Martin Luther believed that the image of God referred to the original righteousness of humanity. Accordingly, Adam, who bore this image, knew God and lived a fully devout and humanized sexual life. However, with the fall of humankind, this concept of humanized sexuality was distorted. That is, the concept of reproductive sex—rooted in the Creator’s intention for equal proliferation—was transformed into dehumanized secular sex or ungodly commercial sex.

Due to this shift in consciousness and the exploitation of it by certain individuals, a dynamic of subordination arose between the sexes. This consciousness of subordination eventually manifested as a contradiction—where relatively privileged but flawed humans began to oppress other, relatively weakened, human persons.

As a result, men, who had taken economic, cultural, and environmental initiative, developed their own exclusive culture and ideology. Women were enslaved or commodified, and were subordinated to an artificially constructed patriarchal society. Domestic violence and prostitution—products of this subordinating ideology—are clearly real, pressing issues of our time, and they are undoubtedly our own issues to confront.

In this context, the present reality calls Christians to break down the walls that separate faith from society. We are called to encounter the marginalized—the ὄχλος (ochlos), the ‘am-haaretz’—and establish religion in the actual lived experiences of the alienated. To fulfill this calling, we must ask: What should we do? What structural contradictions hinder us? How can we design a missional project amid these contradictions? And how can we engage in more effective ministry?

Therefore, our concern and mission is this: How can we restore true humanity and rehumanize society in a dehumanized world?

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1. The Justice of the Patriarchal Concept

The concept of patriarchy is often the most opposed idea among feminist liberation thinkers. The term originates from Greek and literally means “the rule of the father.” However, this is not a concept invented by feminist thinkers—it existed before. Even Jesus’ prayer includes this idea: “Our Father who art in heaven…”

Adrienne Rich 1 gives a detailed explanation of patriarchy:

“Patriarchy is the power of men. It is an ideological-political system where men determine what women should and should not do—through power, coercion, tradition, law, etiquette, and education. Under patriarchy, women may live behind veils, drive trucks, serve coffee to husbands every morning, or attend university graduations. Regardless of age, status, or economic class, women live under male dominance. Only when women pay the necessary price to gain male approval do they receive privileges and influence within the narrow bounds patriarchy allows.”

Kate Millett 2 puts it more simply:

“In our society, all roads to power are entirely in male hands.”

From this perspective, any society in which men exercise control over women is patriarchal. 3

Socialist liberationists describe patriarchy with these key features 4:

1. It encompasses the totality of social relations of male dominance and female subordination.
2. It exists across all societies and modes of production.
3. It is a hierarchical system in which men are empowered to dominate and reproduce male control.
4. It transcends class, creating solidarity among men.
5. Its relationship with modes of production (or class relations) is interpreted differently depending on the feminist theory (liberal, Marxist, radical).

Still, there’s a risk in over-conceptualizing. True feminism should move beyond humanism to a theocentric view, focused on restoring the humanity given equally in God’s original creation.

Thus, patriarchal ideology may be seen as ideological conservatism that seeks to preserve one sex’s superiority over another.

To overcome the dehumanization of human community through gender discrimination, we need collective consciousness between men and women. To begin, we must ask:

1. How do we understand ourselves and the world in our daily lives?
2. How have our identities been formed?
3. Why do we see the world the way we do?

H. Richard Niebuhr’s words help guide us:

“The knowledge of self depends on recognizing that we are social, interdependent selves seeking our place in a multicultural world.”

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2. The Will to Reform Gender Discrimination

Current gender discrimination continues to deny women justice, equality, and freedom. That is, women are not granted equal opportunities to participate in society and are treated as outsiders.

We must help oppressed women participate in the discourse that reveals the reality of this oppression. Many women internalize societal norms that oppress them and even reject other women as a result. They become “outsider-insiders”—alienated from the mainstream, yet carrying complex internal contradictions that make them complicit in the very oppression they suffer.

These outsider-insider dynamics can legitimize oppression. Outsiders see that societal norms support unjust structures. Yet, with their religious, historical, and cultural experiences, they can reinterpret norms and forge new understandings that bring about genuine freedom and equality.

This attempt to reinterpret culture is undoubtedly difficult. Peter Berger points out that religion has often served to support oppressive social structures.5 However, on the other hand, religion also challenges these very structures, affirming that before God, all social constructs are merely human inventions.

