B (5:20)

Yeah. So as you mentioned, so there was a need to re examine the women's movement and you already explained why there was need for that. Can you maybe expand a bit on that? And what kind of new approach did you then finally take on this issue?

A (5:35)

Yeah, so with re examination, I don't refer to something completely new foundation of the topic, but actually to the process of history writing. And I could probably explain my own philosophy of history writing so that there's no need to correct history, but to make visible what is already there, but somehow forgotten or hidden. And I think that something like this had happened with the Korean National Council of Women. And in this way, my approach is quite close to memory studies, as I'm also interested in finding out how certain memories of the past are made. So the case that the authorian era has not been recorded as part of the cran narratives describing the development of women's movement in South Korea is also closely linked to the memory politics related to the South Korea's authoritarian past. So with re examining the women's movement in South Korea, my intention is to discuss also the history of writing and memorialization process related to the women's movement. So by bringing together Korean studies, Cold War history, gender studies, and memory studies in my research, I reframe the Korean women's movement during the authorian era as a site of negotiation rather than pure oppression. And this shift in the perspective reveals certain dynamics such as ambivalence and complicity and transnational linkages that have been obscured in the earlier narratives. So in my dissertation, I utilized the Korean National Council of Women as a case example to view how an organization representing women negotiated with the authoria state about the rights and status of women.

B (7:22)

Yeah, the transnational activities were really an important part of your thesis. But what kind of issues did the women's movement in the 60s and 70s then advocate in South Korea?

A (7:34)

Among the most important issues, quite naturally, were family issues such as family legislation. The Korean National Council of Women, among other women's organizations, were trying to revise the family law to support women's equal rights. Also, key issues like family planning and birth control, introduction of new contraceptives, also advocating abortion rights for the sake of women's health were among the top issues for the Korean National Council Council of Women. So I think that the Korean National Council of Women was successful in bringing to the discussion certain issues that were not probably that widely discussed before. But of course, we know that, for example, the Korean Family Law was finally revised to support women's equal rights only in the early 21st century, not like that long ago. So we could say that the Korean women's organizations during the authorian era, they were not successful in making big revisions to the legislation. But I think the success is in the way it participated in the discussions in the society. And for example, Korean women actually received the equal voting rights in the same time as Korean men. That was part of the Korean constitution in 1948. But these women's organizations, they really had to do hard work in sort of educating female voters to vote according to their own wishes and hopes, because it was pretty general thinking that Korean women voted as their husbands, for example, required them to do so. There was need for this kind of education campaigns like, what does it really mean to use your political vote in the elections?

B (9:31)

Interesting.

A (9:33)

Some other things that the women's movement advocated are actually linked to the sort of economic things like they were active in this kind of consumer protection movement, which meant that they advocated for safe products in the markets for reasonable prices for the sake of domestic products and so on. So this is actually sort of related to the scientific domesticity discourse. There are certain similarities in these issues, like for example, or from the colonial period to the post colonial period. Also, some other issues that the women's movement advocated were related to the protesting the shady policies related to the prostitution. Also, the Korean National Council of Women was really active in national defense. And for example, it widely supported the war in Vietnam. And this is something actually really interesting and similar to North Korean case, because also of course, North Korea supported the Vietnam War from its own side. So sort of the Korean conflict had its consequences in the Vietnam War. Yeah. Then last but definitely not least, the Korean National Council of Women was active in bringing and introducing international virtues on women's issues to South Korea. For examp, the organization was vocal in suggesting that 1975 should be made as the Year of Korean Women, following the United Nations International Year of Women. And this initiative for the Year of Women actually originated from the Eastern bloc. So it is quite interesting how the idea traveled to different parts of the world to support women's agenda.

B (11:29)

Then your research locates South Korea as part of the global Cold War and utilizes a concept of Cold War feminism. What does this mean and how does it relate to the ongoing scholarly discussions on the topic?

