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Trailblazers in a Traditional World: Korea’s First Women College Graduates, 1910–45

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Jihang Park
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Extract

To the western visitor around the turn of the century, Korean women seemed the most secluded on earth. Isabella Bishop, the adventurous English traveler who visited Korea in the last years of the nineteenth century, reported that women there experienced a unique confinement: from the closing of the city gates of Seoul at dusk, all men except for the blind and officials were banished from the streets; then, and only then, in the safety of a male-free darkness, were the women at liberty to stroll and make social calls. And the higher the woman’s status, the more severe her seclusion. The queen herself conceded that she knew little of her country, having never seen the streets of Seoul by daylight. This deprivation stemmed from the peculiar practice of rigidly segregating and secluding girls when they reached the age of six (Allen 1908; Bishop 1898; Glünicke 1904; Jones 1896). The custom was observed so faithfully that Bishop, during her extensive Korean travels, never saw a girl who looked above six. The traditional Korean society therefore lacked the “brightness which girl life contributes to social existence” (Bishop 1898: 342).

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , Winter 1990 , pp. 533 - 558
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1990 

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