Feminist Consciousness and Women's Education : The Case of Women’s Studies, Ewha Womans University

CHANG, Pilwha Ewha Womans University Press 2008 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.14 No.2

This article reviews the evolution of women's studies in Korea, focusing on the experience of Ewha Womans University. As part of larger study, its starting point is the late 19th century up to the beginnings of institutionalization of women’s studies in the middle of the 1970s. This review provides a case of how education for girls raised feminist consciousness and gave impetus to women’s movements and a series of social reforms.

Measures of Women’s Status and Gender Inequality in Asia : Issues and Challenges

Lee, Jae Kyung,Park, Hye Gyong Ewha Womans University Press 2011 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.17 No.2

Women in Asia are facing persistent constraints in achieving gender equality and empowerment, despite their progress in recent years. Although quantitative indicators measuring women’s status and gender inequality have been used worldwide and produced by various international organizations, they offer somewhat incomplete stories about the nature of socioeconomic disparities. Cross- national comparisons among East and South Asian countries have illustrated some of the similarities and differences among countries in Asia, which also show inconsistent or sometimes contradictory implications. These aspects raise methodological issues regarding the multifaceted and complex nature of women’s status and gender inequality. We propose alternative dimensions to make up for the drawbacks in current quantitative indicators. Violence against women illustrates women’s status in the private sphere and broader society in general. Further, the fact that women are more vulnerable to natural disasters than men should also be considered in assessing the damage from such events. Thus, given the aims of gender equality, national socio-institutional mechanisms for ensuring it need to be taken into account.

Women in Higher Education Management in Thailand

Luke, Carmen Ewha Womans University Press 1997 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.3 No.4

This paper reports on a case study of ten academic of ten academic women in senior management positions in the higher education sector in Thailand. The study investigates women's perceptions of 'glass ceiling' factors that impede women's career advancement. Issues addressed include: gendered management styles, family and childcare responsibilities, career plans and aspirations, married or single status, and age as a factor mediating women's career mobility. It is argued throughout that the western concept of glass ceiling cannot be taken as a universal explanation of women's career impediments. Rather, research on women's career tracks in higher education must take women's differences, their histories, and cultural locations into analytic account.

A Feminist View of Social Policy in Some East Asian Countries

Chang, Pilwha Ewha Womans University Press 1996 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.2 No.-

This paper aims to review some existing literature on social policy in East Asian societies. The concept of the social policy has been constructed in the context of the Western experience of capitalist industrialization over a century. Social policy issues are gaining increasing attention throughout the world as part of rethinking "development" in the move toward globalization. The objective of development raises the question of how women can participate in the process equally and benefit equally from its fruit. The concept of social policy is constructed on the assumption of a division of labor based on gender. The assumptions which also underlie the thinking about the relationship between 'development' and women are that women's position will be automatically improved as a result of development, that employing women exacerbates employment problems, and that support for women's nonmothering roles leads to destruction of the family. this dualistic thinking of "development vs. women" obliterates women's contribution to development and welfare in society and thus hinders the achievement of development. Specifically, the claim regarding support for mothering role is analyzed as a part of the broader issue of the feminist goal of achieving equality with difference. Even if we followed the conservative argument that support for women should be concentrated on their mothering role, we are confronted with a major task of structural reform of society if real support is to be given to women. The formation of modern nation states has taken a relatively short span of time in East Asian countries. The concepts of democracy, civil society, citizenship and the role of government are still in the process of being defined and modified. Still more importantly, women's place in this discourse needs further elaboration. The crucial parts of the relatively short history of modern nation states coincided with major crises. These countries have only just embarked on building social welfare provisions. Since social policy in these countries is at an embryonic stage and relevant research has just started, the review in this study remains a sketchy description on the state of the art in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan.

Woman’s identity : Imago dei

Kim, Jean Hee Ewha Womans University press 2005 Ewha journal of feminist theology Vol.3 No.-

