• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.30
• /
• pp.53-71
• /
• 2013

The aim of this study is to compare and analyze the similarities and differences in traditional perspective about women between Algery and Korea. Through this study, we found out following common denominators: sexual discrimination and denigration of women. Under the patriarchal system in Korea and Algery in the past, women were considered to be inferior to men and treated as men's possessions. The noteworthy feature is the perspective of mother. In both countries, the image of woman as a mother is regarded as the source of life and a central axis leading our society. It is very remarkable that we could find a lot of common ground despite that there are a lot of social, cultural and geometrical differences. Therefore, through this study, it is proved that the proverbs tell us the universality among people in the world regardless of culture and region.

• American Studies
• /
• v.43 no.1
• /
• pp.25-56
• /
• 2020

The essay examines two contemporary American plays that portray adult Korean American adoptees' return to South Korea: How to Be a Korean Woman (2012) by Sunmee Chomet and Middle Brother (2014) by Eric Sharp. While the existing scholarship on transnational adoption has discussed homecoming as a predominantly female experience of birth mothers and daughters, Chomet and Sharp suggest the differing ways in which the adoptee subjectivity is re-imagined in particularly gendered ways after homecoming. In these plays, adult adoptees' repeated, mundane bodily performances of Korean cultural norms illustrate how notions of femininity and masculinity are inscribed onto the body of adoptee individuals under the patriarchal system. Such performative construction of Korean-ness departs from the earlier theatrical representations of young, adolescent adoptees' homecoming that served as a symbolic rite of passage, a necessary process through which they would gain cultural hybridity and mature into cosmopolitan American-ness.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
• /
• v.8 no.1
• /
• pp.29-43
• /
• 1999

This study was carried out to investigate the view of the choice of spouse and marriage of unmarried women's college students. Most respondents in this study think that the optimum age for marriage is 27 and prefer a seniority in age of 3-4 years who feels in love as the future husband. Also, they wish that the job of future husband be a technical expert. Approximately 63% of respondents recognize the necessity of marriage but 38% of respondents do not show a positive opinion for marriage. They also expect the emotional stabilization or partnership from marriage. Majority of respondents show a negative response to the marriage as means to solve economic difficulties. However, only 25.9% of respondents strongly show the negative opinion. In the acquaintance of the opposite sex in the purpose for marriage, most respondent are negative. However, they are positive in keeping virginal purity prior to marriage. Also, it has revealed that respondents want a partnership through allotment in domestic duties including baby sitting rather than household management through patriarchal system. In household economy, they prefer sharing living expenses and having a job after marriage. In choosing an ideal husband, although the academic background is considered as an important factor, but the present occupation is more important than the academic background. Also, one of the priority to choosing a spouse is influenced by each household circumstance and economic balance. About half of respondents want their parents-in-law to be alive, however, few respondents want to live together with parents-in-law.

• Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.67-75
• /
• 1980

Natural increase rate in population is reached to 1.7% in 1975 fron 2.5% in 1966 because of the effect of Govermental Family Planning Program. The average number of present children and ideal children is just the same, 2.4 people, in this investigation. So, I assume that the number of present and ideal children is approaching each other. The rate of unmarried female workers who don't know even one thing about the know ledge of contraception was 23.9%, and especially that of rural women was 31.5% and 41.3% of them has never experienced contraception. 'Boy-preference' presented 60.1% of unmarried female workers and 79.1% of married women. 'Connection of a family line' related to 'Transfer to next generation of a family line' presented 38.0% and 'Trustworthiness' related to 'Leadership of a family' presented 26.0% (total 64.0%). As this point, Ive can find that this rate reveals the traditional sense of patriarchal system in society and family. The rate of women of experienced artificial abortion has been 52.1% and that of women using it as birth control caused by 'Many children' and 'Short brith-interval' 46.6% of women of experienced pregnancy. So, we can see that artificial abortion is a main cause of Maternal Health destruction.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
• /
• v.35
• /
• pp.59-78
• /
• 2014

This article is written on the ground that one of the major characteristics of Chinese New Period women's novels is about family dissolution and calling and it is examined based on analysis of "The Bathing Woman" by Tie Ning. In "The Bathing Woman", the family seems 'Regular' externally but it is actually fragmented internally. The author offers patriarchal perspective on 'Family' from the eyes of daughter of the family. The problems are classified into three categories. First, it is the problem of exclusiveness embedded in the essential characteristic of family represented by blood relation. Second, it is the research on the reason for family dissolution. Tie Ning finds the reason at 'Unmotherly mother, that is the lack of maternal instinct. Third, it is the expectation of the restoration of dissolved family. Tie Ning's indication of 'Family' is equal to 'Mother' and 'Mother' is the source and power that can heal and restore the dissolved family in her novel. It is expansion of maternal instinct represented by protection and caring into 'Practical action' and it is meaningful in a way that it expands the principle of maternal instinct and sublimates it into universal morality. However, it should not be overlooked that it could be another moral system that could suppress the females in other ways.

