christianity in her intellectual and personal life. Her writings, such as the short story “Kyesi” (Revelation) and an essay, “Tongsaeng ui chugum” (“My Sister’s Death”), prominently incorporate Christian rituals and devotions.100 Kim also expressed uneasy feelings about her disillusionment with Christianity given her close bond with her father, who she believed embodied the ideal of Christianity. In a memorial essay written after her father’s death, Kim expressed guilt that what she came to believe in as a feminist drew harsh criticism from society and, she worried, might have defamed her father’s name. By this time (the mid-1920s), Kim was already a well-known, outspoken feminist who advo- cated freedom, independence, and free love, and criticized the absurdity of the ideology of chastity, which had been imposed only on women. Kim Won-ju pursued love as the purpose of her life not just in rhetoric but in practice, and she had loving relationships with several men. Despite public criticism, she was determined to adhere to what she truly believed.

Kim Won-ju literally and symbolically started the New Women’s move- ment when she founded the magazine Sin yoja (New Women) in 1920. Its publication marks a historical turning point: prior to the 1920s, American missionaries and Korean male intellectuals dominated the public discourse on the woman question and institutional reforms for women. Missionary journals such as Korea Mission Field, Korean Repository, Gospel for All Lands, and Woman’s Missionary Friend were a crucial venue for present- ing women missionaries’ leadership in shaping a Korean new womanhood centered on religious piety and domesticity. Korean male intellectuals had taken the initiative in publishing earlier magazines, including Kajong chapchi (Home Journal, 1906), Yoja chinam (Guide for Women, 1908 – 9),

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Hak chi kwang (Light of Learning, 1914 – 30) and Yojagye (Women’s World, 1917 – 21), which served as an important platform for them to convey new gender norms. To be sure, a few Korean women were able to publish impor- tant writings in those journals that helped them begin to cultivate new ground for future feminist discourse. Most representatively, Na Hye-sok’s “Isang chok puin” (Ideal Woman), published at Hak chi kwang in 1914, presented a new woman’s voice that looked out to the world for its inspi- ration of an ideal new womanhood, while looking at the hypocrisy and tyranny of traditional gender relations.101 However, despite their connec- tion to several prominent women, these print media were primarily led by male intellectuals and often regarded the “woman question” as subsidiary to nationalist and modernist projects. Thus, Korean women’s magazines published before 1920 are largely in line with the spirit of the Patriotic Enlightenment movements.102

Sin yoja publicly opened the door for the discursive construction of a new gender ideology by women and for women in Korea.103 It was cre- ated through women’s own work, from its inception to its execution. Its articles focused on women’s inner voices and desires, as well as their con- cerns about social issues. Kim Won-ju cultivated a network of women by forming Ch’ongt’aphoe (the Bluestocking Society) with her colleagues, including Kim Hwal-lan, Pahk Induk, and Na Hye-sok, all of whom were contributors to Sin yoja.104 They held weekly meetings to discuss new ideas and literature and set the goals and directions of the magazine.105 In its fi rst issue, Kim Won-ju emphasized that she had made a conscious effort to “work with women’s hands only” and that “the entire staff is composed of women only.” 106 Its publisher and fi nancier was Mrs. Billings, the wife of a Methodist missionary, Bliss Billings, who was the vice presi- dent of Yonhui College (now Yonsei University).107 Kim further empha- sized that the magazine was for all women of Korea and would “welcome any pieces written by women,” regardless of their social standing.108 This “de-masculinized” endeavor, in Yu Chin-wol’s words, and the inclusive policy of inviting contributions from any and all women opened up new possibilities for women to voice publicly their inner desires and daily expe- riences in the face of oppressive family life, harsh treatment by men and in-laws, and the general denial of basic human rights for women.109 The major journal Korea Mission Field enthusiastically reported the founding of Sin yoja and even translated one of the editorials into English. Its report mentioned that two American writers “who have had a chance to know something of the magazine, have been delighted to fi nd such a high toned and progressive paper being carried on by women.” Further, it noted the

