The formation of modern womanhood in East Asia, 1880--1920: American evangelical gender ideology and modern nation-building

In the late nineteenth century, East Asia experienced a pivotal momentum for the development of feminist consciousness. Challenging traditional family systems and social restraints against women, Asian male reformers and Protestant missionaries worked together to improve women's status in pursuit of social progress toward civilization. Both groups advocated women's education and gender equality before Asian women's involvement in the creation of new female subjectivity. Asian nationalist desires for modernizing the country coincided with the evangelical enthusiasm of Protestant missionaries for civilizing Asian societies and their women.;However, the Asian formation of gender frameworks does not mean that Asian women had shared experience to define themselves, regardless of geographical variations and political complexities. 'twentieth-century imperialism changed the paradoxical situation of East Asia in which all three societies saw the alliance of Asian male reformers and Protestant missionaries for modernizing women. The successful inauguration of a Japanese empire drove Asian women into diverse forms of patriotism in East Asia; while Japanese women were supported for colonizing Asia, Chinese and Korean women were mobilized to resist Japanese colonization. The new ideal of 'educating mother' was encouraged to support the establishment of a modern nation-state, producing varying meanings and functions in the region. Patriotic motherhood also compelled Protestant missionaries to negotiate with traditional gender ideologies in response to geo-political complexities of East Asia.;This research proposes that the development of Asian feminist consciousness has to be understood in a complex dynamic process of national and self re-definition. At the dawn of modern era, Asian women were not simply traditionalists nor were they simply secular modernists. The interdependent relations among Protestant missionaries, Asian male reformers, and female advocates gives a more complex picture of Asian women and their negotiation of modernity in the construction of new gender identity. In negotiations with their male colleagues and Protestant missionaries, Asian women constructed their own structures and framework of understanding themselves in relation to society.