Berger describes this dual role of religion as both a world-maintaining force and a world-shaking force. Religion maintains stability because of God’s unchanging nature, yet it also challenges oppressive systems, driving reform and justice. Still, we must beware of self-deception—blindly following the idea of a “predetermined path” as if it were divinely ordained.

The humanization of women is the humanization of men, and both are essential for the liberation of all humanity. When balance is lost, reform must take the lead.

3. Difficulties for Women in Pursuit of Equality

Here, I would like to present three dominant narratives that society traditionally holds about women. The following is a summary of Roger G. Betsworth’s analysis 6: In American society, women are commonly perceived in three archetypal roles:

1. Helpmeet (内助者)
2. Inferior being (Women’s Sphere)
3. Romancer

All three serve as representations of the “virtuous woman” and function to maintain male dominance by legitimizing female subordination. A “good woman” is expected to be a helpmeet, uphold her inferior status, and satisfy men’s romantic and sexual expectations.

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1) Viewing women as helpmeets

During America’s colonial period under English rule and the influence of Puritan beliefs, a woman’s role was that of a “helpmeet”—God‑given partner to support her husband. The term “helpmeet” commonly referred to having been taken from Adam’s rib. At Puritan wedding sermons, ministers often stressed: 7

“Our ribs were not ordained to rule, not made as heads to declare superiority, but to be taken from his side so he may live as an equal partner.”

A good man regarded his wife as a companion and helper in sharing life’s burdens, and a virtuous woman revered her husband as her head.

However, note that this supposed “equality” implied equality in labor, not in status. Women were expected to milk cows, go to market, weave cloth, sew, store grain, and engage in barter. Their domain was the household, which served as the economic center. They typically bore eight children, trained them in morality, and led pious lives. Women also cared for the sick, orphans, and the poor sent to their homes for respectability, and maintained the household’s ties to the church. Despite fulfilling public and economic responsibilities, being companions in marriage, and caring for church and community, women lacked basic rights: they couldn’t vote, speak publicly, teach or preach in church, or own property.

Nevertheless, colonial women embraced some idea of equality, inspired by Paul’s letters to the Galatians. They noted Titus’s allowance for female teachers, and recognized the presence of female prophets in Corinth and women figures in the Hebrew Bible. This tension existed between Puritan beliefs about women and scriptural interpretations.

As H. Richard Niebuhr wrote in The Meaning of Revelation: 8

“Our past is our present, in our conscious and unconscious memories… Understanding that past‑present is understanding ourselves, upon which we build our lives.”

Uncovering historical examples and mindsets of gender discrimination in Korea contributes to this study by providing context and awareness.

In Korea, where Confucius’s dictum—“Do not educate women or petty people”—was accepted as moral truth, women were regarded as little more than domestic animals, valued only for two functions: bearing sons and managing household affairs. Women were not allowed to possess intellectual capacity, emotional depth, or moral discernment. In fact, an ideal woman was expected to be as sensorially numb as possible—unable to see, hear, or even feel.

In the past, during wedding ceremonies, brides would have honey smeared on their eyelids to glue them shut, preventing them from seeing. Their ears were plugged with cotton, and a jujube seed was placed in their mouth to be bitten down on—measures symbolizing that they were not to listen, speak, or smile. Such customs epitomized the cultural ideal of rendering women into inert, voiceless objects. In the early Goryeo period, women were even referred to by the term saenggu (生口), a word denoting beings that were living yet subhuman.

Yi Gyutae investigated this term and noted:

“The word ‘saenggu’ most appropriately describes a living creature traded like cattle or horses. It marks a transitional phase in humanism, bridging animal and human. In China, the term originally referred to livestock such as cows, horses, and sheep. Over time, it came to denote not just animals but also degraded humans who were sold purely for their labor, forming a category that included humans, cows, and horses. In the historical texts such as the Book of Wei’s section on Goguryeo, the term appears repeatedly, indicating that over time, its meaning shifted from ‘human, cow, and horse’ to simply ‘a degraded human subject to trade.’” 9

This implies a horrifying cultural assumption: that women, too, were regarded as nothing more than useful livestock. The perception of women in Korean history remained stagnant at this level for centuries. Just as it would have been considered absurd to teach cows or horses to read, so too was the idea of educating women considered ludicrous. Women were valued most highly when they were uneducated, unthinking, and docile—akin to a well-behaved ox.