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magazine’s impressive sales — up to 2,000 copies per issue — assessing the new magazine as “the best gotten-up and most worth while of the three woman’s magazines which have appeared in Korea.” 110

In the preface to the fi rst issue, Kim Won-ju historicizes the emergence of the New Women as an inevitable global trend:

Reform! This is the outcry of humankind after moaning with pain in the midst of terrifying gunshots for five years [referring to the First World War]. Liberation! This is the outcry of women ourselves who were traditionally confined to the deep inside of the house for long. Excessive ambition and egoism broke the peace and brought mountains of death and oceans of blood. If this war was against the will of heaven and the right way of humankind, it is also against the humanity to force women, who are as capable as men are, to stay in the inner chambers, and to regard women as a weaker kind than men and treat women as if they were slaves . . . We have to reform our society. In order to reform the society we must first reform the family, which is the most basic and fundamental unit of society. In order to reform the family we have to liberate women, who are the masters of the house. We must liberate women first if we are interested in catching up and winning over others and transforming our entire social structure. We are not interested in seeking empty notions of equality or respect for women. Our magazine is only interested in contributing to the betterment of society.111

Kim begins by referring to the aftermath of the First World War and its subsequent impact on women globally. Her subsequent writings often mention “the infl uence of the world war,” “the trend of the world,” “rapid changes of the world destiny,” or “transitional period,” intending to place her agenda for New Women into the broader context of the times.112 Keenly aware of the global changes that began to transform gender discourse and practices most represented by New Women,113 Kim establishes a new dis- course with an urgency for gender reform as the inevitable path to a better society and a better world.

There are some hints that Sin yoja might have taken its earliest ideas from its Japanese counterpart, Seitö (Bluestocking). Not only did Kim Won-ju form an organization of the same name (Ch’ongt’aphoe in Korean), but the intellectual connection is evident in the two magazines’ goals. For example, both intended to be instrumental in identifying and introducing “female geniuses.” When Hiratsuka Raichö and Yasumochi Yoshiko drafted main goals for the Bluestocking Society of Japan, they wrote, “we hereby launch our society’s magazine, Seitö, which will be open to unknown women who share literary interests with us or who are willing to work for the same cause with us. We hope and also trust that Seitö will produce eminent joryü ten-

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sai (female geniuses) some time in the future.” 114 Some of the better-known literary feminists, such as Yosano Akiko and Okamoto Kanoko, emerged in the pages of Seitö, where they addressed the plight of women bound by the Japanese patriarchal marriage system.115 Similarly, in the second issue of Sin yoja, Kim Won-ju explicitly stated that “the magazine is to introduce some of the eminent works by the members of Ch’ongt’aphoe and simul- taneously to discover hidden geniuses.” 116 And indeed, through Sin yoja Kim Won-ju and contemporaries such as Na Hye-sok and Kim Myong-sun began to be recognized as leading writers and feminists. Although short lived, closing down after only a year due to fi nancial problems,117 Sin yoja literally and fi guratively initiated the phenomenon of the New Woman, and its core members and writers were instrumental in setting a new standard for the roles, duties, and rights of women.118

After the closure of Sin yoja, Kim continued to be active in her writing career, contributing key pieces on new womanhood. However, in 1928 she made a dramatic turn when she became interested in Buddhism. She began to socialize with the staff of the magazine Pulgyo (Buddhism). As she re- called, she was never interested in Buddhism and considered it a supersti- tion. But her frequent contact with the Buddhists in this group changed her views, and she eventually married a former monk.119 She recalled that “when I fi rst heard the teachings of Buddhism, I was so delighted that I even thought of becoming a nun. However, I also thought that unless I could overcome my sexual desire, it would be better to marry a man who is a sincere Buddhist and pursue a Buddhist way together. Once I reached this conclusion, I was able to marry a [former] monk.” 120 In the end, however, she did become a Buddhist nun in 1933 in order to pursue “unchanging truth.” Her departure from the secular world and embrace of celibacy drew public attention in view of her numerous love relationships and daring feminist statements.121 When a reporter asked for her thoughts about the women’s movement in 1934, she answered that the women’s movement “is nothing other than a temporary solution to an emergency. It cannot be a permanent truth.” 122 Even so, she continued to submit essays to magazines, but her later writings largely focused on Buddhist philosophy.

