1950년대 여성교양 담론 연구: 정충량의 ‘여성교양’ 개념을 중심으로

Abstract

After Korea’s liberation from the Japanese colonial rule in 1945, the concept of bildung in Korea was a metaphorical expression referring to human essential qualities required for a new social class and civil group. The fact that the woman’s bildung in the 1950s confined females as a class for enlightenment and limited their boundary within the family signifies an obvious existence of the order of ranks. On the other hand, the fact that there was criticism against male-oriented society or discussions on the value of changes female roles evidences a broken view about the existing patriarchal society. In this process, the woman’s bildung came to take on a critical significance as a symbolic expression for an important quality required for women to socialize themselves. Jeong Chung-nyang refused to limit the notion of woman’s bildung within the role of a mother or a wife. Woman’s bildung, a precondition for females to be equal to males, was an important element in realizing the mature rational identity for a democratic society. Jeong tried to illuminate the issue of feminism from the context of the sociological system, and yet his emphasis on the concept of nobility as a preposition for gender equality resulted in transforming the critical awareness on the social system into an individual issue, and obscuring the concent of the system and categorization of woman’s bildung. In her discussion of gender equality from the perspective of the female-versus-male structure, Jung Chung-nyang revealed a strong assimilation of female roles with those of the males. Criticizing female dependency, she insisted on equal social roles between females and males. Her emphasis on progressive feminity may be rendered independent and progressive, and yet her “male-assimilation” rather reiterated the fixed concept of gender-specific roles. As a consequence, the limited discussion on woman’s bildung served to fix females as an object of discipline and, and, viewing females as an object of enlightenment, revealed the order in ranks against males.