The “New Woman” and the Topography of Modernity in Colonial Korea

This article intends to illustrate gender roles as related to modernity in colonial Korea by focusing on the birth of the “New Woman” and its historical location. The New Woman appeared as a new female icon all over the world in the early twentieth century and implanted a new female identity produced by the introduction of modern, Western ideas in Korea. However, the embodiment of the New Woman in Korea shows historical variation from the prototype of a more global New Woman. Furthermore, in colonial Korea New Women did not present a singular, fixed collective identity but included diverse layers of female subjectivities. Specifically, with the flow of time, the representation of New Women shows the process of refraction and implosion of “New Woman” images, each having different connotations. This article traces the discursive transformation of the “New Woman” in mass media (mainly newspapers and magazines) from the 1900s to the 1940s, and its significant associations with the relationship of gender and modernity in colonial Korea. It also elucidates what it meant to be a New Woman historically in Korea.