Masculinizing the Nation: Gender Ideologies in Traditional Korea and in the 1890s–1900s Korean Enlightenment Discoursede The Journal of Asian Studies

Masculinizing the Nation: Gender Ideologies in Traditional Korea and in the 1890s–1900s Korean Enlightenment Discourse
de The Journal of Asian Studies
Research ArticlesVladimir Tikhonov, The Journal of Asian Studies, Volume 66 Issue 04 , pp 1029-1065
AbstractThis paper deals with ideal masculine types in the gender discourse of Korea's modernizing nationalists during the late 1890s and early 1900s. It begins by outlining the main gender stereotypes of Korea's traditional neo-Confucian society, and it argues that old Korea's manhood norms were bifurcated along class lines. On one hand, fighting prowess was accepted as a part of the masculinity pattern in the premodern society of the commoners. On the other hand, the higher classes' visions of manhood emphasized self-control and adherence to moral and ritual norms. The paper shows how both premodern standards of masculinity provided a background for indigenizing the mid-nineteenth century European middle-class ideal of masculinity nobler national goals, in early modern Korea.