ABSTRACT
Korean women began to participate in public life during the so-called enlightenment period (1876-1910) by attending church functions, receiving formal education at school, and organizing associations for women. The pioneer generation of women politicians came from the ranks of Christian women who were educated during the Japanese colonization of Korea. When the first National Assembly convened on May 31, 1948, it was an exclusively male gathering. Hwang Ae-dok and Hwang Hyon-suk, two among the eighteen women candidates, later ran again when special elections were held to fill the vacancies created by President Rhee in October, 1948, and Ambassador Chang Myon in March, 1949. The decade of the 1970s also witnessed politically significant events, both domestic and international, for women. In the urgent struggle for national salvation from the enemy, the Confucian ideology of male superiority was replaced by Christian egalitarianism, at least until national independence was won.
