[연구논문]근대 초기 조선파견 여선교사의 페미니즘: 조선 '신여성'의 특수성 구명을 위한 기초 연구

[ARTICLES]Feminist Consciousness of American Women Missionaries in Early Modern Korea: for the further inquiry of the paricular characteristics of 'New women' in colonial Korea

How was the influence of the American women missionaries on the Korean women's lives in the early modernization period of Korea? Before answering to this question, we have to know what kind of women they were without any presumption of their monotonous identity as 'women imperialists.' This paper, as a feminist intervention between imperialism and nationalism, researched on the historical background of the emergence of the women missionaries in America, their social positions in the foreign missionaries' community in both America and Korea, and their socio-cultural specificity as christian women in the 19th-century America. In sum, there were feminist elements in their pursuit of 'women's work for women' in Korea despite of their apparent representation of the christian femininity of the time. Their unclaimed feminism could be positioned in between the 'maternal feminism' and 'modem feminism' emerged in the middle of and later part of the 19th century-America. This finding is important because the majority of the Korean 'new women' during the Japanese colonial period were from the christian women influenced by those women missionaries through their women's education movement, medical and social services.