A (11:43)

Yes, so instead of limiting my research to study just authoritarian era South Korea, I wanted to bring the Korean case as part of the Cold War framework and to highlight a perspective that combines South Korea and the transnational square. In the past 20 years or so, there has been a growing trend in the academia towards women and the Cold War. And with my research, I'm joining this ongoing research initiative on global war era female activism. Thus far, the most active research has been conducted on countries and groups associated with the Eastern Bloc or with the Soviet bloc. There has also been certain interest towards the Non Aligned Movement, but less is known about the sort of the anti communist side of the Cold War outside the United States. So there's definitely room to look at the actions of, for example, what Asian women did during the Cold War more closely. But the central argument and the outcome of the previous scholarship has been that the Cold War did not cease women's activism, nor did it mark a return to some kind of conservative gender roles as it has been previously assumed. But quite the contrary, the Cold War rivalries and binaries were fruitful for women's activism. So this concept Cold War feminism has emerged as an analytical lens to view gender debates in global Cold War. And probably as a matter of fact, it would be more appropriate to talk about Cold War feminism in plural, because these visions about women's role and capacity were so many and many roads were suggested on how the women could reach their full potential. Having said that, I would like to highlight that understanding feminism and women's activism in Cold War requires really a polycentric approach because the social movements don't operate in any one dimensional reality. So despite the so called Iron Curtain and other boundaries, the Cold War spheres of influence were in interaction with each other. There are several examples of this they already mentioned. The United Nations Year of Women is one example. And my own interest with the Cold War framework has been on asking how the Cold War influenced the possibilities for women to participate both nationally and internationally to organize and advocate for gender specific issues.

B (14:30)

Yeah, for this very approach you had. So you have also utilized materials from various archives and different sources. So it's. It's really based on the rich empirical material, such as correspondence between women's organizations, their reports and bulletins, just to mention a few. And having followed your research work, I know that you got access to a very special archival material that earlier studies on South Korean women's movement have not utilized. So could you please tell about the materials and how did you find it?

A (15:02)

Yeah, so indeed, methodologically, my research is based on archival research and I've collected the materials in libraries and archives in South Korea, in Belgium and online. At the very initial stage of the research process, I was actually simply looking through different library databases and I could note that the Korean National Council of Women has published quite a lot, and it had published quite a lot also in English, which was really interesting. So the organization published a member balladin, both in Korean and in English, and these magazines called Yoseung and the women have formed the core material for my research. It has been through them that I have been able to follow the yearly activities and core teams of the organization and how the issues were changing over time. And yeah, these materials have been readily available in Korean libraries. And I myself work both in Eoha Women's University Library and the National Library of Korea. However, the true treasure of my empirical material is the archival material of the International Council of Women that is housed by the Archive and Research center for Women's History in Brussels, Belgium. This archive includes a wide range of correspondence between South Korean women and the International Council of Women's Headquarters in Paris from the 1950s to the turn of the 1990s. So basically, this significant amount of correspondence between the local branch in South Korea and the International Head Organization made it possible to detail, for example, the events that led to the formation of the Korean Council of Women in the first place. They have been also making it possible for me to view how the International Council of Women understood the political situation in South Korea through different decades, and also to shed light on certain difficulties that embracing internationalism caused for this women's organization. It was really wonderful experience to get to read those partly handwritten letters from the already mentioned Kim Walan or Helen Kim and other Korean female leaders. Yeah, this is one of the most interesting parts of my research. The International Council of Women was led by a South Korean woman, Hong Ju cha, after the mid-1980s. For two years, this Hong Joo was a Korean female activist. She had built a career in diplomacy and then moved to work with different women's organization. And first, she was the leader of the Korean National Council of Women and then was elected as to lead the whole International Council of Women. And for this reason, the archival material in the International Council of Women's Archives is particularly strong in terms of Korean affairs because, of course, the correspondence between the President and the other affiliates have been maintained in the archive. And for example, there are letters from the summer of 1987 in the middle of South Korea's political upheaval. And it reveals a very interesting window to the democratization process of South Korea. So this archival material of the International Council of Women has not been used before to study Korean women's movement or even the Korean National Council of Women.

B (18:46)

And apparently it could give kind of possibilities for many other topics as well.

A (18:51)

Yes, definitely. And the whole archive of the International Council of Women, it would include so many interesting topics. For example, study more broadly the organization's activities during the Cold War regarding East Asia. It also includes very interesting correspondence with the Chinese and Japanese women.

B (19:11)

Super interesting.

A (19:13)

Yes.

B (19:14)

So.

A (19:15)

And yeah, there are a lot to learn from those materials. Definitely.

