MODERN WOMEN WRITERS

The public act of publishing women's texts enables a concrete and viable point of departure for a historical interpretation of women's entrance into the modern history of Korean literature. Prior to the twentieth century, a woman writer composed her works largely within the space of her home. In the early twentieth century, however, Korean women writers began to appear in literary journals and women at large began making their appearance in social and public domains by taking advantage of the impetus for women's participation provided by the movements engaged in the enlightenment, modernization, and, ultimately, liberation of Korea.

Women's public participation, therefore, was initially spurred at the end of the nineteenth century by Korea's urgent need to maintain its independence, as it was caught in the web of becoming a colony of another nation. Enlightenment thinkers and, later, nationalists during the colonial period (1910–1945) sought to educate women in an effort to modernize Korea. In this sense, the fate of women writers was intrinsically tied to central social and national issues. Furthermore, the traditional framework of Confucian patriarchy transformed to a new form of patriarchy that demanded women be modern while still remaining within the strictures of the Confucian gender role. The modern gender role for women, then, meant continuing to carry out the duties of wise mother and good wife, maintaining some form of womanly virtues, while absorbing modern values. Women's texts portray the issues pertaining to social, cultural, and historical conflicts and dilemmas.