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. Doing It for Her Self Sin yŏsŏng (New Women) in Korea

HYAEWEOL CHOI

in Gender and Mission Encounters in Korea: New Women, Old Ways

The phenomenon of the New Women (sin yosong) in the 1920s and 1930s marked a significant milestone showing Korea's progress to modernity that began in the late nineteenth century. The discourse on ... More

The phenomenon of the New Women (sin yosong) in the 1920s and 1930s marked a significant milestone showing Korea's progress to modernity that began in the late nineteenth century. The discourse on modern womanhood that had been dominated by male intellectuals began to be transformed by the first generation of educated women in print media and urban space, and the society and government were beginning to recognize women. The emergence of New Women in Korea was significantly aligned with a global trend. The term New Women was first introduced by Sarah Grand in the North American Review in 1894 and was effectively employed by English and American women who struggled “against the constraints of Victorian norms of femininity” in their pursuit of an alternative life. The New Women also became a powerful symbol of modernity, change, and future.Less

To See and Be Seen (1918–1927)

Jin Y. Park

in Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryop

Chapter 2 presents Kim Iryŏp’s activities as a new woman in comparison with two other new women, Na Hyesŏk and Kim Myŏngsun. The chapter also places the Korean New Women with the Japanese New Women ... More

Chapter 2 presents Kim Iryŏp’s activities as a new woman in comparison with two other new women, Na Hyesŏk and Kim Myŏngsun. The chapter also places the Korean New Women with the Japanese New Women and American New Women. One of the important themes for Iryŏp at this stage was her New Theory of Chastity.Less

Affiliation, Cultural Roles, and Women's Depression: Miller

Jennifer Radden

in The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva

This chapter presents an excerpt from Jean Baker Miller's Toward a New Psychology of Women, first published in 1976. The book was a key text for the feminist of the 1970s. It ushered in what has come ... More

This chapter presents an excerpt from Jean Baker Miller's Toward a New Psychology of Women, first published in 1976. The book was a key text for the feminist of the 1970s. It ushered in what has come to be distinguished as one of several separate strands of feminist thought, that which is sometimes called cultural feminism. Cultural feminism focuses on women's traits and seeks to acknowledge and value hitherto undervalued differences distinguishing women's psychology, responses, and capabilities from men's. The cultural feminist school is associated with the notion of relational individualism and with the work of later thinkers such as Carol Gilligan.Less

The New Woman and World History

Motoe Sasaki

in Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to trace the experiences of American New Women missionaries who went to China during the early twentieth century in order to uplift and ... More

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to trace the experiences of American New Women missionaries who went to China during the early twentieth century in order to uplift and modernize young Chinese women. By examining the transformations in the significance of American New Women missionaries' enterprises in China, it shows that views of historical progress on both sides of the Pacific were central to the formation and reformation of the subjectivities of New Women, American and Chinese alike. The book takes the position that the New Woman was also a source of agency tightly entangled with the competition for survival and the idea of historical progress in an age in which modernity was being adopted and incorporated in non-Western countries such as China. Consequently, the rationale for the existence of enterprises undertaken by American New Women missionaries and their relationship with Chinese New Women was contingent on the fluid relations and perceptions between the United States and China, which were shaped, negotiated, and contested within the paradigm of Hegelian variants of world history.Less

United States Internationalism and Chinese Modernity

Motoe Sasaki

in Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century

This chapter takes up the rising tide of internationalism in the United States during the 1910s and examines how a new generation of New Women, who entertained the international spirit buoyed by ... More

This chapter takes up the rising tide of internationalism in the United States during the 1910s and examines how a new generation of New Women, who entertained the international spirit buoyed by burgeoning Wilsonian liberal internationalism, perceived the United States' place in the world and their own role in China. Within U.S. borders, internationalism was first conceived as a way to consolidate its increasingly culturally diverse populace under the banner of universal democracy. It was in countries such as China that this notion of the universality of U.S. ideals and values was put to the test. In China, the new generation of internationally minded New Women missionaries found a pleasing reality—the existence of a favorable image of the United States—and became even more convinced of the validity of their internationalism. The favorable image of the United States also meant that American New Women missionaries could become desirable role models for Chinese women: at their institutions, Chinese xin nüxing students earnestly responded to the expectation of their teachers, and these young Chinese women evolved into genuine New Women in line with the principle put forth by American New Women missionaries.Less

Concetta Scaravaglione, Italian-American Sculptor

Carol Bonomo Jennngs and Christine Palamidessi Moore

in American Woman, Italian Style: Italian Americana's Best Writings on Women

Concetta Scaravaglione was a critically acclaimed American sculptor. Among the awards and grants she received were major commissions from the Federal Art Project in the 1930s, a grant from the ... More

