Dangerous Women: Gender and Korean Nationalism

Dangerous Womenaddresses the themes of Korean nationalism and gender construction, as well as various issues related to the colonialization and decolonialization of the Koreannation. Leading scholars discuss how Korea, as a result of years of foreign domination, can still be seen as an "imaginary" and "gendered" nation--as a metaphor, even, for Korean women both there and abroad. Together, these essays explore the troubled category of "woman," placing it in the specific context of a marginalized and colonized nation. Yet Korean women are not configured here merely as metaphors for an emasculated and enfantilized "homeland." They are also shown to be by-products of a problematic gender construction that originates in Korea, and extends even today to Korean communities beyond Asia. Representations of Korean women still attempt to confine them to the status of either mother or prostitute:Dangerous Womenrectifies that construction, offering a feminist interventionthat might recuperate womanhood.