The labor movement in Korea played an enormously important role in the anticolonial/nationalist movement before 1945 and in the democratization of South Korea. Labor's significance has long been recognized by Korean historians, but most of their studies have been from a class framework that focused on men. As Hwasook Nam, in her new book Women in the Sky, states, women industrial workers (yŏgong)—their struggles, contributions, and issues—have largely been invisible. This is no longer true, however, thanks to Nam's work and that of Chun Soonok, Janice C. H. Kim, Seung-Kyung Kim, Theodore Yoo, and others. Historians now recognize that women were often at the forefront in the movement for labor rights, and for democracy and social justice while dealing with issues of gender. This book provides further evidence of this fact.
Nam's book covers the women in the labor movement from around 1930 to the 2010s. It...
