여성 소외계층에 대한 담론 형성 양상 연구

Abstract

This study takes a closer look at the process of how the discourse on marginalized females was formed, based on what was reflected in Yeowon, the representative women's magazine in the 1950s and 1960s. This study seeks insight into the modernization project of the 1960s and how its social discourse penetrated people's daily lives. Yeowon targeted the limited group of the urban middle class as its main reader base. Against this backdrop, it was only natural that materials covered in this magazine were judged dichotomously, from the perspective of the urban middle class. Cities versus farming areas, the capital of Seoul versus rural areas, the educated versus the uneducated, housewives versus working women, Western values versus traditional values, these dichotomous sets of idea had antagonistic relations with each other, establishing themselves as the magazine's main discourses. With the coming of the 1960s, rapid industrialization and a more capitalistic economic system, Yeowon took the job of disciplining women, who emerged as major consumers, in line with the government policies under President Park Chung～hee. Ostensibly, Yeowon claimed to be promoting women's awareness of empowerment or independent awakening. This, however, was nothing but a strategy to conceal a mechanism that rather strengthens patriarchal ideologies. The hidden intention behind the magazine's discourses on marginalized females, house maids, female factory workers, conductresses and prostitutes was to make its female readers internalize the ideology that being a “wise mother and good wife,” who feels gratified with a “romantic love,” and steady, main builder of a “sweet home” is the happiest and most ideal life. Furthermore, the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee in its feature articles or in～depth reports on marginalized females symbolized the power relations formed in accordance with patriarchal social order. By publishing such articles repeatedly, ultimately Yeowon educated middle～class female readers to recognize their class status and become “wise mothers and good wife.”