"Traditional" Korean Women

I. Some issues regarding Korean women

A. The state of Korean studies

male histories and historians

restoring cultural pride and national heritage

the beginning of herstory

dominance of literary and social science studies

B. Korea and Christianity

colonialism, nationalism and Christianity

Christianity and the underdog

female missionaries and feminism in Asia

changes in Christian doctrines and practices?

C. The loooooooong-lived Yi dynasty, 1392-1910

history as justification

mysteries of the early Yi dynasty

indigenous practices

similarities with Japan

the Hideyoshi invasions

changes at the end of the 17^th century

triumph of Neo-Confucianism [Chu Hsi]

more Confucian than the Chinese?

D. The whole question of Japanese influence

Korean and Japanese views of each other

Korea as Japan's frontier

education and assimilation

collaboration and female higher education

II. Korean women before colonization

A. Women in the early Yi dynasty

classes or castes:

yangban: hereditary scholar-gentry

yangmin: commoners

landlords and rich peasants

merchants and artisans

illegitimate yangban children

emancipated chonmin

chonmin:

slaves and children of slaves

entertainers [including kisaeng]

shamans [mudang or mansin]

butchers, beggars and assorted others

equal inheritance practices

education and political, military, and cultural careers

marriage, divorce, and remarriage

uxorilocal and virilocal marriages

childlessness and absence of gender preferences

adoption: rare and by mutual consent

how important was lineage?

B. Women in the later Yi dynasty

strong control of Buddhist/Singyo institutions

limitations on the yangban caste/class

primogeniture, adoption, and boy preference

the cult of female chastity and seclusion

Confucianism and inner chamber matriarchs

household entrepreneurs

class and compliance

childlessness and adult adoption of men by men

minmyonuri: child brides

women outside the rules

slaves and poor yangmin

kisaeng, prostitutes, and mudang

women's medicine and the mudang

rule by in-laws and the Min family

C. Queen Min, the Japanese and the Russians

the opening of Korea, 1876

King Kojong and the dowager Queen Min

Chinese style harem with eunuchs?

greater female freedom of movement/contact

strong natal family ties

bureaucrats v. royal family

the Tonghaks, 1860s-1894

shamanism and class revolt

the Sino-Japanese War, 1894-1895

the tripartite [Russia, France, Germany] intervention

Queen Min and the Japanese reformers

Pan-Asianism and the 1894 reforms

King Kojong's revolt?

bureacratic intrigue?

Queen Min and the Russians

the assassination of Queen Min, 1895

D. The Russo-Japanese War [1904-1905] and the colonization of Korea, 1910

E. Korean women under Japanese colonialism

loss of names and culture

gain of schools and jobs

yangban women and the lure of Japan

mission schools and Ehwa university

the comfort women controversy

the women themselves

voluntary or involuntary?

who forced them?

who owns the controversy?