INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM SERIES
Where Culture Meets Feminism: How Patriarchy Oppresses Korean Women
A deep dive into the book that kicked off South Korea’s ongoing birth strike
The debut novel KIM JIYOUNG, BORN 1982, by Cho Nam-Joo deep dives into the common woman’s experience of life in Korea. It is credited with inspiring the “birth strike” currently being waged by women in that country. I read it to begin to place together the pieces of intersectional oppression and to raise my consciousness. It’s an important read for anyone who keeps an eye on women’s oppression in this fourth wave of feminism, understands the analytical framework of intersectionality, and wants to bring equality to all.
I’ll tell you this regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman: when cultural oppression meets the traditional, white, female feminism we have seen over the previous waves, your eyes need to be opened, ears must be fixed, then step away from your culture into a whole new one to understand what intersectionality means. Only this approach will help you to see the quiet parts out loud. I noted five major areas of cultural oppression for Korean women below, which differ dramatically from western women’s experiences.
Recently, we’ve seen the women of Korea take on the patriarchy with a “birth-strike”, and the government respond by blaming feminism for the country’s decline in birthrate, which I covered in Is Feminism to Blame for Korean Women Taking Down The Patriarchy?. Looking more closely at the plight of this demographic of women via Cho Nam-Joo’s book, we see that Korean women not only are subject to racial discrimination as a minority outside of their country, but have cultural oppressions which appear to be norms within their own community. These norms of oppression are unique and distinct from a western woman’s. What the Korean woman faces is an intersection of cultural oppressions rooted in:
- Gender: there’s a clear difference in how genders are treated and viewed from childhood on, as compared to the western woman’s experience.
- Her role as a woman: Korean society has different expectations of women as compared to what’s expected of women in the west.
- Sexual harassment: is a norm for her and is dealt with very differently — compared to a western woman’s culture.
- The working environment: has a very different feel and look compared to the western woman’s environment — also rooted in her culture.
- Married life: has a unique set of challenges rooted in culture, different to a western woman’s experiences.
Culture around Gender: How Female Oppression Starts from Childhood
To anyone outside of Korea, mealtimes might be an opportunity to connect with family, friends, and enjoy the company of one another. Not for the Korean women. It is at these times that she is reminded (from the time she is old enough to hold a spoon and feed herself) that culturally for her there is a difference between herself and her male siblings. For Kim Jiyoung — the Korean female we follow in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, the author, Cho Nam-Joo writes:
“It was a given that fresh rice hot out of the cooker was served in the order of father, brother, and grandmother. After that perfect pieces of tofu, dumplings, and patties were the brother’s while the girls ate ones that fell apart. The brother had chop-sticks, socks, long underwear, and school lunch bags that matched, while the girls made do with whatever was available.”
Compared to the western woman’s experience, when a girl is old enough to feed herself, learning about gender differences usually occurs with colours, activities, and the direction we are pushed in from a young age. For example, you may remember this as I certainly do: girls are at times given pink things, while boys receive blue. We were often given dolls, while boys were given cars, action men, and dinosaurs. We were encouraged to play with playhouses with lifelike kitchens and ironing boards, while boys were encouraged to play sports. Even as a parent myself now, I see how I have been like this with my own son at times.
Comparing the two socialisations around gender culturally, we can see that while the western woman’s gender socialisation in terms of culture is more based on activities and association with things, for the Korean woman it is based on showing her place in society, as early as possible in her life, and how she needs to fall in line with her place even at the dinner table. She comes after the males, she is not to expect the same treatment with simple things like what she is served to eat, when she is served it, or how she is prepared and provided for when it comes to school. It could be argued that culturally from a young age Korean women are made to feel less than males, more so than western women, and this is embraced into womanhood.
When it comes to intersectional feminism, we must place ourselves in the Korean woman’s shoes, and try to understand how her society works vs. our own, and her position in society — in her culture.
Western women have struggles with their position in society, yes, by way of equal pay, promotion, sexism, and largely to do with how we are treated in environments that can be male dominated. Korean women have this and then some.
Generally speaking, if we are a woman outside of the Korean culture, we do not experience the gender based oppression so vividly from a young age culturally, within our own home — in a way that is embraced by both sexes, even our own mothers. As we dive deeper into young Kim Jiyoung’s story, we learn that subconsciously she had an idea that things “were not fair” but “that’s how it always was.” She and her sister were always made to share, while her brother was singled out and allowed to have “his own,” even down to something as simple as an umbrella.
How the Maternal Figures Endorse Female Oppression from Childhood
For the young Korean girl, the author goes on to show how deeply embedded in the culture the male above female ideology is. Kim Jiyoung’s mum’s response to providing more adequately for her son, before or even above her daughters, is highlighted in the reflections Kim Jiyoung has as a girl, the author writes:
“Jiyoung’s mother would praise the girls for taking good care of their brother and not competing for her love. The more the mother praised the more it became impossible to complain.”
