전통적 경험세계와 여성 = Continuity and change in Korean Women's Lives

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Every human society recognizes sex difference and utilizes the perceived sex-difference in institutionalizing human behavior. Although the content of sex-difference varies greatly depending on the specific culture, the patterns of the sexual division of labor and gender personality characteristics are consistent with the cultural interpretation of sex-difference. This study is based on this assumption.
This paper is divided into three part. In the first part, the particular framework of sex-difference in terms of which traditional Koreans organized their social world are discussed. They are, then, analyzed from the ecological and historical perspectives. In the second part, the struggling of women as minority of the society is discussed in relation to gender personality formation. In the concluding part, the interface between the tradition and modern world is dealt with.
The basic methodological position adopted here is structural. By taking the structural position, the deep structure and its transformational pattern of guiding the male/female interactions are searched for. The Naehun (the confucian Teachings of Inner Persons) and shamanistic rituals are analyzed for this purpose. Understanding female behavior in terms of their own values and logic is the other important methodological position taken here. Women's desires, hopes and values, i.e., their emic world, are discovered through the indepth interviews with elderly women from aristocratic families (near Andong and Chung-up area).
The women of the aristocratic tradition were mainly interviewed for this research under the assumption that the principles of the male/female interactions and the unbridgeable gap between the ideal and the reality were accepted and experiencedin the purer .and clearer form by those women.
2. The Separation of the Male/Female Domains.
The traditional agrarian society of Korea has developed an extreme form of patriarchal social structure on the basis of Confucian ideology. The basic sex-difference is conceived in terms of the opposition and the harmony of Ying and Yang. Specifically, the maleness of the heaven and the femaleness of the earth arc contrasted as the beginning versus: the prosperity, creativity versus tolerance, change versus continuity and leader versus, follower. This opposition serves as the explanation of the separation of role domains (domestic/public) and spacial arrangements. the separation is clearly exemplified in the traditional house-structure.
Some Korean social scientists argued that sexual equality was guaranteed in the traditional Korean society because of the strict separation of the domains where each sex could control on its own domain. The point is made in this study thar two domains were not in equal term in reality. As an elderly woman commented, $quot;men are the heaven and. women, the earth: So men arc high and women, low. Women are bound to be trampled. down.$quot;
It may be, therefore, safe to generalize that the complementarity between the sexes, which was highly idealized in traditional Korea was, in fact, achieved try the strict. division of labor and that the subjugation of women was justified by the Ying/Yang: ideology.
3. Korean Femininity
Women under the patriarchal social structure were removed from their natal families and incorporated into their husbands' households. Public identification was achieved only through their male relatives.
Women, however, could exercise considerable power and authority in the later stage of their lives as their sons grew old and as their successful managerial skills in running the household were recognized. In this sense, women led lives of achieved status whereas. men, led lives of ascribed status. It means that a woman has more room for establishing herself through her effort. In fact, under the social system which the family was the major productive unit and where the leisurely image of the aloof scholar removed from the struggling reality was highly cherished, responsibilities of women as household managers were very heavy. It is note worthy that the imperative for women to support and complement those idealistic men of idleness contributed significantly in forming gender personality of Korean women. Women were socialized realistic, quick in calculation, adoptive, manipulative (administrative in a good sense) and accomplish-minded They also developed a distinctive tendency of self devaluation in comparison with men. On the other hand, masculine characteristics were perceived frail, dependent and narcissitic by women.
4. The Concluding Remark:
The traditional patterns of the male/female relationships and the sex-role differentiation persist under the strong current of modernization Feminine virtues as $quot;tolerating$quot; supporters and $quot;self-sacrificing$quot; mothers have been perpetuated in the modern setting.
As the modernized social system requires qualities such as task orientedness and realistic calculation, women of traditional feminity may be more suitable than men to carry out the task of building the modern era. However, the socio-cultural system is not yet opened enough to fully utilize women's potentialities for the benefit of the society. Still confined to the domestic sphere most women have to pursue their life-goals through their husbands and children. One often witnesses that confined women's energy in the household explodes and results in serious social problems. Excessively competitive mothers overtheir children's success, speculative business over the real-estates, and the phenomenon of father-alienation in the families are only a few cases of the unintended. consequences of the $quot;virtuous$quot; women's struggle to overcome powerlessness and in security in the changing condition.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1.서론
• 2.여성이 처한 구조적 상황
• 3.여성의 실존
• 4.여성의 가치관과 기질
• 5.전통과 현대의 만남
• 6.맺음말
• 참고문헌