“Chastity Is a Taste”: Na Hye-sok

Born in Suwon, Na Hye-sok (1896 – 1948; see fi gure 14) came from an affl u- ent family that had a great interest in “Enlightenment” and women’s edu- cation. She attended Samil Girls’ School for elementary education, which was founded by Mary Scranton, and Chinmyong Girls’ High School, where she received the highest honor in her graduating class.123 She con-

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tinued her education in Japan, studying Western painting. It was during her stay in Japan that she received her fi rst signifi cant exposure to Japanese and Western feminist movements and came to engage in a progressive women’s movement that departed from Enlightenment-oriented gender discourse. At the core of that departure was the increasing emphasis on the self, a prime characteristic of modern identity. The discovery of selfhood entailed a number of changes in perspective. Na began to scrutinize the patriarchal constraints on women that had suppressed selfhood and glori- fi ed women’s role in the family as wife and mother. In both her writings and her life, she began to resist the prevailing notion of “wise mother, good wife” rooted in Confucian gender ethics [pudok], Japan’s Meiji gender ide- ology [ryösai kenbo],124 and American missionaries’ Victorian notions of domesticity. In so doing, she undermined the presumed “naturalness” of the selfl ess woman as a devoted wife and mother, laying new ground for modern womanhood.

In her fi rst essay, “Isang chok puin” (Ideal Woman), Na fi rst questions what would constitute an “ideal woman.” She uses exemplary female fi gures — both real and literary — from Western and Japanese societies, in- cluding Ibsen’s Nora, the Japanese feminists Hiratsuka Raichö and Akiko Yosano, and the American author Harriet Beecher Stowe, to challenge the existing gender ideology of the “good wife, wise mother.” She points out that while women are instructed to become good wives and wise moth- ers, there is no similar education for men to become “good husbands and wise fathers” [yangbu hyonbu].125 She interprets this disparity as a refl ec- tion of the patriarchal scheme to reduce women to the status of de facto slaves and to demand women’s conformity and meekness.126 Na’s critique of “wise mother, good wife” ideology points not only to uneven, gender- specifi c social expectations but also to women’s absence of individuality [kaesong] and selfhood. Na’s colleague Kim Won-ju echoed her critique and emphatically argued in Sin yoja that new women want to achieve “a complete self-realization,” declaring that “we, as new women, intend to break away from all customary habits, and create new rational morality that does not limit women on the basis of gender and offers freedom of equality, freedom of rights, freedom of duties, freedom of work and free- dom of pleasure so that women can pursue self development and realize the best life of their own.” 127

Na Hye-sok’s exceptional artistic ambition was challenged when she became pregnant.128 In her essay “Mo toen kamsanggi” (Refl ections on Be- coming a Mother),129 she refl ects upon the devastation she felt upon becom- ing pregnant, fearing the end of her artistic and literary career. Referring

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to Western and Japanese women including Akiko Yosano, who had many children and continued to be productive in her career as a writer, Na reports that she resisted the common idea that once a woman becomes a mother, her life is basically over.130 Nonetheless, her despair was acute, for she felt she was just beginning to understand “what art is, what life is, what Koreans should do, and what Korean women should do.” She “had a lot of work to do” 131 to achieve her life’s mission, and she worried that motherhood would derail her. She even contemplated suicide or abortion.132 Her essay vividly portrays the inordinate pain and suffering she experienced while giving birth. To her, “the child is a devil that takes away the fl esh of its mother.” The sleep deprivation that accompanies motherhood is a “cruel curse worse than God’s punishment of Eve for her taking of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.” 133 Questioning the essentialization of maternal instinct, she writes that “people often say that motherly love is already innate in the mother’s mind. But I do not think so.” 134 To her, motherly love is learned, not a natural gift given to all women.135

