최근의 영미 페미니즘 학계에서는 양분법적인 이해에 근거해 젠더와 문화의 관계를 서로 양립할 수 없는 딜레마로 해석한다. 이 연구는 한국의 호주제를 사례로 하여 영미학계의 젠더-문화의 관계에 관한 상호배타적인 해석을 비판한다. 언뜻 보기에 호주제의 존폐를 둘러싼 여성계와 유림계간의 논쟁은 젠더-문화의 딜레마와 닮은 듯해 보인다. 그러나 호주제 논쟁이 구체적인 역사, 사회적 맥락에서 분석된다면 젠더와 문화의 관계는 단순히 대립적이거나 상반되지 않는다. 특히 한국의 가족법 개정운동과 그 속에서 발전된 여성계의 논리와 수사가 탈식민지적, 탈유교주의적, 그리고 신식민지적 맥락에서 고려되었을 때 성평등과 문화보존의 문제는 서로 양립될 수 있는 가능성을 내포한다.

On February 3, 2005, the Constitutional Court in South Korea ruled that the family-head (hoju) system was incompatible with the Constitution. South Korean feminists had criticized the family-head system, arguing that it represented a typical patriarchy under which women were discriminated against in family relationships. In contrast, the advocates of traditional Korean culture-the "Confucians"-had contended that the family-head system was a Korean cultural practice and that custom should be preserved regardless of its patriarchal nature. This controversy between the feminists and the Confucians in the case of the family-head system is rooted in a gender-culture dilemma, one to which current feminist scholarship has paid special attention. In this paper, however, I will argue that the binary understanding of gender and culture, which is a source of the dilemma, inadequately accounts for the case of the family-head system. By analyzing the feminist family-law reform movement and by centering on the feminist logic and the feminist rhetoric developed in the movement, I will show how the relationship between gender and culture is not simply oppositional. I will argue that any rigorous comprehensive analysis of the case must account for the case`s contextual mechanisms. Only in this way can we find compatibility between the demand for gender equality and the quest for cultural preservation.