Patriarchy, as both a social structure and moral ideology, externally reinforced the animalization of women, while simultaneously fostering internalized acceptance of that identity among women themselves. In other words, women were not only turned into household slaves but were also trained to embrace that role. In traditional Korea, girls were essentially students being groomed for servitude within the domestic sphere.

By the age of ten, girls were taught to read basic Korean script (eonmun) and memorize Confucian moral codes such as the Samgang haengsil do (Illustrated Guide to the Three Bonds). In autumn and winter, they spun thread; in spring and summer, they cultivated mulberry trees and raised silkworms to weave fabric. By age ten, they were confined to the inner quarters of the home, forbidden to be seen by guests. By age fourteen or fifteen, they were not to engage with merchants, nor even male relatives, unless accompanied by immediate family. During ancestral rites, women performed bows (sabae) behind screens or from half-open doors, hidden from the male participants.

These customs are documented in Sanrim Gyeongje, a book written by scholar Hong Man-seon (1664–1715) during the Joseon dynasty. Even among upper-class families, women’s education was focused primarily on moral discipline, modest literacy, and domestic skills—all reinforcing their subjugation. It was not education in the liberating sense, but a form of self-cultivation for enslavement. 10

In this context, the term saenggu referred to transitional beings—beyond animals, not yet fully human. The history of Korean girls is, in many ways, a history of saenggu, for they were often the most valuable commodities in familial exchanges.

There were five common ways girls were bought and sold:

1. As ritual sacrifices (saengchip): like scapegoats in the West, girls were offered to deities to appease divine wrath or ensure safe travel at sea.
2. As funerary offerings (sunjang): when noblemen died, young girls were purchased and buried alive with them. In Buyeo, it is recorded that 100 girls were entombed with a single aristocrat.
3. As political currency: girls were sold through slave documents (nobi mun-gwon) to purchase governmental positions.
4. As legal substitutes: daughters were handed over to the authorities in exchange for leniency on a father’s criminal sentence. A well-known case is Bae Jeong-ja, a girl sold to a state brothel to save her father from punishment.
5. As tax: in some regions, girls were offered as human taxes.

In Northern provinces, daughters were even more prized than sons. Sons were entered into military registries and conscripted for labor or military service. Girls, on the other hand, could be sold to southern merchants at a good price, making them more economically valuable to struggling households.

One of the most widely accepted frameworks for women’s conduct in Joseon was the Chilgeojiak (Seven Grounds for Divorce), as cited in Sanrim Gyeongje: disobedience to in-laws, infertility, adultery, jealousy, chronic illness, theft, and excessive talkativeness. These were considered legitimate grounds for a husband to expel his wife. Of these, jealousy—though natural to human emotion—was particularly condemned. In Gyenyeoseo (Instructions for Women), the scholar Song Si-yeol taught that a woman must never show jealousy, even if her husband took a hundred concubines. She must treat his lovers with courtesy and never express anger.

Alongside Gyenyeoseo, other instructional texts such as Naehun (Domestic Teachings), Yeollyeojun (Biographies of Chaste Women), and Yogyomyeonggam (Mirror of Female Teachings) were commonly taught to girls. These books upheld the Three Obediences (to father, husband, and son), and the Five Moral Relations. In 1481, Samgang Haengsil and Yeollyeodo (Portraits of Chaste Women) were published in Korean and distributed to women across the country. In 1523, Sohak was also translated and disseminated. During the reign of King Injo, Oryun-ga (Songs of the Five Moral Duties) became popular among women, and in the 7th year of King Sukjong, Gyeongminpyeon was written to further regulate women’s behavior.11

The establishment of Soongui Girls’ School in Pyongyang—founded by Pastor Lee Gil-ham in a traditional tile-roofed house—marked a shift. The Methodist Church founded Bae Hwa School in 1898, initiated by Mrs. Dr. Reed with two female and three male students in a home-tutoring setting. Jung Hwa School began in 1908 in Gaeseong with seven students. On April 28 of the same year, Dongdeok School opened in a small room of a thatched-roof house in Seoul with six girls. The first female student of Ewha Haktang, Mrs. Kim, studied only English, while the second, Boksoon, studied only the Bible.