Concetta Scaravaglione was a critically acclaimed American sculptor. Among the awards and grants she received were major commissions from the Federal Art Project in the 1930s, a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Prix de Rome award from the American Academy, the first such award to be given to a woman. During the early 1920s, Scaravaglione had a love affair with a fellow art student that ended badly. The disruption it caused to her art helped shape her lifelong conviction: she would never marry. Scaravaglione was elected to membership in the New York Society of Women Artists, a group of thirty painters and sculptors. Scaravaglione said, “To sculpture I am grateful for enjoyment and for an opportunity to be free and independent, to create to the extent of my capacities.”Less

Divergent Paths of Historical Progress

Motoe Sasaki

in Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, American New Women became more aware of the widening psychological gap between them and their Chinese counterparts. This chapter explores the transformation ... More

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, American New Women became more aware of the widening psychological gap between them and their Chinese counterparts. This chapter explores the transformation that occurred among these women regarding their understanding of historical progress, perceptions of their country, and ideas about their own role in China. It was also during this same period, one of national revolution, that the Great Depression exposed the failure of the capitalist economic system (strongly associated with the United States) to the entire world and triggered a change in American New Women missionaries' views toward the place their country occupied in the historical progress of the world. As a result, Chinese xin nüxing began turning their interest away from becoming like American New Women missionaries—urban middle-class professionals. Instead, they became increasingly sympathetic to the plight of the poor, especially those in the countryside, and to the idea of socialism.Less

Striving for the Ideal: Female Achievement and the Family Claim

Anya Jabour

in Sophonisba Breckinridge: Championing Women's Activism in Modern America

highlights the challenges faced by “New Women” like Breckinridge, who struggled to balance duty to family with a calling to service. For nearly ten years, Breckinridge searched for a meaningful ... More

highlights the challenges faced by “New Women” like Breckinridge, who struggled to balance duty to family with a calling to service. For nearly ten years, Breckinridge searched for a meaningful vocation while fulfilling her duty to her family. She taught school, practiced law, and traveled abroad, but she was unable to reconcile her professional goals with her family obligations. This chapter also addresses Breckinridge’s pursuit of higher education at the University of Chicago, where she earned both an MA in political science and a PhD in political economy and became the top-ranked member of the first graduating class of the University of Chicago’s new law school.Less

Between Light and Darkness (1896–1920)

Jin Y. Park

in Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iryop

Chapter 1 deals with Kim Iryŏp’s childhood and young adult life. Iryŏp was a daughter of a Christian pastor and his wife. She was raised as a faithful Christian, envisioning her future as a Christian ... More

Chapter 1 deals with Kim Iryŏp’s childhood and young adult life. Iryŏp was a daughter of a Christian pastor and his wife. She was raised as a faithful Christian, envisioning her future as a Christian missionary. During her teenage years, questions on Christian doctrines eventually led her to lose faith in Christianity. In the 1920s, she actively engaged with women’s movements in Korea, at the forefront of the group known as the New Women. She found society’s control of feminine sexuality in the name of virginity and chastity a visible form of gender discrimination in Korean society and demanded sexual freedom, as well as free love and free divorce. Behind this glitzy life as a public figure, her private life was marked by a series of death in her family that made Iryŏp felt the existential loneliness as the condition of her existence.Less

Sustaining Feminist Progressivism

Elisabeth Israels Perry

in After the Vote: Feminist Politics in La Guardia's New York

During the 1920s and 1930s, New York City’s civic women activists expended the most energy and passion over three campaigns: winning state acceptance of federal funds for improving the health of ... More

During the 1920s and 1930s, New York City’s civic women activists expended the most energy and passion over three campaigns: winning state acceptance of federal funds for improving the health of mothers and babies (the Sheppard-Towner Act), legalizing women’s jury service, and passing laws to protect women wage earners. Using the tactics and networks they had developed during the suffrage movement and working through both partisan and nonpartisan voluntary associations, they led other public policy campaigns, such as legalizing the dissemination of birth control information, repealing national prohibition, and modernizing state government. The stories of these campaigns demonstrate both the possibilities and limitations of New York City women’s efforts to sustain feminist progressive reform after enfranchisement.Less

The Women of the Administration

Elisabeth Israels Perry

in After the Vote: Feminist Politics in La Guardia's New York

Many of the city’s women civic and political activists supported La Guardia during his many electoral campaigns. The women he appointed to his administration brought into his government the feminist ... More

Many of the city’s women civic and political activists supported La Guardia during his many electoral campaigns. The women he appointed to his administration brought into his government the feminist and social justice ideals they had been espousing since the suffrage and progressive reform movements: an end to sex discrimination, an expansion of measures to benefit human welfare, and the achievement of pay equity and more career opportunities for women. They believed that they would carry out the mayor’s modernizing agendas as well as, if not better than, the men he had appointed as commissioners. This chapter highlights five women who made singular contributions to the success of the La Guardia administration: Rebecca Rankin, Eunice Hunton Carter, Jane Bolin, Elinore Herrick, and Anna Rosenberg.Less

