The ultimate purpose of this study is to find out the individuality of women. The identity of a human being is based on the difference in one's sexuality and therefore, the problem of women's individuality can be said that it is identical with the pro...
The ultimate purpose of this study is to find out the individuality of women. The identity of a human being is based on the difference in one's sexuality and therefore, the problem of women's individuality can be said that it is identical with the problem of sexual identity. Through their bodies, more exactly, through their sexualities, women constructs their self identity, and based on this, they obtain individuality as an independent human being. Until now, women only obtained their identity through men as their second identity. The women sex was in situation of shortage and absence, and the formation of independent and individual self identity of women were disturbed.
The purpose of feminism is in finding the women's individuality and self identity. To find out the individuality of women, the feminists took interest in the oppression that the women were experiencing. The term women oppression means that the women were forced to become mothers, were a sexual slave to men, and also that their bodies were being controled by men. To find the individuality of women, the feminists took interest in maternalism, which was an oppressive factor of patriarch system. This study also agrees to this opinion, so to find out the individuality of women, one must start from maternalism. Especially this is required in Korea, where the maternalistic traditions, based on the confucian ideology, is strong.
The patriarch system is an oppression mechanism which institutionalizes the women with maternalism. That is, maternalistic love or mythical maternalism was given as a system in the patriarch system. The patriarch ideology is being actualized through marriages, and the married women seeks the meaning of their lives, as they carry out the duties that are given within the boundaries of a private area called the home. Home provides the foundation for the patriarch ideology, which forms the oppressive factors against women caused by the difference of sex. In the maternal ideology, which defines the identity of women as mothers, strengthens the generally accepted idea that the place of women is in the home, and the duty of women in the home is to take care of the family members and to provide them with emotional stability. The ideological foundations for these beliefs, is endowing identity of women's duties in the home as a natural duty. Rich views that men were afraid of the fact that all lives came from women, so, to maintain the patriarch system, they tried to restrict the power of mothers. Because of the fear against women, in patriarch societies, the active maternal powers always had to be concealed and was fixed as a controled system.
During the past few decades, many women went into the job market to join the workforce, and because of the increasing numbers of family violence and divorce, the number of ideal homes, which were called the myth of families, are now decreasing. The myth of a family means, contrary to the uncertain, rough, and competitive public sector, the family is safe, soft and is without conflicts. Because of multiple factors, such as the dual socialization process, that is concluded from simultaneous performance of women, taking care of the housework and also participating in the economy at the same time, and the dismantlement of the traditional families, although mothers cannot always be devotional and sacrificial in the real world, these devotions and sacrifices becomes a myth under the name of mother. Only the role as a mother was allowed and the self-consciousness, self identity and the pursuit for desires as an individual women were set behind and the individuality as a women did not exist.
The home, which oppressed women as an avatar of maternity is collapsing. The purpose of this study is to find out how the women, who tried to find the meaning of their lives through maternity in the homes in the past, has changed according to the trend of family dismantlement, and the changed conditions of the families of the present time. This study has took attention to the change of the maternity according to the dismantlement of the families. From the myth of maternity to the denial and dissolution of maternity, this study is done to rediscover the positiveness of feminity as an individual human being.