It wasn’t until 1889—three years after its founding—that Ewha offered basic literacy in Korean, writing, composition, and letter writing. By 1891, music and organ lessons were added, and in 1892, home economics became part of the curriculum. However, these early schools often perpetuated traditional gender ideologies, reproducing rather than challenging patriarchal norms.

Some schools even included books like Women’s Codes of Conduct by Kwon Soon-gu, which compiled lessons traditionally taught to girls in inner chambers. These included: 12

1. Serving one’s in-laws
2. Maintaining harmony with in-laws and siblings
3. Avoiding jealousy
4. Accepting poverty with grace
5. Loving the son of a husband’s former wife
6. Preserving chastity
7. Avenging the deaths of one’s parents

Interestingly, the Gospel of Mark—the earliest written Gospel—portrays male disciples as failures while highlighting the faithfulness of female followers. All Synoptic Gospels affirm that women were the first witnesses of the resurrection, though the male disciples initially denied their testimony. Luke’s Gospel also emphasizes the active presence of female disciples during Jesus’s public ministry. Paul’s letters frequently acknowledge the contributions of female leaders in the early church’s missionary work.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza points out that the early Christian movement must have held significant appeal for women, in light of Jesus’ radical teachings in Mark 10:43–44: “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all.” Likewise, Paul’s declaration in Galatians 3:28—“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”—represents a stark challenge to patriarchal norms.

It is therefore evident that the hierarchical, patriarchal structure of the early church—and its theological justification—constituted a form of self-deception, inconsistent with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.

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2) Seeing women as an inferior status makes equal partnership impossible

Take the example of “Borittei-gi”, 버리떼기 13 —names given to abandoned baby girls. In Korean, “son” (男) often generically denotes “child”; a boy was considered the default. Girls, in Nietzsche’s words, were seen as “superfluous,” and in Sartre’s terms, as “sacrificial.” The very language reflected female inferiority.

For example:

• On Siheung’s Suam Mountain, tradition recorded that when families gave birth to girls, mothers would abandon the newborns at a hill called “Bleeding Pass” to appease a local spirit, hoping that the next child would be a boy.14
• On the southern coast, newborn girls were left on the doorstep of a large family and then taken in by women promised to have many sons—this practice became normalized, and the girls were named “Borittei.”
• At a Myeongdong orphanage established in 1881, a Catholic sister noted that nearly all the women’s orphans were girls, abandoned at night, sometimes four per night, averaging over 100 per year. 15
• A family‑education textbook published in 1914 by Namgung‑eok, a Korean enlightenment figure, began with chapters titled “How to Serve Parents‑in‑Law” and “How to Serve One’s Husband,” reflecting overt gender bias. 16

Thus, a woman’s identity was often considered purely a support to the success of a man. As democratic ideals spread, they undermined Puritan patriarchal beliefs, but women were still valued primarily for purity, piety, love, and sacrifice—all traits celebrated within relationships to men. A woman was evaluated less as an individual and more as a mother and wife—the “image of bread-giver.” In essence, she was seen as a shadow, not a person.

At the 1856 women’s rights convention, Susan B. Anthony posed critical questions:

1. How can theology justify a woman being treated as a victim of someone else’s decisions?
2. How can society tolerate oppressive customs stripping women of dignity and modesty?

While marriage is a structure created by men and inherited unfairly by women, Anthony urged that marriages should be equal contractual partnerships. The phrase “separate but equal” was used to dominate women—while separated, they were never truly equal, as men defined their roles and identities.

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3) Seeing women as romantic dreamers rather than equals

Sociologists today describe modern women as sophisticated, trustworthy, and capable. Yet this image of happiness still ties a woman’s identity to romance. A “complete woman” is pictured as participating in golf, PTA, or little league with her husband, and maintaining a comfortable marital bedroom. A wife is a companion and sexual partner.

Yet this comes at the cost of loneliness and isolation. When a woman’s identity is defined by others—husband or children—she can never truly grow. Her sense of self is biologically determined rather than rooted in God‑given human worth. Women must discover their own paths to identity.

On the topic of abortion, theologian Beverly Wildung Harrison asked in 1983:

“Who controls the power of reproducing the species?”

In patriarchal society, men have historically held that power. Today, women are awakening to the reality that the moral issue is not abortion itself, but childbirth and who has authority over it.

As H. Richard Niebuhr noted:

“I am social; the fundamental form of the social self is face‑to‑face in community, where unrestricted commitments shape rules, and the full range of my existence is determined by membership.”