Her fi rm denial of “natural” and “sacred” motherly love drew scath- ing criticism from a male intellectual, pen-named Paekkyol. He argues that “women should know that pregnancy is a sacred task endowed to them, their value lies in their capacity to get pregnant, and pregnancy [and producing children] is one of the most important duties of women toward humankind.” 136 To him, Na’s denial of this sacred duty and unique capacity is a clear indication of how wrongly the so-called New Woman understands her place in the world. He acknowledges that it is important to overcome bad customs. Yet once that has been done, a woman needs to have good values to put in the place of those old values. In his view, New Women, represented by Na Hye-sok, have abandoned the old but offer no new values that would guide them to a better life.

In her response to Paekkyol, Na makes the piercing point that while his essay pretends to criticize her personally, it actually targets Korean women in general, and Korean New Women in particular. She detects a tone of “curse, criticism and cynicism” when he describes “pioneering New Women in Korea,” “those who consider themselves as New Women,” or “New Women calling for liberation.” Na suggests that her writing about her private emotional experience has triggered an evolving resentment, especially among male intellectuals, against New Women, who call for lib- eration, selfhood, and independence. When Na admits her forbidden feel- ings, denies the sacredness of motherhood, and instead longs for her own sacred site of selfhood, she directly challenges all notions of traditional womanhood. Children were conceived to be the only source of pride and

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satisfaction for many women in traditional society, but Na wants to fi nd such pride and happiness through her creative work.

Na’s fundamental transgression is her discovery of the self, in particu- lar, her ability and courage to put the self at the core of her own life. Her novella, Kyonghui (1918), brilliantly captures the birth of selfhood inspired by a feminist vision that questions the patriarchal order that determines the “proper” space for women in the domestic sphere.137 Na frankly scru- tinizes the bodily constraints caused by pregnancy and motherhood and recognizes that they could hinder women’s pursuit of self and creative work. Therefore, those keenly interested in self-realization might not be interested in marrying or getting pregnant. To male intellectuals, how- ever, this desire to prioritize her own dreams is selfi sh, decadent, and even dangerous to society. If motherhood is the foundation of the nation, then eschewing it in favor of individual ambition is a profound threat. When Na talks about the suffering and the inconvenience of motherhood, male intellectuals envision far-reaching, detrimental effects of such a viewpoint on the nation. The purpose of their criticism, as Na well understood, is to tame and discipline all independent and daring women through public humiliation and ridicule.

Na endured the criticism — after all, she was a mother. In addition, her status as the wife of a prominent political fi gure, Kim U-yong, who was a vice consul in Manchuria at the time, worked as a safety net to protect her from potential ostracism.138 The degree to which her marriage shielded her can be taken from the aftermath of her divorce.

Na divorced in 1930. Three years earlier, she had had an extramarital affair with Ch’oe Rin, a leader of Ch’ondogyo (Religion of the Heavenly Way) during a brief stay in Paris.139 In 1934, she published an article entitled “Ihon kobaekchang” (Confession about Divorce), addressed to her former husband.140 Filled with feelings of incredulity and devastation, her confession describes in detail how she and her husband ended up divorc- ing and how sincerely she had pleaded with him to reconsider and try to begin a new life. She had begged him to forgive her in order to protect their four children. She had suggested that if they lacked capacity to renew their trust, they should remember how Jesus sacrifi ced his life to save mil- lions of people.141 In order to save her marriage, she had even promised to become a hyonch’o yangmo (wise wife, good mother), the very ideal she had criticized earlier.142 In the end, all her pleas were in vain.

