Historically, women definitely were not given respect. My mother was had to fight to go to a university while taking care of all the younger siblings. She was not given any support while her brothers were given everything.
My aunt lived her entire life in servitude for her in-laws family. I remember that my grandfather got angry at her because she wanted to take THREE days off to go travel.
Stories like these aren’t uncommon for older women in Korea. This is depicted In short stories written by Han Kang where women become ‘plants’, a decor in one’s home, stripped of their personalities.
Thankfully, women’s rights have come a long way now. Most girls will be able to go to university if they want to and pursue a professional career without much judgment. That being said, Korea is still behind in many aspects of gender equality, compared to places like NZ.
It’s not all roses either. Very fast changes in society is resulting in conflicts. Gender conflict in Korea is at all times high now. To give an example, 20s men are more likely to be right wing as left wing parties in Korea usually includes women’s right activists.
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2021/09/703_316067....
Are there English translations available? I will definitely like to read these.
Although, I find it going too easy on patriarchy.
In oppressive patriarchies, women are:
- servants during the day doing the cooking, cleaning, child-bearing, washing, taking care of the previous generation, etc.
- prostitutes during the night.
I don't have any reference point for South Korea, but i know of such stories in western Europe (like France) although it was much more common one or two generations ago. Not to say everything is so bad around here, but just don't trust State propaganda that all is good :)
> 20s men are more likely to be right wing as left wing parties in Korea usually includes women’s right activists
That's a worrying development, although the same kind of political reaction can be found in many places across history. Do you know of good english/french resources to follow Korean politics from an intersectional perspective?
I don't know any atm which unfortunate because our political history is super interesting as we've gone through so much in the last 60 years. I'm sure there are some good articles around.
- Because of North Korea, most of our early political history was dominated by anti-communist ideology and strong nationalism.
- Also anti-japanese sentiment is one of the best way to gain politicial good will, so both the right wing and left wing accuse each other of being pro-japanese. There is even a dictionary that supposedly tracks of all the "pro-japanese" families/ people.
- You can see these two main sentiments in play whenever Koreans talk about Park Chung-hee, probably the most controversial dictator in Korea. He is idolised by right wingers as the person who lead the economic development; and demonised by left wingers as a ruthless dictator and as a pro-japanese.
This two themes have been the main themes of political conflict in Korea before 2000 (and they still are). But for younger generation, the main conficts now are inequality (house prices, labour rights, corruption) and gender (abysmal birthrate, marriage rate, just lots of hate in all internet forums).
It used to be Koreans wouldn’t date Japanese out of hate but with few exceptions not many would refuse to date someone because they are Japanese (as business people or exchange students of each other and so on)
In any case, it doesn’t make sense to be anti Japanese since they’re basically on the same team these days: democracies who aim to keep their economies vital in the face of competition as well as declining fertility rates and also who must contend with a regional hegemon.
Maybe the old shintoburi is still going strong though.
In particular, the southeast region (Gyungsangdo - GSD) is the core of the right-wing, and the southwest region (Jeollado - JLD) is the core of the left-wing. I really cringe at using the words "right" and "left" here because South Korean politics doesn't neatly align with what many Westerners would think of when hearing those terms. But for lack of better terminology...
In any case, the earlier presidents (or quasi-dictators) hailed from GSD and overtly favoritized their home provinces in terms of economic development, etc. while leaving JLD less developed. This has led to resentments that reflect in politics that persist to this day.
Some would argue the rivalry goes back even further. Historical texts exist that describe animosity between the GSD and JLD regions back into the Joseon dynasty. Going back even further, the GSD and JLD regions were the rival and enemy kingdoms of Shilla and Baekje respectively, the former which eventually conquered the latter.
It used to be that it was even taboo to marry across GSD-JLD lines, but again, this mainly affects the older generations. Personally - while I am Korean-American, my family comes from GSD. My wife is from JLD. My dad is on the conservative spectrum in terms of Korean politics and I was initially worried what he would think when I introduced my then-girlfriend to my parents for the first time. Thankfully it was a total nothingburger and my now-wife and my parents get along absolutely fine.
Unfortunately I can't find it now though; it was very insightful.
The sentiment is not non-existent in Korea itself too though. In fact, in some discussions of recent military developments by the RoK (plans for a aircraft carrier, SLBMs, F-35 and/or KF-X fighters, etc.) it's often touted by these folks that they are just as meant to be pointed towards Japan as they are to North Korea or China.
This needs some quantification. The world chinil (친일), while literally "pro-Japanese", has a very specific meaning: it means Koreans who collaborated with the Japanese government during Japan's colonial rule over Korea.
