IM YUNJIDANG
She argues that a socially assigned role cannot set the limit of moral and intellectual potential, and that women can pursue sagehood through learning and self-cultivation.
Other names and spellings
임윤지당 · 윤지당 · 任允摯堂 · Yunjidang · Im Yun-ji-dang · Lim Yunjidang
Core ideas
Works & sources
Yunjidang yugo
IM YUNJIDANG, a first reading
Im Yunjidang was a woman Neo-Confucian philosopher of late Joseon. At a time when advanced learning and the path to sagehood were rarely open to women, she explored moral nature and self-cultivation in writings later collected as Yunjidang yugo.
Women's capacity for sagehood: what does it mean?
Yunjidang argued that because the moral nature bestowed by Heaven does not differ by gender, women too can learn, cultivate themselves, and attain the highest moral achievement of sagehood. A sage here is the Confucian ideal of a person who overcomes selfish desires and embodies the proper Way, not merely an innately gifted genius. Her claim expanded women's intellectual and moral possibilities from within a late Joseon Neo-Confucian framework; it should not be recast as a rejection of the entire gender order in the modern political sense.
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