Awash in the Storm of National Revolution

Motoe Sasaki

in Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century

This chapter explores the aftermath of the collapse of the Wilsonian moment and its uneven and gendered effects on American New Women missionaries' enterprises in the Nationalist Revolution period ... More

This chapter explores the aftermath of the collapse of the Wilsonian moment and its uneven and gendered effects on American New Women missionaries' enterprises in the Nationalist Revolution period (1924–27). It was at this time that the missionaries came to feel the power of the national revolution movement and found their projects were being reframed within new ideas and articulated in a new vocabulary that had become current in China. In taking such changes into account, they had to interpret and respond to new developments and ultimately reconsider their own perceptions of the United States and the very nature of their existence in China. Local Chinese resistance to their educational projects and institutions directed toward American New Women missionaries also brought into play gender differences and issues among the Chinese themselves and consequently made the difficulties facing the missionaries all the more complex and entrenched.Less

Scandal in the Courts

Elisabeth Israels Perry

in After the Vote: Feminist Politics in La Guardia's New York

In 1930, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized an investigation first into New York City’s lower court system and then into its entire government. The investigation, known by the name of its ... More

In 1930, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized an investigation first into New York City’s lower court system and then into its entire government. The investigation, known by the name of its head, retired judge Samuel Seabury, had a dramatic impact on the city’s politics and its powerful Democratic Party machine, Tammany Hall. Because the investigation began with an inquiry into the entrapment of women for alleged sex crimes and their subsequent treatment in the city’s women’s court, it attracted great interest from the city’s women civic activists. These women played significant roles in encouraging and later broadening the Seabury investigation and in making decisions about its consequences.Less

Imagining the Beloved: The New (Jewish) Woman

in Literary Passports: The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe

This chapter discusses the emergence of the “New Woman” in Jewish society and culture at the beginning of the twentieth century, and examines the ways in which women, especially the figures of ... More

This chapter discusses the emergence of the “New Woman” in Jewish society and culture at the beginning of the twentieth century, and examines the ways in which women, especially the figures of emancipated New Women, were depicted in modernist Hebrew fiction. One example is Yosif Chaim Brenner's first novel, Ba-choref, which shows the ways that the Jewish New Woman is presented through the lens of the male protagonists and narrators.Less

Frauenemancipation and Beyond: The Use of the Concept of Emancipation by Early European Feminists

Bonnie S. Anderson

in Women's Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation

This chapter examines how the terms “slavery” and “emancipation” resonated in the minds of women's rights advocates in France and Germany. Although France had direct association with African ... More

This chapter examines how the terms “slavery” and “emancipation” resonated in the minds of women's rights advocates in France and Germany. Although France had direct association with African enslavement and Germany had none, the meaning of slavery and emancipation grew complicated and ever more deeply contested in both nations when they became associated with overtones of “free love,” utopian socialism, and revolutionary class conflict. Although the denouement of radical feminism in France mirrored that in the German states, its origins differed. The chapter also looks at the creation of the world's first independent feminist movement known as the “New Women,” which formulated a new feminist vision of what society could become by applying the concepts of slavery and emancipation to existing structures and ideas.Less

Science as the Key to Modern Progress

Motoe Sasaki

in Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century

This chapter shows how the notion of modern science brought to China by American New Women missionaries in the form of medicine and nursing generated concrete responses from their Chinese ... More

This chapter shows how the notion of modern science brought to China by American New Women missionaries in the form of medicine and nursing generated concrete responses from their Chinese counterparts. The notion of science as a universally applicable and fundamentally egalitarian element for the development of a modern society and its constituents was increasingly influential in both the United States and China during the early twentieth century. Consequently, American New Women missionaries were able to establish their status as scientific professionals whose expertise could contribute to China's modernization process. At the same time, however, their faith in the new notion of science brought with it the idea of “separate but equal” gender roles, which brought them into conflict with many of their male counterparts from the United States who wanted to compete with other imperial powers to gain influence in China.Less

Lost in the Paradigm of World History

Motoe Sasaki

in Redemption and Revolution: American and Chinese New Women in the Early Twentieth Century

This chapter discusses the eventual repatriation of American New Women missionaries. After they returned to the United States, many of them felt lost in their own country. There was also a profound ... More

This chapter discusses the eventual repatriation of American New Women missionaries. After they returned to the United States, many of them felt lost in their own country. There was also a profound difference between the views of returning American New Women missionaries and the general American public about the United States' role in world history. The chapter also raises the important question of how and why the experiences of New Women in both the United States and China fell into oblivion in the post-World War II era. The erasure of their experiences from public memory suggests that the politics of world history has not relaxed its grip on shaping global relations in a unipolar, bipolar, or even multipolar world.Less