Hyaeweol Choi

There have been many different interpretations of missionary activities, especially regarding the impact of missionary work on indigenous people and cultures. A common view is that Christian missionaries in non-Christian countries brought about modernization by introducing advanced knowledge and technology and liberating indigenous people from superstitions and old customs. This view is particularly common among missionaries themselves and religious organizations that glorify what the church did in bringing about modernity and civilization for the native people. On the other hand, some scholars consider foreign missionaries to be part of a cultural imperialist scheme that only contributed to Western hegemony and to the destruction of indigenous culture and national identity. What has been lacking in these diverse approaches to foreign missions is a gender -specific analysis. Since the 1980s new scholarship has criticized the virtual absence of attention to women missionaries, who had actually become the majority among the mission force by 1890. These new studies explore the activities of women missionaries as distinct from the activities of the men in the mission. The studies shed light on the changing role of women in mission activities, which provided them with unprecedented opportunities to develop their own potential in learning and leadership, opportunities which were not readily available at home. In addition, this new scholarship investigates what concrete impact women missionaries had on the changing role and status of women in indigenous societies. In the case of research studies on the Korea mission, quite a few publications focus on men missionaries and the general history of Christianity in Korea. Very few studies, however, pay close attention to what women missionaries actually did and what influence they had in Korean society, particularly in the area of changes in the status of women in Korea. Biographical sketches of a few prominent women missionaries are available, but these treatments tend to glorify the women in hagiographic tones as liberators or civilizers of their "heathen sisters." This article is an attempt to understand the activities of the women missionaries who went to Korea at the turn of the century, and a major focus of the article is the educational work of women missionaries. It explores how their discourse on women's education changed over time and what those changes implied for the lives of Korean women. In the article, I argue that women missionaries started with caution in setting up goals for the education of women, emphasizing traditional womanhood centered on domesticity, which would be readily acceptable according to Korean customs. However, as their work progressed and they gained confidence in working with Korean women, they began to be more openly critical of old customs and changed their educational program to the extent that it challenged the traditional ideal of womanhood. This challenge to traditional womanhood was possible not only because of the initiatives of women missionaries but because of the rapidly changing political and cultural situation in Korea. I also argue that the change toward modern womanhood in Korea through mission education was not simply the imposition of Western values. Rather, it stemmed from the cross-cultural experiences of American and Korean women through which both grew to discover more of their own potential.