In patriarchal society, the image of woman-as-person is overshadowed by the enduring position of woman-as-outsider.

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4) The “four complaints” of women from the 1930s era – a case of discrimination 17

Up to the 1930s, educated women were not viewed as social assets—they were outsiders. The era’s “four complaints” about educated women explain this bias:

1. They were useless.
2. They were wasteful pleasure-seekers.
3. They were arrogant.
4. They didn’t want to bear children.

A common saying was: “They’re not like potatoes—you can’t pull them up easily.” In surveys of male high-school graduates, only 18% preferred wives educated in girls’ schools—the rest cited parental expectations and fears of family conflict, often attributing it to the women not wanting to bear children. This distrust and social pressure caused emotional suffering. Some women reacted via runaway escapes (akin to Nora in A Doll’s House), prostitution, or even suicide. In 1928, 23% of suicides among women were graduates of girls’ schools—a horrific ratio, highlighting the pain of conflicting identities among educated women.

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5) Discovering love beyond biology and roles

Unicellular organisms reproduce asexually, without sex. Biologist Jean Rostand discovered an affectionate mating behavior in freshwater protozoa: two unicellular creatures fuse, exchange cellular contents, then separate. It isn’t sexual reproduction—but an act of bonding, purification, and mutual respect. Rostand argued for acknowledging love beyond reproduction.

Korean women historically lived under strict norms forbidding expressions of affection—not to husband, nor even to children. Apart from childbirth, all sexuality was taboo—and that taboo was praised as female virtue.

Human history is marked by oppression through domination. Yet sexuality between sexes has been twisted and used to oppress. Many women—especially from colonized nations or dual-culture families—have endured sexual violence and coercion. The time has come to address the plight of Korean women drawn into prostitution and sex tourism. It’s a severe social pathology born of deep-rooted gender discrimination.

4. The Comfort Women under Japanese Imperial Rule

The institutionalization of prostitution in Korea began in earnest under Japanese imperialism. In 1916, the Japanese colonial government issued the Regulations for the Control of Licensed Brothel Business and Prostitutes, leading to the establishment of licensed brothels (public brothel system, or 公娼制度) across the country and the legalization of prostitution. In Confucian Korea, where such acts were culturally taboo, fierce resistance movements emerged to abolish this system, which was viewed as a colonial policy to erode Korean national culture. However, these efforts were brutally suppressed by Japanese authorities. Thus, Japanese imperialism was deeply complicit in the prostitution of Korean women.

After the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 and until Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, the tragedy of unmarried Korean women reached a peak. From early to late 1938, the Japanese mobilized government-approved matchmakers to lure Korean women with false promises, ultimately forcing them into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers on the Chinese mainland. It is estimated that 30,000 to 40,000 Korean women were deceived and coerced in this manner.

By 1941, quotas were assigned to each village for the recruitment of comfort women. In that year alone, around 10,000 Korean women were forced into sexual slavery under threat and deception by the Japanese Governor-General’s office to serve troops stationed along the border with Manchuria. The total number of Korean women forcibly taken under the name of “voluntary service corps” (정신대/挺身隊) is estimated to be around 200,000, of whom approximately 50,000 to 70,000 were exploited as “comfort women.”

After launching the Pacific War on December 8, 1941, Japan initially saw a string of victories, advancing into the Malay Peninsula and Burma. However, from late 1942, they began retreating under Allied counterattacks. During this period, all Japanese military units deployed to the southern front maintained comfort stations. Beginning in 1942, women were publicly forced into service under the name of the “Women’s Volunteer Labor Corps,” and by August 1944, under the so-called “Women’s Volunteer Labor Act,” they were legally conscripted through state power. 18

The author of Military Comfort Women includes testimonies from Korean women who were dragged into military camps as laundry workers and later forced into sexual slavery. One survivor reported that even during air raids, sexual violence occurred in air-raid shelters. At the Gogo-po Comfort Station in Rabaul, on the western part of New Britain Island near New Guinea, a single comfort woman was reportedly made to serve up to 90 Japanese soldiers in a single day.

As the Japanese army retreated, they abandoned these women, who were left to die from disease and starvation. In some cases, even if captured, the women were massacred by Japanese troops to cover up the crimes. Most horrifying is the fact that the Japanese military systematically destroyed nearly all records related to the “comfort women” to conceal the atrocities. Both perpetrators and victims have often refused to publicly disclose the truth, making it extremely difficult to fully investigate what happened.

