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Modernization during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was like a double-edged sword. It sometimes meant improvement and freedom, while at other times suppression and deprivation. Since Korea was forced into an imperial world order by a Japanese gunboat in 1876, Korea was earnest in its endeavor to modernize itself. However, various perspectives and interests both of Korea and of foreign powers forced Korea to meander through its modernization process; it finally fell into Japan's hands in 1910. In some sense, Japan's annexation focused Korea's path to modernization under one purpose: Korea served the Japanese Empire. Japan's tight grip on Korea left Koreans little control over their own material domains, but Koreans could find some leeway in spiritual domains. Education was a unique institution, a mixture of materiality and spirituality. Education became one of the few places where Koreans were able to attempt to redirect the modernization process on their own terms.
Yim Youngsin (Louise Yim) was a Korean woman who plunged into women's education in order to improve herself, Korean women, and Korea by freeing them from Confucian patriarchy and Japanese imperialism. Yim is considered one of the New Women, the first generation of the women's liberation movement, which tried to solve women's questions. New Women in colonies, however, had to consider both women's questions and national issues at the same time. Korea's special situation as a colony made Yim's life an example of "New Women" in the context of colonialism rather than of feminism. New Women in colonies regarded education as a perfect medium between the women's liberation movement and the independence movement. Many of the educated New Women in colonies became educators who made efforts to educate their sisters, extend women's public sphere, and improve their nations as a whole. This paper will explore how Yim balanced her national identity with her feminist identity in the colonial context.
From the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, the New Women appeared not only in the United States and Europe but also in the cities of Asia. These women walked the streets of Seoul, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Delhi. All these New Women presented their own societies with a new way to be women, but many obstacles were in their way. In...