‘가족계획’ 담론과 여성 ‘몸’에 대한 인식 변화 ― 1950~60년대 '여원'을 중심으로 ―

Abstract

One of the “national projects” that have greatly influenced the lives and perceptions of Korean women since the 945 Liberation is the family planning project led by the May 16 military government in 1961. However, it was only in the mid-1950s that family planning discourse was discussed in relation to women's “bodies.” One of the key elements of family planning discourse in the mid-1950s was that womens’ bodies should be protected from reckless abortion by “Mom’s Health” and “Maternal and Child health.” It was raised in connection with the basic elements of ‘female right advocacy’. Family planning discourse has begun to form “new” perceptions not only of women's “bodies,” but also of the number of existing children, the family economy, views om children, childbirth and child rearing. As women's articles on women's bodies appeared, there was a movement to demand the realization of women's legal status by discussing the patriarchal family structure and consciousness and the revision of family law. However, in 1961, when the Park Chung-Hee administration adopted the family planning project as a national policy, the core content of the family planning project was the birth control and the control through birth control. The state actively intervened and controlled women’s bodies responsible for childbirth. The Park Chung Hee government looked at the increasing “population” as a barrier to economic development and carried out the family planning project. The population was identified as a deterrent to the “national modernization” through economic development. Therefore, women's bodies at this time were controlled by birth control and contraception rather than childbirth and rearing. During this period, the family planning project was carried out as a pan-national movement to control conception and birth. The most widely adopted methods of birth control were artificial abortion and abortion. As women's articles about women's bodies appeared, the patriarchal family structure and consciousness and the revision of family law were discussed and the actualization of women’s legal status was insisted and disclaimed. However, as the family-planning project proceeds in a state-led manner, it is linked to the improvement of the status of women in the family. It is attempted to overcome the ideology of preffering a son, which is judged to be an obstacle to population decline, even if it is not based on feminist perspective for the success of the project. It was to include women in the policy to achieve the goals of the policy, and to consider to change the structure of the large family system so that the family planning project could be “conveniently carried out.” However, this policy has obvious limitations. Family planning did not take place from the feminist point of view, and women’s status improvement and family structure were not discussed from that view, too.