Abstract

Helen Kim (Kim Hwal-lan, 1899–1970) has been well respected as a feminist Christian educator and diplomat: the second Korean woman to receive an American doctoral degree, the first Korean president of Ewha College, a Korean representative to the United Nations and UNESCO, and an evangelist. At the same time, her pro-Japanese activities and support for dictatorship have been roundly criticized. One of her controversial activities involves so-called gisaeng parties, in which Kim mobilized Ewha students and alumni to entertain UN soldiers and officials who were deployed to help the Republic of Korea during the Korean War (1950–1953). Gisaeng is a derogatory term that refers to female entertainers of traditional Korea. These gisaeng parties were connected to Kim’s political activities on behalf of Syngman Rhee (1875–1965), the first president of the Republic of Korea. Rhee often used private connections and settings and women to break through political obstacles, especially in the period leading up to the UN-sponsored elections that established the Republic of Korea in 1948 and during the early years of his rule (1948–1960). Helen Kim, together with a politician and a financier, founded the Emergency Citizens League for Information and Friendly Relations in January 1951 and organized publicity activities, one being gisaeng parties. This paper explores Helen Kim’s publicity campaigns around the Korean War with close attention to female sexuality. How Kim’s Christian and feminist beliefs came into this exploitation of the female body and the feminist understanding of the matter will also be discussed.