B (19:21)

Yeah. I have to mention this to our master students. Very good. Mature for thesis as well. Master's thesis, certainly. Can you summarize the key findings of your research? There are certainly many of. But what are the kind of most interesting findings that you could make?

A (19:36)

So as a whole, I think that my dissertation is challenging the dominant narrative of the Korean women's movement as dormant or stagnant and lacking any international character before the 1980s. And here my empirical case is particularly strong, as I saw through the interaction between the Korean National Council of Women and the International Council of Women. So in this way, my research sort of fills the research gap from the late 1950s to the 1980s in the history of Korean women's movement. And by doing that, I have sort of added more gender perspective on authoritarian era and showed that women had to navigate a really complex terrain of political alliances and international diplomacy. So in the conclusion, I state that feminism, of course it remains something that the most Korean women could not yet affect. But that has exactly been what I wanted to highlight with the notion that feminism has a cyclical nature and that the previous interpretations and previous women's movements work as a fuel for the future movements, especially through criticism. And understanding the role of criticism for feminism is quite essential. What I like to add is that I think that these Cold War legacies for the women's movement and for feminism still linger in South Korea. For example, the abolishment of the family head household system has been replaced with the question on how to be head of one's own household when the family and relationships do not offer the comfort and safety amidst the economic insecurity in today's world. And for example, the decriminalization of abortion in South Korea finally became effective only four years ago. And still now women face the pressure to make babies to keep the nation going amidst the shrinking population. And for example, the matter of sexual violence against women in war is no distant memory, as now women face their lives and healthiness being threatened in relationships and on the streets, as domestic violence is one of the contemporary problems in South Korea. So my dissertation has managed to historize these issues and explore the connections between the Cold War and women, and demonstrated how women's activism and agency and networks on local and transnational scales reveal the often overlooked roles that women play in societies.

B (22:21)

Yeah, so your study is important for historical scholarship, but it also matters in present day South Korea, right?

A (22:28)

Yeah, I definitely agree. So I think that feminism and gender issues are very topical in today's South Korea. And we can see that also from, for example, from the foreign press. It has been really interested on this topic in the past decade or so. For example, we probably remember that in the presidential elections of 2022, the presidential candidate Yoon Suk Yeol was very vocal about making anti feminism one of his election teams. Also, we have witnessed sort of gender wars and strong polarization between sexes in South Korean society. And this is especially visible and powerful in different online platforms. There have been some quite radical and aggressive outcomes from both sides, like they are radical feminist movement working online, but also sort of frustrated and angry young men who also think that their role in the society has been sidelined because of women and feminism.

B (23:35)

Yeah, this is something that we can read about in Nordic media as well.

A (23:39)

Yeah, so. So the issue what has sort of interesting me more and more is that like, given the fact that South Korea is like an ultra modern society, it is really interesting how in different gender equality indexes it is like really lagging behind. And I think the problem space that like how it is not possible for South Korea to fix these issues related to gender inequality, it's really pressing one. And with my own research I sort of wanted to highlight the historicity behind these issues and that these are not any novel things. But the debate has been going on for a very long time already.

B (24:24)

And this leads us to the final question. What comes next for you and this line of research?

A (24:30)

Yeah, that's a very good question. But instead of taking my research more to the contemporary times, I have been really inspired by a concept, Transvar Asia lately. Unfortunately I learned about it on the stage of research when my dissertation was already being reviewed, so I couldn't include it here. But I'm hoping that I will have an opportunity to continue developing my dissertation into a book, manuscript or articles where I could further problematize what the Cold War South Korea stands for. And with the concept of trans war, we can draw lines from the colonial era to the post colonial or post liberation era and see that there were probably was much more continuity than change going on because we can notice and recognize that there are several overlapping themes related to nationalism and women's support for war effort in Imperial Japan versus the Vietnam War. Also issues related to the family and fertility. I'm really looking forward to continue delving with these issues also in the future.

B (25:44)

Yeah, your research questions are really super interesting. So I also and our listeners probably very much look forward to reading your next publications. Thank you Katri for sharing with us your research.

A (25:56)

Thank you for having me.

B (25:58)

I'm Autiluva from the center for East Asian Studies at the Univers Turku. Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia Podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. You have been listening to the Nordic Asia Podcast.

A (26:14)

Sam.