1950년대 여성노동자와 '공장노동'의 사회적 의미 - 광주전남방직 구술사례를 중심으로

By reconstructing the life experiences of women who worked in the Chonnam Spinning Co. Ltd. in the 1950s, this paper aims at exploring the social meaning of women's work in this period. The results of this case study show that working in a factory in the 1950s provided young women, in contrary to the colonial times of Japan, a better economical basis on which they could be responsible for themselves and their families. For them it also meant an emancipation from the patriarchal wall of agricultural families. From this point of view the factory in the 1950s functioned as a space for 'modern possibilities' for young women. Furthermore the discourse of ‘factory girls' in the 1950s connotates strong social restrictions on women who went from the ‘inside' of the family to the 'outside' of the factory. In comparison to that the 1960s-1970s discourse of the 'female worker' rather contains the social exclusion of blue color women against white color and students. This demonstrates a division process of social discrimination against women. Finally this study suggests the necessity to critically reinterpret the perceived idea that until the Korean War in 1950, women working in the production area were only to keep themselves busy before their marriage and to reevaluate the recent results that it was a new phenomena in the 1950s. This common idea has been produced by a restrictive perspective which has ignored the agricultural work of under class women in- and outside of families.