Woman is deep water, they say. The ocean, the unfathomable abyss, the chaos. Or, woman is, in Paul Tillich's term, in the state of "dreaming innocence" without "ontological quality," whether it can be understood positively or negatively. Woman's identity is quite ambiguous and unsecure. French feminist Luce Irigaray argues that "woman, for her part, remains in unrealized potentiality-unrealized, at least, for/by herself." Thus, "ontological status makes her incomplete and uncompletable," and "she can never achieve the wholeness of her form." Her indication is significant for the discussion of woman's identity in feminist theology because providing the autonomous identity of woman constituted upon subjectivity is essential for feminist theology. The theological discourse based on woman's incomplete identity constrains woman into a crypt and circumscribes her within a fixed place in which woman has been devastated with her obligation. Recognizing the perversion of woman in a theological tradition is the first step in doing feminist theology. The various feminist theories developed during the last thirty years have criticized woman's oppression and inequality sociologically and culturally. These critiques are also effective in feminist theology. Many feminist theologians, especially those of the first generation, have adopted feminist theories and planted them in the theological field. They have criticized the secondary status of woman and even the demonization of woman in a theological tradition and Christian environment. Their endeavor has usually focused on socio-cultural criticism, as the feminist theories have been. The close-knit relationship between a society and theology, or religions, is not only the matter of feminist theology but of theology in general. However, as theology cannot be discussed only with sociological factors, feminist theology needs to expand its contents beyond sociological elements since its ground has already fertilized with socio-cultural criticism. It is necessary for feminist theology to consider inclusion of contemporary soil, which generates diverse issues with postmodernism and interdisciplinary communication, in its construction. The sprout of feminist theology requires to be grown further while embracing diversity, complexity, fluidity, and hybridity of the comtemporary thinking stream. In this context, I suggest three points particularly significant for doing feminist theology in Korea. First, feminist theology needs to create a unique voice reflecting Korean particularity. It means we better use the resources embedded in our own soil such as philosophy, religions, and culture. Second, it should be able to communicate with Western theology as well as with scholarship of other fields. When the first and second points meet together, feminist theology enables to constitute an interdisciplinary, interreligious, and intercultural theology. Third, engraving a subjective identity of woman in feminist theology is of the essence. It is for the construction of woman's subjective identity in theological discourse. Based on these points, I want to discuss woman's imago Dei that embraces the Taoist cosmology, process thought, scientific theories, postmodern feminism, and wisdom tradition. Weaving all these into woman's identity is for the construction of woman's imago Dei, which is dynamic, subjective, open, and enables woman to become an indefinite being beyond the traditional Christian image of woman.

Reconsidering China's Marriage Law Campaign : Toward a De-orientalized Feminist Perspective

Judd, Ellen R. Ewha Womans University Press 1998 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.4 No.2

The present article attempts to discuss issues raised in the debate around socialism and patriarchy in China, by drawing upon women's oral histories as narrated by rural women themselves during the late 1980s, when Western fieldwork in Chinese society again became possible. The life-story narratives called earlier accounts of the Marriage Law campaign into question. They do not necessarily negate the findings of those studies, but they do identify points of silence in them that lead to a reconsidered perspective. The focus here is on the central political initiative in modern china that specifically addressed women's oppression in familial structures of patriarchy and which has also been important in China, especially in incorporating women into the public labor force. The questions thus posed relate to whether the Chinese women's movement is progressing in the reform ear, as China embraces market forces and engages in dialogue with Western feminism? Or did the Chinese women's liberation movement of earlier years have accomplishments that are significant for the future? It is, thereafter argued that practices and voices of Chinese women, as of Third World women elsewhere, deserve the close attention of Western feminists who are in the process of confronting the same non-local forces in an era of close historical and intercultural relations.

Exploring the Recovery Process of Former Taiwanese Comfort Women through Drama Therapy

Hung, Su Chen Ewha Womans University Press 2010 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.16 No.2

During World War II, some women from Taiwan, herein referred to as “comfort women,” were forced to go to the battlefield, not to fight, but to be used as sex slaves for the pleasure of Japanese soldiers. These women endured sexual abuse, in addition to other forms of mistreatment and left survivors with serious lifelong physical and psychological traumas. This study utilizes the framework of drama therapy and a hermeneutical research approach to examine the effects of drama therapy on women who have endured psychological and emotional abuse. It briefly examines the historical background of the issue and the role of drama therapy. Although the comfort women were victims of sexual abuse in a special historical situation, the focus of this work is not the historical aspect. Rather, it attempts to explore the role of drama therapy in the process of recovery from trauma. In this connection, this work does not discuss details of the complicated historical and other issues arising from these women’s experiences. Instead, it focuses on the psychotherapeutic aspects of their treatment and recovery, especially during their old age. Essentially, drama therapy is employed to create space for respondents to express their feelings about their experiences. Its process entails three stages, namely, warm-up, self-dialogue with the “past self,” and a healing stage. Through these stages, respondents were able to grieve for themselves, accept the trauma through self-dialogue with their “past selves” and develop the ability to self-heal, a first step towards recovery.

