Modern Women Modernizing Men

Ruth Compton Brouwer

ISBN 10: 0774809531 / ISBN 13: 9780774809535

Published by University of British Columbia Press, CA, 2003

About this Item

During the interwar era, the world of mainstream Protestant missions was in transition. The once-dominant paradigm of separate spheres - "women's work for women" - had lost its saliency, and professional women often entered work worlds largely peopled by men. Medical missionaries Belle Choné Oliver and Florence Murray and literature specialist Margaret Wrong were three such women.Using these women's experiences in colonial India, Korea, and sub-Saharan Africa as case studies, Modern Women Modernizing Men explores how professionalism, religion, and feminism came together to enable missionary women to become the colleagues and mentors of Western and non-Western men. The "modern" Christian woman missionary, the author demonstrates, was in fact more an agent of modernization than an angel of domesticity.This book - a bold exploration of changing gender, professional, and race relations in colonial missionary settings - will be of interest to scholars engaged in gender, women's, and postcolonial studies, as well as to readers interested in the history of the international missionary movement.

Seller Inventory # LU-9780774809535

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Modern Women Modernizing Men
• Publisher: University of British Columbia Press, CA
• Publication Date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0774809531
• ISBN 13: 9780774809535
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 320 grams

About this title

Synopsis

During the interwar era, the world of mainstream Protestant missions was in transition. The once-dominant paradigm of separate spheres – “women’s work for women” – had lost its saliency, and professional women often entered work worlds largely peopled by men. Medical missionaries Belle Choné Oliver and Florence Murray and literature specialist Margaret Wrong were three such women.

Using these women’s experiences in colonial India, Korea, and sub-Saharan Africa as case studies, Modern Women Modernizing Men explores how professionalism, religion, and feminism came together to enable missionary women to become the colleagues and mentors of Western and non-Western men. The “modern” Christian woman missionary, the author demonstrates, was in fact more an agent of modernization than an angel of domesticity.

This book – a bold exploration of changing gender, professional, and race relations in colonial missionary settings – will be of interest to scholars engaged in gender, women’s, and postcolonial studies, as well as to readers interested in the history of the international missionary movement.

About the Author

Ruth Compton Brouwer is Chair of the Department of History, King's College, University of Western Ontario, and author of New Women for God: Canadian Presbyterian Women and India Missions, 1876-1914.