While admitting that she had made a mistake in having the affair, Na nonetheless portrayed herself as a pioneer who dared to challenge the contradictions and hypocrisy, especially in the idea of chastity, that were

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embedded in patriarchal oppression. She writes, “the mind of the Korean man is strange. They do not embrace the idea of chastity for men. But they demand chastity of their wives and all other women. Worse, they try to violate other women’s bodies. In the case of people in the West or in Tokyo, if they do not cherish the idea of chastity, they understand and respect the view of others who do not hold the idea of faithfulness.” To Na, such discriminatory sexual morality is itself an act of immorality and a sign unenlightenment. Contemplating the “level” of modernity among the intelligentsia, she writes:

I feel pity for the men of the educated class in Korea. They were pre- vented from participating in the political arena, men’s foremost stage of work. Their knowledge has no use. There is no critical mass who can understand various theories these educated men talk about. They try to fi nd an outlet in love, but they are constrained by the [old] family sys- tem and unintelligent wives. Therefore, they feel bitter and sour. They go to bars, drinking heavily and playing with entertainers . . .

I also feel pity for the women of the educated class, the so-called new women. They still spend their childhood and marriage within the feu- dal family system so that their lives are incredibly complex and chaotic. Half-baked knowledge does not help them strike the necessary balance between the old and the new, and it only provokes a depressing temper. They learn a philosophy of life in college and have the opportunity to observe family life in the West or Tokyo, don’t they? They have ideals and will as high as the sky, but their bodies and work are on earth, aren’t they? They marry based on sweet love, but husband and wife follow their own separate ways so that they do not fi nd any meaning in life. The wife only worries about what to prepare for dinner from morning to evening. They envy single women to the point where they have a nervous breakdown or completely reject marriage as an institu- tion. People often call women weak, but women are strong. Women may be small, but it is women who are truly powerful. Happiness depends on the ability to control everything. Women! Control your family, your husband, your children and the society. Then the ultimate victory will lie in women.143

Na’s narrative succinctly captures the feelings of powerlessness among colonized intellectuals. Frustrated and hampered by their lack of political infl uence and the failure of the masses to understand their high ideals, these new women and men were caught between the old and the new. Under these circumstances, Na emphasized that women needed to keep hope so they could create a truly ideal womanhood. Her writing, especially in the passage above, reveals a strong belief that women’s strength will

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enable them to overcome numerous social challenges and constraints. She uses her “mistake” and its devastating impact on her personal life not to discourage other women but to encourage them to continue to pursue their ideals. Na suggests that unlike European and American societies, Korean society is not prepared to embrace women as geniuses; indeed, budding genius is crushed. Na implies that her life was crushed by a harsh public and her own family. Nonetheless, she seems to believe that her “mistake” can be an important signpost for other women, and thus she feels her mis- sion has been fulfi lled. This sense that she was leaving a legacy for the women of the next generation through mistakes was eerily expressed in the earlier piece “Chapgam” (Miscellaneous Thoughts), published in Hak chi kwang in 1917. Using the analogy of a person in deep snow, she implies that pioneering women might make mistakes in their efforts to fi nd a path to their goal, but that even those mistakes — “getting lost, stepping on ice or falling into a hole” — guide others not to repeat the same mistakes.144

