New Woman and Colonial Materiality: “How To” Articles and Everyday Consumption

This article focuses on materiality as a frame to reanimate analysis of the concept of the “New Woman” in colonial Korea through a review of magazine articles that contain practical guidelines and reports about the daily life and consumption patterns of New Women. While frequently addressed as a subject, many studies about the New Woman focus on their association with education, free love, or their representation by intellectuals as captured in media discussions. In addition to these characteristics, this article positions the New Woman amidst the turbulent era’s urban consumer culture and changing material practices. In popular women’s magazines such as Sinyŏsŏng and Sinyŏja, “How To” articles carried information about how to engage with new commodities such as perfume, umbrellas, and scarves. Other articles observe women’s working and dormitory lives, allowing us to reconstruct their socio-material world, including their new leisure and consumer practices. By focusing on tangible dimensions and material culture, this article illuminates the complexity of New Woman identities, melding their social, cultural, and political positions with transnational consumer culture.