A Few Outstanding Leaders: The Transnational Campaign for Women’s “Enlightenment” in South Korea, 1945–60

In 1950, Esther Park of the Korean Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) reported that women of Korea were “eager to share in the building of a new Korea, but they sorely lacked not only knowledge, experience, and training, but also the time.” Women’s organizations, she declared, needed to educate women in “civic responsibility,” to teach them to read and write, and to simplify household duties to free time for their own pursuits.

With the end of Japan’s colonial rule and the division of Korea in 1945, a small, elite group of women like Park rose to power in South Korea, working through state institutions and women’s organizations to advocate their vision of gender equality. Though they sought increased opportunities for women within the state, many of these leaders also believed that women needed to become men’s equals not only in opportunity, but also in capability. They therefore aimed to reform not just state institutions, but also women themselves, seeking to “enlighten” their fellow countrywomen and mold them into more “equal” citizens.

From 1945-1960, these leaders worked with the American Military Government (1945-1949) and Syngman Rhee’s regime (1948 - 1960) to undertake this vision. They led campaigns to eradicate illiteracy and “superstition” and promoted interconnected ideals of hygiene, efficiency, and citizenship. Just as these leaders had pursued their own education at the conjunction of two empires—Japan and the United States—so too was their “enlightenment” movement shaped by these imperial formations. Drawing on legacies of Japan’s colonial rule, this movement sourced financial and logistical support not only from the Syngman Rhee regime but also from transnational networks enabled by the U.S. empire. This paper focuses on the educational programs undertaken by these leaders and the participation and resistance of those whom they sought to transform into both “students” and “citizens.”