Mothers of the Empire: Military Conscription and Mobilisation in Late Colonial Korea

Abstract

Wars in the twentieth century have had a somewhat paradoxical effect on gender politics around the world. During periods of intense warfare, women are often thrust into new social roles as they increasingly assume public duties and enter the workforce to replace the men dispatched to the battlefront. The history of gender politics in colonial Korea (1910–45) after the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) in many respects paralleled wartime developments found elsewhere. Korean women were called upon to display their loyalty to the Japanese Emperor by entering the workforce and fulfilling their obligations as mothers and wives of Korean soldiers drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. Korean women were also encouraged to participate actively in local civil associations dedicated to supporting the home front while the men were away on military duty. The male-dominated public discourse of the late colonial period reinforced patriarchal gender roles, yet the women who participated in the wartime mobilisation were not necessarily acting in a passive manner. New venues for women to become active members of Korean society would emerge as a consequence of the war, and the numerous examples from the late colonial period of women addressing female audiences and discussing the importance of military conscription may be particularly revealing sources for understanding the significance of this shift in gender relations.KeywordsKorean WomanTotal MobilisationJapanese ColoniserColonial SocietyGender PoliticsThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.