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The target period of this study was the "Period of United States Military Government". This was the brief period from the declaration of military government by the U.S. Force stationed in the southern part of the Korean peninsula, with the unconditional surrender of the Imperial Japanese Army until the establishment of the Republic of Korea as an independent entity on August 15, 1948. Despite its brevity, this period has been recognized as important, during which basic frameworks of capitalist economy and national authority were founded.
This study explores women's lives and activities during the period and examines how the period restricted and reflected women's lives and activities. The content of the study is summarized as follows:
The major trends that are significant during the period for women are: the expansion of education and acquiring of franchise by women. These were not a result of the women's movement, but of the policy of the US military government that claimed to establish and preserve "democratic order". The crucial problem at the time was, how women should utilize the given opportunities.
Under the US military government, which advocated a liberal-democratic system, many changes were generated in consciousness along with changes in life style and other patterns. In particular, "equal rights between men and women" was thought of as a public value. Therefore the realization of "equal rights" was considered as a prerequisite for democratic order. In other words, the period was recognized as one of women's liberation from oppressive bonds, coinciding with liberation from Japanese Imperial Rule.
In this period, western liberal culture was rapidly influencing South Korea and women's consciousness was thus also changed. Under these influences, a new image was emerging and making an impact on family structure. This was the image of progressive couples, wherein attempts were made to promote a new relationship of understanding and love between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law who had traditionally been in conflict in the pre-modern family.
During this period women became very active participants in social spheres. In politics, women's activities in creating a nation state were significant. This was evident in the work of organizations in the women's movement. Their activities, however, were restricted by conflict between right and left wing political groups who were in acute confrontation with each other over the issue of deciding on a future direction for a new Korean nation state. This inevitably led to women's organizations focusing their energies on the establishment of the nation state, the hot issue of the period, and consequently, they abandoned the specific goals of the women's movement.
In the meantime women who had obtained the right to vote could become the subjects as well as the objects of national politics, for instance, women took an active part in policy-making and there were 18 women candidates in the May 10th election under the military government. However, there were several barriers in women's becoming active agents in politics, for example, traditional concepts of "politics is a man's job", a distrust of women's abilities and so on. The May 10th election was a memorable moment, when women used their votes for the first time in Korea and realized the aforementioned problems once again. While women failed to advance to the forefront of politics, yet this was a good opportunity for them to grapple with ways and means for reducing the barriers hindering women's political participation, while they critically reviewed their past activities.
In economic sectors, women were active participants. The change in their economic situation during the period was two-fold and can be characterized as follows: First, there was a quantitative increase of women workers, as till then occupations open to women had been limited for a few "new (modern) women" and subsequently became open to the ge

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