• The Southeast Asian review
• /
• v.22 no.2
• /
• pp.171-199
• /
• 2012

Saman, a novel written by Ayu Utami, has been recognized as the symbol of the politico-social changes, which began to occur since the collapse of Suharto' New Order regime in 1998. In the novel, Ayu Utami showed the spirits of resistance against various absurd socio-political circumstances during the New Order era such as pressure on discussion, abuse of power, politics-business collusion, patriarchism, and suppression of gender. In representing those spirits, Ayu Utami used unconventional structure-making, fresh feedback and multilayered descriptions of the figures, which brought her a fame as the pioneer of the Fragrant Literature (Angkatan Wangi or chick-lit). Ayu Utami particularly criticized that, under the name of sustaining the national integrity and identity, the New Order regime enhanced patriarchal system, which consequently infringed gender equality and women's rights to self-determination. In addition, Ayu Utami argued that the abuse of power and politics-business collusion, which were prevalent during the New Order period, destroyed lives of the masses and the Indonesian society.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.181-186
• /
• 2022

Until now, sexist culture in Korean society has been naturally accepted as a very universal cultural phenomenon. Our society recognized the superiority of men. Women were considered as auxiliary roles. It is expected that the current generation who will lead the 21st century will break the vicious cycle of gender stereotypes and prejudices. Only when they can dispel sexist prejudices will their humanity be restored. Breaking down gender stereotypes is never just for women, but also includes men living with women. Thus, I believe that the true union and harmony of men and women is possible.

• Analyses & Alternatives
• /
• v.7 no.1
• /
• pp.201-227
• /
• 2023

The purpose of this study is to examine how France became a representative country for far-right European populism, despite its tradition of tolerance. To achieve this goal, we examine, first, how the concept of tolerance developed in France after the 16th century. Through this process, we find that within the political system, the tolerance of the liberal tradition met with universalism, a republican value, and developed into an 'institutional tolerance' that allowed 'differences' from an authoritarian perspective rather than on an equal level. This 'assimilation' policy, reflecting a 'patriarchal' and 'oppressive' institutional tolerance, formed the keynote of the immigration policy of the 20th century, which continued until the 1980s, and shows that the French government did not take practical steps for the social integration of immigrant groups under the republican universal value that does not allow 'differences.' The government came up with an 'integration' immigration policy that embraces cultural 'differences' only after encountering problems with immigrant groups. However, this was not enough to calm the antipathy towards immigrants in French society and the discontent of immigrants in French society. Also, universalism, a republican value with deep roots in France, prevented the French immigration policy from escaping its assimilationist nature even in the 21st century. In the midst of this, far-right parties have gained power by promoting xenophobic sentiments centered on immigration problems. Finally, this study also looks at how far-right populism is currently changing the French political environment.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
• /
• v.56 no.6
• /
• pp.1281-1294
• /
• 2010

In Written on the Body, by creating the narrator's ungendered and unsexed identity, Winterson makes her text open to the reader's assumption of the narrator's sexual and gender identity. Thus, this novel has been read, on the one hand, as a lesbian text by those who assume that the narrator is a female and, on the other hand, as a suspicious text colluding with patriarchal and heterosexual values by those who define the narrator as a male. Those readings of the narrator as one of either sex/gender, however, demonstrate how (academic as well as general) readers have been accustomed to the gender-based reading habits in which textual meanings are dichotomously arranged along the lines of sex and gender of characters. Challenging those dualistic "gendered" readings, this paper reads Winterson's Written on the Body as a queer text which interrogates, troubles, and subverts the heterosexual concepts of narrative, desire, and body without reducing the narrator's identity to the essentialist sex and gender system. More specifically, this paper examines how the narrator's 'un-/over-' determined sexual and gender identity queers the narrative structure of author-character-reader; how the narrator's queer (fluid) desire is passing and traveling across categorical contours of (homo-/hetero-) sexual desires; how Winterson challenges the concept of a coherent body and queers the concept of body as a hermeneutic text with myriad textual grids which are not coherently mapped by power but randomly inscribed by nomadic desires.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
• /
• v.25 no.3
• /
• pp.349-383
• /
• 2019

This paper examined the meaning and task of romance research with a focus on Reading the Romance(1984) by Janice A. Radway. This book, which analyzes romance texts by examining the situation and meaning of reading romance by women readers integrating between cultural studies and literary studies, is one of the most popular studies on the romance genre. Radway scrutinized the practical significance of reading romance in a community of women readers. Through a study involving questionnaires and in-depth interviews, she found that for women, romance reading is a 'compensatory fiction' that brings happiness and emotional redemption through a sense of liberation achieved by escaping from patriarchal daily life. The romance that women prefer is composed of 4 stages and 13 divisions: 'Encounter → Attest → Recovery → Happy End'. It also maintains a formula that begins with an immature female character's identity crisis and ends with a blissful union that recognizes the intrinsic value of the main character, who has turned into a man who is considerate of the women. Therefore, romance plays the role of pursuit of the 'female utopian fantasy' and at the same time a reconciliation of women to patriarchy. Feminist critics of the day criticized this argument. However, reading romance is a 'feminine reading', and romance is literature about the functional relationship between women's lives and patriarchy. Yet the interpretation could differ depending on the different viewpoints and definitions of the women's utopian fantasy. In recent years, the conditions of female reader's lives, awareness and imagination have been changing rapidly. As a result, the female utopian fantasy has also changed significantly. Nevertheless, women's lives in the real patriarchal system are still contradictory, and their adventurous imagination is spreading in alternative spaces such as the subculture. In this regard, the question is about the definition of romance and the meanings of romance research are still important task.