Abstract

The present analysis illuminates the impact of tradition in the constitution of North Korean revolutionary womanhood based on the regime’s idealizing narratives of Joseonot (traditional Korean dress). After the Korean War, the cultivation of socialist personalities for the working Joseon nyeoseong (North Korean women) became increasingly wedded to traditional models of sacrifice, both in and outside the home. To avoid the reductionism of explanations centered on patriarchy or the gendered nature of the North Korean state, this study argues that the pronounced weight of tradition in constructing revolutionary womanhood after the Korean War should be attributed to the pressing urgency of anti-revisionism during the political crisis of legitimacy in the mid-1950s. Faced with mounting dissent in the wake of de-Stalinization, Kim Il-sung claimed exclusive political legitimacy and superior nationalism based on his self-proclaimed mandate to dictate Juche (selfreliance). Accordingly, the aesthetical and ideological attention given to women’s Joseonot represents a facet of socialist indoctrination unique to 1955–1960, rather than a gendered dress code rooted in patriarchy. The formulation of Joseonot as the socialist Korean women’s dress epitomized the interplay between revolutionary and national essence central to Pyongyang’s postcolonial socialist modernity and claim to nation-wide leadership. Throughout the process of regime consolidation, the question of how socialist Joseon nyeoseong is became inseparable from how genuinely Korean she is.