Because these crimes were never subjected to historical judgment, contemporary imperialists continue to exploit Korean women through various forms of sexual violence—such as so-called “kisaeng tourism” (기생관광)—thus perpetuating a modern, economic version of the “comfort women” system.

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5. Self-Abuse Among Women

A representative example of women abusing other women is seen in the traditional conflict between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. It is commonly assumed across many societies that such conflict is universal, but not every household experiences it to the same degree. In some families, the situation becomes so severe that it results in either the daughter-in-law being forced to leave the household or the mother-in-law moving in with another son. This intra-familial abuse by women against other women is a shadow that remains in Korean modern history and reflects a deep-rooted psychological imprint that must be acknowledged and addressed through intentional reflection and training.

In the patriarchal Korean society, women were educated to accept male dominance, especially among upper-class families (yangban). It was often the mother-in-law who took sole responsibility for training the daughter-in-law, often through severe mistreatment. The resentment felt by daughters-in-law toward their mothers-in-law only intensified over time and, after the death of the mother-in-law, that resentment was often redirected to the next daughter-in-law, continuing the cycle. 19

There is even a traditional saying that the degree of a daughter-in-law’s hatred toward her mother-in-law could be measured by how quickly the fire poker (used in the kitchen hearth) wore down from use. The faster it wore down, the more intense the daughter-in-law’s hatred was thought to be. In elite households, daughters were taught before marriage never to burn the fire poker too quickly—a custom rooted in this very idea.

Thus, the deeply ingrained issue of abusive relations between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law is a prime example of how women can perpetuate abuse against other women. The human rights of daughters-in-law were often sacrificed under Confucian traditions such as “once married, no longer part of her birth family” (출가외인) and “respect for elders” (장유유서). This issue must be addressed through women’s self-awareness and consciousness-raising.

However, such consciousness-raising among women cannot be achieved without the cooperation and basic understanding of men regarding women’s human rights. Therefore, the education and awareness of men must also precede or accompany efforts toward women’s liberation.

[Notes]

1. Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: W.W. Norton, 1976), pp. 57–58.
2. Kate Millett, Sexual Politics (New York: Avon Books, 1971), p. 25.
3. Hester Eisenstein, Contemporary Feminist Thought, trans. Han Jung-ja, Modern Feminist Thought (Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press, 1986), p. 42.
4. Linda Burnham and Miriam Louie, A Marxist Critique of Socialist Feminism, trans. Kim Hye-kyung and Kim Ae-ryeong, in Issues in Feminist Liberation Theory (Seoul: Taeam Publishing, 1989), pp. 151–152.
5. Peter L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books, 1969), pp. 3–51.
6. Roger G. Betsworth, Social Ethics: An Examination of American Moral Traditions (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990).
7. Rosemary Skinner Keller, “New England Women: Ideology and Experience in First-Generation Puritanism (1630–1650),” in Ruether and Keller, eds., Women and Religion in America, vol. 2, pp. 132–192; Mary P. Ryan, Womanhood in America, p. 4.
8. Archie Smith, Jr., The Relational Self: Ethics and Therapy from a Black Church Perspective (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1982), p. 79.
9. Lee Kyu-tae, The Structure of Korean Women’s Consciousness, vol. 2: Women’s Liberation and the Enlightenment Period (Seoul: Shinwon Munhwasa, 1993), p. 60.
    Note: The word saeng-gu (생구) originated in ancient China to refer to useful livestock such as cows, horses, and sheep. When adopted into Korean usage, it extended to include women, grouping them with beasts of burden.
10. Ibid., vol. 1: Saeng-gu or Human Being?, pp. 69–70.
11. Ibid., pp. 71–72.
12. Ibid., pp. 85–88.
13. Ibid., vol. 2: Women’s Liberation and the Enlightenment Period, pp. 30–31, 14–15.
14. Ibid., pp. 14–18.
15. Ibid., p. 17.
16. Ibid., vol. 1: Saeng-gu or Human Being?, p. 116.
17. Ibid., vol. 1: Saeng-gu or Human Being?, pp. 131–134.
18. Women’s Volunteer Corps under Japanese Rule, EYC Women’s Resources, 1982.
19. Lee Kyu-tae, Ibid., p. 152.