Squaring the ('charmed') Circle : Normality and Happiness of Middle-aged Married Women in Hong Kong

HO, Petula Sik Ying Ewha Womans University Press 2008 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.14 No.2

This study explores how middle-aged married women in Hong Kong deal with their identity as "si-nai" and their life circumstances as they enter mid-life. The empirical data help elucidate the underlying assumptions of certain theorizations of heterosexuality, such as Gayle Rubin’s critique of sexuality in terms of ‘good sex’ and ‘bad sex.’ The benefit of a life cycle approach should be recognized, in order to appreciate the situations of middle-aged women, how they may be at a disadvantage due to age, gender and class background and how they feel threatened by younger women who may not be respectable wives and mothers but are in fact high in ‘market value.’ A multi-dimensional framework is called for in order to understand women’s lives, within which sexual values or practices that Rubin discusses are but one variable among a host of other dimensions such as gender, class, age, education, and culture.

The Rise of Women's Education in the United States and Korea : A Struggle for Educational and Occupational Equality

Rowe, Karen E.,Kim, Byong-Suh Ewha Womans University Press 1997 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.3 No.2

When, why, and how did women in the United States and Korea become educated? Although independent studies have documented the rise of education for women in each country, no analysis has yet compared how in these seemingly dissimilar cultures education became not an oddity for women but a modern necessity. Although the revolution in women's education resulted from and gave rise to profound ideological shifts in both countries, it took its roots as well in radical political and economic changes that accompanied industrialization. In the United States women's education began in the post-Revolutionary period(1780-1835) with the growth of public town schools and private seminaries devoted primarily to inculcating domestic ideals, morality, and civic virtue. Mary Lyon's founding of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 marked the advent of higher education for women, which then accelerated the push for other women's colleges, co-education, and the opening of teaching as a "feminized" profession during the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Excluded from formal education under the Yi Dynasty(1392-1910), Korean women were modestly educated in feminine morality and virtue based upon Confucian doctrines that strictly limited their roles to the domestic household. When Methodist missionary Mary Scranton founded Ewha Hakdang in 1886 for one student, it became Korea's first formal educational institution for women, subsequently offering the first college-level program in 1910, providing almost the exclusive access to higher education under Japanese colonial rule until 1945, and awarding 97% of its degrees between 1948 and 1985. Although deriving from fundamentally different backgrounds, Puritanism or evangelical Protestantism in the United States and the Confucian philosophy in Korea, the early rationales for women's education involved a similar blend of religious prescriptions, democratic and domestic imperatives, and eventually arguments for socioeconomic utility. But within the overt agendas articulated by educational leaders or prescribed by the state lay hidden the seeds of what would become the twentieth-century goals for women: the right to an education, the demand for equal education for women, the pursuit of independence and personal autonomy, and the push for economic security through occupational opportunity and mobility. How the women's movement has changed the destiny and mission of women's colleges, without denying the heritage that shaped these institutions from their founding, provides a textbook example of the shifts in women's education that have occurred over nearly 200 years in the United States and 100 years in Korea. This comparative analysis, therefore, begins by examining the historical and ideological roots of women's education, then focuses specifically on the rise of Mount Holyoke and of Ewha Womans University as the first women's colleges in the United States and Korea respectively. By examining career and employment patterns of women graduates, we begin to see how education altered women's lives and occupational choices and how women's aspirations have been met or frustrated by labor force trends, entrenched economic structures, and socio-cultural mores. Although differences surely emerge, what is more striking is the similarity in patterns of development and in the spirit of the pioneering women and men who opened the doors to education for women - doors to minds that can never be closed.

Politics of Meaning : Care Work and Migrant Women

HUH, Ra-Keum Ewha Womans University Press 2008 Asian Journal of Women's Studies(AJWS) Vol.14 No.3

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of discourses about Asian migrant women in the market for care work, with a focus on the meaning of ‘care’ and thereby explore the politics of meaning wherein feminism should intervene. A considerable number of Asian migrant women are engaged in care work that has been perceived as their traditional gender role. These women are socially marginal beings treated as unskilled foreign workers in the host countries. There is a close relation between their marginalization and society’s discourse that determines the value of their ‘care work.’ For this reason, it is necessary to identify what are the cultural and normative discourses that intervene in the social process of turning migrant women’s care work into a commodity and how discourses on care threaten their identity and self-esteem and marginalize their political and social positions. In this research I note that the point of the discourses lies in a series of conceptual pairs that dichotomize care into ‘a practice of love’ and ‘menial work.’ Initially, I set out to criticize the fact that the social value of migrant women’s care work is not properly assessed because it does not view the contributions they make in this context as labor in the market. I then go on to criticize the overall reality of women whose traditional work is not given due recognition. Lastly, along with feminist and other discourses that are concerned about care turning into paid work in the market, I examine the debates that develop the politics of meaning around the commodification of care. Further, I find arguments that the quality of care work would deteriorate when it is paid for, are actually groundless. This quest is a means of searching for a way for Asian migrant women to gain social recognition in a situation where their care market has expanded considerably.