‘무명’과 ‘무자격’에 접근하기 위하여 – 기록되지 않은 피식민 여성(들)의 이름(들)에 관한 시론(試論)

Abstract

This paper sets out to approach the life of an unknown woman through the records of others, and thereby to rebuild the colonial women's movement. To this end, it focuses on the life of a woman named Deungji Jeon. This woman's life is reconstituted through the records of her husband and of the Keunwha Association, which was founded in 1928 by Maria Kim. While living in Tokyo, Deungji Jeon appropriated her husband's social status and patriarchal ideology. However, after going to America with her husband, while working and interacting at the Keunwha Association, she completely rejected the patriarchal ideology. These circumstances let us imagine the impact of female independence activists, including Maria Kim. The latter emphasized the patriotic qualifications and rights given to women through the Korean Patriotic Women's Association, but she became more passively conscious of the inadequate position imposed on women at the Keunwha Association. The causes of this change involved the imperial violence that impaired Maria Kim's body and mind, the media that repeatedly represented the damaged body, the voyeuristic mass desire for the damaged body, the core of the national movement that marginalized women, and her identity as an Asian woman during studying in America. Eventually, Maria Kim, as a wife of the nation, devoted herself to education. Deungji Jeon remained alone in the United States and was only referred to as "the wife of Taekyung Yoo" in newspapers. The lives of Deungji Jeon and Maria Kim reveal the limits of the Japanese Empire and patriarchs.