In 1977 the prestigious Ewha Women’s University in
Seoul, Korea, announced the opening of the first
women’s studies program in Asia. Few academic
programs have ever received such public attention. In
(5) broadcast debates, critics dismissed the program as a
betrayal of national identity, an imitation of Western
ideas, and a distraction from the real task of national
unification and economic development. Even supporters
underestimated the program ; they thought it would be
(10) merely another of the many Western ideas that had
already proved useful in Asian culture, akin to airlines,
electricity, and the assembly line. The founders of the
program, however, realized that neither view was
correct. They had some reservations about the appli-
(15) cability of Western feminist theories to the role of
women in Asia and felt that such theories should be
closely examined. Their approach has thus far yielded
important critiques of Western theory, informed by the
special experience of Asian women.
(20) For instance, like the Western feminist critique of the
Freudian model of the human psyche, the Korean
critique finds Freudian theory culture-bound, but in
ways different from those cited by Western theorists.
The Korean theorists claim that Freudian theory
(25) assumes the universality of the Western nuclear, male-
headed family and focuses on the personality formation
of the individual, independent of society, An analysis
based on such assumptions could be valid for a highly
competitive, individualistic society. In the Freudian
(30) family drama, family members are assumed to be
engaged in a Darwinian struggle against each other—
father against son and sibling against sibling. Such a
concept of projects the competitive model of Western
society onto human personalities. But in the Asian
(35) concept of personality there is no ideal attached to indi
vidualism or to the independent self. The Western model
of personality development does not explain major char-
acteristics of the Korean personality, which is social and
group-centered. The “self” is a social being defined by
(40) and acting in a group, and the well-being of both men
and women is determined by the equilibrium of the
group, not by individual self-assertion. The ideal is one
of interdependency.
In such a context, what is recognized as “depen-
(45) dency” in Western psychiatric terms is not, in Korean
terms, an admission of weakness or failure. All this bears
directly on the Asian perception of men’s and women’s
psychology because men are also “ dependent”, In
Korean culture, men cry and otherwise easily show their
(50) emotions, something that might be considered a betrayal
of masculinity in Western culture. In the kinship-based
society of Korea, four generations may live in the same
house, which means that people can be sons and daugh-
ters all their lives, whereas in Western culture, the roles
of husband and son, wife and daughter, are often incom-
patible.