User:KoreanArtHistory../Sin-Yeoseong- 신여성- New Women/Poppyprint Peer Review

Introduction
“Shinyeoseong” (신여성) is the first magazine for women in Korea published by Gaebyeoksa monthly from 1923 to 1934. According to old newspaper articles, this magazine was often sold out and was distributed in bookstores across the country. This magazine shaped many women's agenda-setting discussions such as advocating for gender equality, challenging Confucian gender norms, as well as setting the image of an ideal modern women at the time.

Background
The “New Women” magazine (Shinyeoseong 신여성) was part of a nationwide movement of women empowerment, partially aimed to go against the traditional ideologies of “Wise Mother, Good Wife”. The notion of “Wise Mother, Good Wife” (hyõnmo yangch’ŏ ), first appeared in Korea in 1906, and was long celebrated as the ideal moral of Korean women. This idea originated from the idea of “good wife and wise mother” in Meiji Japan, but the syntax “wise mother” was placed before “good wife”. This phrase promoted the expectations of womanly virtue of compliance and wisdom on Korean women, which reflected the Confucianist ideals of womanhood. After the Japanese annexation of Korea in 1910, the Japanese government systematically promoted this gender ideology, especially by embedding it in Korea's education system. When this idea became more popular, the provision on educating women replaced the old conventional distain for educated women. This concept was considered progressive at the time because it was seen as liberation for women from premodern conventions by giving them a more dominant position in a household, especially in playing a more effective role in children education. However, around the time of Korean Independence, the phrase of “women’s liberation” sparked the awakening of modern gender consciousness. “Wise mother, good wife” was soon seen as yet another framework that regulated and confined women to function specifically in domestic spheres of the family. It also became clear that fragments of this ideology was indeed colonial legacy when the colonial government’s aim was to produce an efficient, obedient and submissive imperial workforce. The first documented woman to publicly criticize the idea of “Wise mother, Good Wife” was Na Hye-Sôk. She announced it was simply another male-dominated ideology made to breed docile, submissive and domestic women. Alongside with Kim Won-Ju, they spearheaded the New Woman movement through their writings that focused on secular feminist agendas.

Content and Theme
Each issue had around 100 pages that featured a wide range of articles about women in the forms of short stories, essays, and poems and. Topics ranged from the latest trends in pop cultures to political discussions. The magazine cover featured women of different ethnicities and cultures, rather than only Korean women starting in the mid-1920s, although their faces tend to be portrayed in more simplified ways. This magazine supported female enlightenment by focusing on two groups of women: unmarried women and married women. The main focus for unmarried women was to establish and solidify the understanding of their right to freely date to choose their own marriage partners. The key aim for married women was to emphasize and spark a change of status in their nuclear family from simply a member of the family to become the female head. The focus on female empowerment in the age of patriarchal Korea was what made this feminist magazine differ and stand out from the other magazines at the time.

Media Influence
Magazines as commodities in the 1920s Korea purposely attracted consumers by using cover images as a visual representation of its content. Aside from merely attracting sales, Shinyeoseong (신여성, 1923–1934) instead acted more as a political strategy by demonstrating an ideal modern subject. Publishers Shinyeoseong noticed the female literacy and school enrollment rate was quite low around the times of Japanese annexation of Korea, so they used hangeul instead of Chinese characters. This is because Chinese characters are more challenging to read and learn than hangeul, hence a lower percentage of the Korean population was able to read them. Shinyeoseong also chose to use images over text, made it more intellectually accessible to Korean women at the time. They especially utilized specific images of women to implicitly deliver and build types of women of the era through repetition. The popularized images of new women by Shinyeoseong offered a new horizon for women empowerment by showcasing possibilities of what a Korean woman can be. These images ranged from rather progressive images of “modern girls” like dancers or flappers to more conservative images of obedient housewives. Others include women reading books and school girls reflecting the rise of interest in women's education and increased female literacy rate. One prominent example of Shinyeoseong’s media influence was the new face of the magazine by An Seok-ju 안석주(1901–1950). His illustration of a Westernized “modern woman” for the cover of Shinyeoseong include features like lighter skin tone, large eyes and straight nose, which became the standard for beauty in women's magazines and newspapers in the 1930s.

Critique
During the 1920s, the rise of New Woman and Modern girl also brought about critiques from the mass media. They claimed this new ideology increased young women’s tendency to be tempted and frivolous. Critics thought under the lead of new women movement, young girls seemed to mindlessly pursue the “bourgeois culture” and an upper-middle class lifestyle. The negative commentaries mainly focused on attacking the images of consumption and sexual promiscuity. One example is an article published inTonga ilbo titled "Ch'oegûn sinyôsông ûi kyônghyang" (New tendency of the New Women, written on June 17, 1925) which criticized the “frivolity, shallowness, [and] carelessness of New Women".

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