한국 환경운동의 ‘새로운’ 주체, ‘주부’ - 공해반대시민운동협의회(1986~1988)의 활동을 중심으로

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the emergence process of "housewife" as the main subject of the Korean environmental movement in the 1980s and the activities and characteristics of the Citizens' Movement Society against Pollution established by them. Under the Park Chung-hee regime's goal of "modernizing the country" in the 1960s and 1970s, housewives were called reasonable managers of families and local communities. In the 1970s, certain housewives identified themselves as environmental activist through education programs of the Christian Academy and Pollution Research Institute. On September 13, 1986, they organized the Citizens' Movement Society against Pollution. The Society emphasized that pollution should be approached as a social structural issue, not a problem of women, housewives, or consumers, and advocated a "pan-class and pan-national" civic movement. However, housewives mostly conducted and leaded the activities. This gap shows the paradox that female activists had to encounter at that time. In order to become an activist, they had to identify themselves as a universal citizen, but in actual activities, they had no choice but to work based on their own identities as a housewife and a woman to foster "housewife as a social activist" against the discriminatory gender role.