In the early 20th century, the modernization discourse of the East Asia gained its universality and specialty by the keyword, ‘women.’ Being named as an indicator of civilization from the waves of Western civilization, ‘women’ suggest necessity to tak ...
In the early 20th century, the modernization discourse of the East Asia gained its universality and specialty by the keyword, ‘women.’ Being named as an indicator of civilization from the waves of Western civilization, ‘women’ suggest necessity to take a multi-layered look at the dominant voice leading the discourse and the surrounding voices that are derived from it. Considering that the modernization discourse is closely associated with the colonial discourse in the field of the Korean literature, we need to pay attention to the multi-layered discourses and texts in which such dynamics are played out.
The “new women,” an ideal indicator of modern civilization, is timely named in a variety of ways; however their position fluctuates unsteadily, operated under the gender rule which are granted by the era. However, their divisive voice from the process is rather significant as an opportunity to examine the multi-layered modernization discourse of the colonial Korea. Women’s magazines, which had been continuously published in this respect, require attention.
Whereas Female System (Yŏjagye) and New Women (Shinyŏja) were short-lived, despite establishing a public place of feminist discourse by female writers, New Women (Shinyŏsŏng) and Women (Yŏsŏng) continuously had produced feminist discourse financially and culturally supported by Kaebyŏk-sa and Chosŏn-ilbo. In particular, New Women led this new women’s discourse in the cultural discourse within the 1920s and 1930s, and Women, which was consistently published by the end of the 1930s, constituted an axis of gendered women’s discourse by the colonial power in this period.
New Women formed a discourse that encompassed the entire “new women” phenomenon, which was introduced as an indicator of modernization of the colonial Korea. In addition to expressing the expectation of the new women according to the age, and the gendered identity of the new women is granted in the category regulated by the masculine gaze, as the main writers of the magazines are male. Women aims to regulate the gendered identity of new women in its modern discourse within East Asia, which is an ideal index, while converging the existing discourse of the new women into the level of national utility in the disciplinary discourse of the colonial power. However, despite such a dominant discourse, introverted female voices have formed the layers of text and are not reduced to a discourse of masculine equality.
These elements can be understood as the self-technology that can be seen in the colonial/modern discourse. In this sense, the multi-layered discourses of New Women and Women are meaningful mechanism that can open up the horizon of literary interpretation even today.