That is, the dictionary in question doesn't enumerate those who liked Japan: it's a dictionary of Koreans who served or otherwise helped Japan's rule over Korea. Perhaps "dictionary of national traitors" would be a better translation. Also it's a civilian project and your name (or your grandparent's name) being in the dictionary won't block you from anything, including getting elected/hired in government positions. The only thing it does is to record history and remind some people of the crimes of their ancestors.
"South Korea has the highest gender wage gap among the wealthy countries. Less than one-fifth of its national lawmakers are women. Women make up only 5.2 percent of the board members of publicly listed businesses, compared with 28 percent in the United States.
"And yet, most young men in the country argue that it is men, not women, in South Korea who feel threatened and marginalized. Among South Korean men in their 20s, nearly 79 percent said they were victims of serious gender discrimination, according to a poll in May."
Most of the lawmakers and corporate board members are in their 50s and above. Most of the men who feel that their female peers have been more successful in life, on the other hand, are in their 20s as you mentioned.
Women in Korea begin dropping out of the workforce en masse in their early-to-mid 30s, when they get married and have children. That's the point where the trend flips upside down.
Not really an excuse but it's worth pointing out that South Korea has conscription which women are exempt from
As a simple proof, fertility rate of South Korea has dropped to 0.6. This is lower than countries in war; Korean men have to serve military for about 2 years in their 20s, and Korea is the least country pay respect to soldiers. I think may American would find astonishing how South Korean, especially female, like to make fun and deride them. During young mens serve military, female develop their own youth culture, and get used to a very twisted view on the society in terms of gender.
As a result, popular culture is largely divided in terms of the gender of the audiences. The OP's linked article mentions BTS as one of Korean pop music's success, but ironically, they are not that recognized among Koreans actually; It is a product of those media targetting female audiences.
I think this culture is not 'sustainable', if this is the right term to use. As a result of this political groups (which affects legislation) and weird, disgusting self-view and society-view of females, well, fertility rate is dropping at unprecedented rate.
As a male South Korean citizen in my 40s, I always find it funny and sad that those young men, being dragged to the army for two years by the government, decide "This proves that all those feminists are up to no good! Why shouldn't the girls suffer in the army as well?"
I find most of my Korean male friends who are now in late 20s to be very surprisingly anti-feminists. The degree seems to worsen the less well off they are and honestly and I can see why. Korea really defines what it means to be successful. For a normal non-elite guy who has had no family wealth, he would be treated the same or less than girls growing up. He would have to go through gruelling job market to get a job with shitty pay after his military service. Now that he is in late 20s, he realises that traditional success is nigh un achievable. His life has been really hard for him. He never felt girls around him were treated worse than him. They were able to study and prep for job market while he was toiling away in the army. But yet feminists are telling him that he should feel bad, and are advocating for policies that benefits girls. At that point he says, “If you want to get those benefits, you should work for it by going to the army as well.”
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely believe that women’s right still need to improve. Whenever I suggest this, I just get brushed off that I just don’t know what it’s like as I don’t live there anymore. I just think those guys need to be heard properly, and I suspect the best way to resolve this conflict is to make Korea a better place to live for them: shorter or no army service, better culture around success and more distribution of wealth.
Maybe it’s already too late, looking at the birth rate though.
And of course there's a K-drama about that -- D.P.
As for society though, South Korea is one of the least gender equal societies amongst developed nations [1].
Korea also has one of the highest rates of voyeurism, there is teams deployed by the city to check public toilets for spy cams with infrared lights [2][3]
And then you have repeated scandals like nth room, a bizarre modern-day sex slavery operation with hundreds of thousands of customers which made the me too movement a bigger thing.
And (I can‘t say whether this is accurate though) apparently there is a growing anti-feminism sentiment like in many countries, where especially younger men label feminists as men haters, and get in turn mocked with certain hand gestures.
So pretty heated to say the least
[1] https://www.economist.com/business/2021/03/05/is-the-lot-of-...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/southkorea-women-rights-idUS...
This is probably not true. Korea is one of the only societies in which voyeurism is a top political issue for women. The police teams deployed to public restrooms to find hidden cameras have IIRC only found one, after searching 10s or 100s of thosands of restrooms. Their existence is not evidence for a high rate of female victimization, but rather evidence that female issues are being taken ever more seriously.
Also quoting the wiki article:
> In June 2021, Human Rights Watch named South Korea as the number one country in the world for spy cam use
So yes, it probably is true.
I don’t know much about South Korea, but I disagree with your usage of the Glass Ceiling Index as proof of a generally unequal society.
Like, representation in movies has nothing to do with gendered expectations in society. Whereas those things might be 99% related in some other cultures.
We've made great strides in women's equality but are still far from being done with the topic.