기혼 여성노동자의 육아 담론- 사타 이네코의 「담배 여공」을 중심으로 -

Abstract

This thesis looks at the married woman workers’ difficulties from prognancy to childbirth, and on to childcare issues as depicted in Ineko Sata’s Cigarette Factory Woman. In order to obtain the material for her work, Ineko Sata actually goes into a cigarette factory with a workers’ baby on her back and examines for herself the day-care facilities and learns how to use them. In view of this, she shows that in a Russian daycare center the infants’ health management, breast-feeding times, facilities, etc, are well furnished, but in a Japanese daycare center the environment can be likened to a “pigsty” where a baby might actually die, and the breast-feeding times are squeezed into the lunch period wich shows that the owners are interested only in exploiting the laborers. Meanwhile, as a Communist Party member and a proletarian author, Sata illustrates the hardships experienced by Osono, the fictitious wife of a Communist Party member who is arrested in the 3·15 Incident. When her husband Shoji is transferred to a prison, Osono no longer feels free even in her workplace. Osono herself is not Communist but with the arrest of Shoji keenly realizes her circumstances. In order to recognize herself as the wife of a Communist in her own body, she takes care of everything from birth to childcare. She soon becomes tired and sick and is bed-bound for two weeks but she soon has to go to work at the factory because of financial difficulties. Fortunately, Osono finds an open slot at the daycare center, and she puts her baby there and starts going to work. In addition, she has to send secret supplies to her husband in prison. Through such a portrayal of Osono’s life, Sata is shedding light on the double hardships of married woman workers juggling work and childcare, and also being the wife of a Communist Party member.