Abstract
This study explores the relationship between Christian education and the construction of female gentility in East Asia around the turn of the twentieth century. Because American missionary schools played an important role in the region, notions of female gentility were greatly influenced by the cultural values of the American middle class and, more specifically, American liberal arts colleges. The notion of the “new gentlewoman” helps to illuminate modern Protestant womanhood’s ambiguous relationship with feminism and nationalism. Recognizing that the Protestant notion of “female gentility” was internally racialized, in this study, I also pay attention to the question of race. While the scope of my research spans East Asia, in this paper, I examine Christian education in China, focusing specifically on Yenching Women’s College. I compare the college’s educational goals and curricula to the pedagogy at the male college of Yenching, the governmental women’s college, and other female colleges in Japan and Korea. In this study, I approach East Asia as a whole for several reasons: first, because a broader view of the region helps put the Chinese case into perspective; second, because the region was often dealt with together in missionary work; and lastly, because national differences cannot be assumed to be more substantial than other differences, such as those based on gender, class, generation, period, and province.
Highlights
In this study, I explore the relationship between Christian women’s colleges and the construction of female gentility around the turn of the twentieth century in East Asia
I approach East Asia as a whole for several reasons: first, because a broader view of the region helps put the Chinese case into perspective; second, because the region was often dealt with together in missionary work; and lastly, because national differences cannot be assumed to be more substantial than other differences, such as those based on gender, class, generation, period, and province
Because American missionaries founded most of the Christian colleges in the region, the notion of female gentility was greatly influenced by the cultural values of the American middle class and, the cultural values of American liberal arts colleges
Summary
I explore the relationship between Christian women’s colleges and the construction of female gentility around the turn of the twentieth century in East Asia. I have identified different histories of new womanhood in the region mainly because of the different political circumstances, all three countries shared the new woman phenomenon with the rest of the world in the beginning of the twentieth century In these three countries, the new woman discourses were generally dominated by male intellectuals, and in Colonial Korea, the public cynicism toward and criticism of new women were stronger than in the other two countries. I do not take it for granted that national differences are always more substantial than other differences, such as those based on gender, class, generation, periods, and provinces This is an examination of modern China approached via the regional context of East Asia rather than a comparative study that gives equal attention to each country.
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