3․1운동과 정치 주체로서의 ‘여성’

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the March 1st Movement from the perspective of gender history by examining how the identity of 'woman' as a political subject was constructed. Women who participated in the March movement were female students and teachers who subsequently emerged as the leaders of the movement, replacing the aristocratic women who previously had led the women's social movement since the end of the 19th Century. Unlike their predecessors, who based their identity on loyalty to the dynasty, they envisioned themselves as female citizens of the republican state. It was the spread of women's networks through schools and churches that became the basis for promoting women's participation in the 3.1 movement. The organization of women's organizations based on this network has facilitated women speaking as 'women' and representing themselves beyond the order of existing politics represented by men. They have done this in certain instances by attempting to dispatch a female representative to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, or by drafting and distributing <the Korean Women Declaration of Independence>. Furthermore, at the time of the 3.1 movement, the appearance of women in street demonstrations and prison imprinted the image of women as political subjects on the public. Women resisted the sexist views of male colleagues, Japanese police, and judicial bureaucrats, and dared to express their political identity, which could no longer be limited to existing only within the family. In sum, the March 1st Movement is not only an event that reveals women to be members of the nation, but also a process of women’s challenging and cracking the existing gender norms of women as non-political beings. They have done this by participating at the vanguard of the movement, from the preparation of protests to the struggle in the streets and prisons. However, considering the fact that the March 1st Movement became an occasion to promote differentiation within women, as the subject of enlightenment and the object of enlightenment, further studies are needed on the impact of women's participation in the March 1st Movement.