Five years after her divorce, she wrote a new essay, “Sin saeghwal e tulmyonso” (Beginning a New Life),145 in which she described her dream of going to the West, specifi cally Paris, to study. Na tells a friend, “I don’t like Choson, which knows my past, present and future. I don’t like Choson people.” In the face of unsympathetic treatment from family members and society in general, she longs for a different cultural environment that might give her another chance to revive herself. Paris, where she explored new artistic genres and had the affair that led to her divorce, represents the possibility for rebirth: “[I]t was Paris that killed me. It was also Paris that made me a woman.” 146 Touching on the temptation of Eve and Adam, Na portrays her brief romance with Ch’oe in Paris as a fatal incident in which she was tempted by “forbidden fruit.” Yet she believed that it was an inevitable process for her growth, one that helped her become a “woman” who had truly experienced emotional freedom and fantastic moments of intimacy. Her experience was like “a rose in the midst of a desolate road” when she stepped away from the safety of conventionality: “[T]he deeper the temptation is, the more profound and complex reality she can under- stand. More hardship might make her seem agonized in her outer appear- ance, but she is able to live with unfathomable emotional depth in her inner life.” 147 The price of her audacity was her comfort zone — family and social acceptance — but that same audacity also transformed her existential self.

Refl ecting on love and chastity, she writes:

Chastity is neither morality nor law. It is only a taste. Just as we eat rice when we want to eat rice, and we eat rice cake when we want to eat rice cake, chastity depends on our will and usage. We should

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Doing It for Her Self / 175

not be constrained . . . In order to keep chastity, we often suppress our natural desire, our irresistible passion and our point of view. How ironic is it? Therefore, our liberation begins with our liberation from chastity. I believe that we have to look to a reality where sexual anarchy makes some people want to keep chastity. In Paris, where sexual anarchy prevails, there are men and women who keep chastity. They do so after they have already experienced everything and return to the old fashioned ways. Like Parisians, we also need to experience everything and then choose whichever. That is a less dangerous and more proper way.148

Clearly infl uenced by Ellen Key’s writings on love and marriage,149 Na offers a radical view of sexual desire as natural and expansive; to her it is chastity that is unnatural. She goes so far as to say that chastity is “a taste,” a minor, transitory preoccupation. Such a perspective radically challenges the core of Choson-dynasty gender ideology, which instructed women to remain chaste even at the cost of their own lives. Na exposes the “virtuous woman” trope as a manmade construct to suppress and inhibit women’s natural desire, thus shattering centuries’ old norms.

After Na’s highly publicized divorce, she felt shunned in Korea. She could neither sell her paintings nor fi nd a job. Her fi nancial situation was utterly unstable. In the end, she never recovered from the social isolation, public ridicule, and the subsequent poverty. She died alone and essentially homeless in Seoul in 1948.

The women included in this chapter do not necessarily represent all of Korea’s New Women in their full diversity. However, they were undoubt- edly central fi gures in the print media and societal or religious organiza- tions in envisioning an ideal new womanhood. They were also actively engaged in the formation of gender discourse through their work in the burgeoning print media and in autobiographical writing. Further, their dramatically different life paths fundamentally challenge the homogenized image of New Women, shedding light on the diversity and complexity of the women who created a novel space for women on one hand while constantly negotiating the old customs and gender practices on the other. As many scholars argue, the New Women’s emphasis on “self” was discursively den- igrated by androcentric and nationalistic discourses that privileged nation, family, and men. The autonomous voices of women were mounting head- on challenges to a male-centered social order and the cultural practices that resulted from it, and for this they were denigrated throughout the 1920s as frivolous, selfi sh, and sexually promiscuous by male intellectuals and con-

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servative women alike.150 According to Sally Ledger, even this stereotypical image of the New Women could have allowed feminists a space in which they could discuss their radical views about women’s rights.151 In other words, while the male-dominant discourse meant to crush women’s voices, it may have unexpectedly helped women create a “reverse discourse” to promote feminist agendas. Na Hye-sok’s alleged mistake and the criticism it brought did offer her with the opportunity to assert her true ideal of modern womanhood. The heated debate in popular magazines and newspa- pers clearly refl ects this dynamic discursive space for a new womanhood in the making. Such public arguments and counter-arguments, with women intellectuals actively participating, paved the way for the shifting notions of what it means to be a woman, a signifi cant move away from collective identity in pursuit of an individual self.

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