We see here in this scene how the differentiation is made between who is of value, between the male and female sexes. In this very simple but powerful part of the novel, the author demonstrates that it is the males in society who are to be catered to and cared for to the maximum, and females are not in any way allowed to cross the boundary, by asserting herself anywhere her presence, actions, words, or even breathing might be a threat to male dominance — even if it’s down to a simple thing like food.
“Jiyoung’s mother would praise the girls for taking good care of their brother and not competing for her love.”
This mindset Kim Jiyoung’s mum had, we can safely assume was passed down to her from mum’s own maternal figure — her own mother. “You are your mother’s daughter” was the feeling I felt as I read about how Kim Jiyoung’s grandmother would scold her for taking a mouth full of the sweet tasting baby milk that was meant for her brother. The author writes in this scene:
“Their grandmother wasn’t scolding them just because she was worried there wouldn’t be enough formula for the baby. The combination of her tone, expression, angle of head tilt, position of shoulders, and breathing sent them a message that was hard to summarise in one sentence, but if Kim Jiyong tried hard anyway it went something like this: How dare you try and take something that belongs to my precious grandson!”
The way cultural, female, gender oppression translates for Korean girls as they mature into women, is similar to how racial oppression translates as revealed in sociologists and psychologists Kenneth and Mammie Clarks’ 1947 study on young children and race, which I dive into in my essay, When Race Meets Feminism : The Unfinished Conversation (2023).
It is a different form of oppression, but the result is the same. The young children, in this context Korean girls, go on to internalise their gender discrimination, then live their lives with this feeling of being less than, compared to their males. The mental well-being of both oppressed children then can become a problem later in life, as the Clarks’ asserted in their study. The key lesson here is for western fourth wave feminists (even men) to understand how this enforcement of gender discrimination differs from culture to culture. It is a cultural thing, deeply embedded, and appears to be passed down via the generations from mothers to daughters. This is not something generally speaking, that collectively western women experience in terms of their culture. By this I mean if we western women are born and raised outside of being female and Korean, (other Asian women may also face what the Korean women do, it is important to note), we need to make the effort to understand and be sensitive to their point of view.
Today, in this fourth wave of women’s movements advocating for gender equality in an intersectional way, where feminism should meet the experiences of this demographic of women, is at her intersection of culture, race, and gender oppression that is at a cross-road with the traditional, white, female-focused movement in the first (1840–1920), second (1962–1980s), and possibly arguably even third (1990s) waves of feminism that mainly all focused on the experiences of oppression from a predominantly western white female perspective alone.
Female Gender Oppression: Population Control via The Medical Profession
Kim Jiyoung’s friend falls pregnant, and what a drama it caused; this was around the time when the government implemented “birth control” policies they called “family planning.” Abortion was legal for medical related reasons. What if I told you that being born female was also considered a “medical problem” and a reason for her friend to consider abortion? And clearly some medical professionals felt the same way. The author cites this as a common dilemma for women throughout the 1980s-1990s. While the author does not go deep into this subject as part of the plot, I did do some investigation myself into this. According to the Feminist Majority’s short report they released in January 1997 they confirmed that:
“Although fetal sex identification and abortion are against the law in South Korea, women continue to feel pressure to abort girl fetuses in order to try for sons.”
Also
“Compared to a natural ratio of 105 boys born for every 100 girls (which later evens out to 1:1 since boys die earlier), some regions in South Korea have rates of 125 boys born to every 100 girls resulting in 30,000 fewer girls born each year than would be the case without sex-influenced abortions.”
And
“A Chinese government report in 1992 found the ratio in China at 118.5 boys to 100 girls, statistics which embarrassed the government enough that it never formally released the results.”
When looking the pressure Korean women face to have sons, taking a simple glance at the birth rate ratio would lead a critical mind to see the ratio supports the argument that the medical profession had what I would call “a silent compliance” to help embed and maintain female oppression, by aborting female babies. Sure, no doctor with his or her head on straight will announce to the world, “come to me for female terminations, I’ll gladly help you.” But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t going on. The stats on the birth rate ratio show that at this point in time, in the nineties when the rates were released, female terminations must have been carried out at a high rate.
What is key to note about the male to female birth rate ratio is: any parent will probably remember the scan they were given when their fetus was eighteen to twenty weeks old. Around this time, when you’re offered a nice photo of the baby, you can also learn the sex of the baby. For the Korean women it’s at this point that terminations logically must have been happening for females babies. This is as late as five months into pregnancy; abortions done then come with a higher risk to the mother as stated in the research done by Frontiers in Women’s Global Health’s 2022 study across southern Ethiopia. Their report asserts that:
“Second-trimester abortion accounts for 10–15% of all induced abortions, with varying rates across countries, and is responsible for two-thirds of major abortion complications. It is also associated with higher medical costs, morbidity, and mortality rates than first-trimester abortion.”
With only 10–15 % as a norm for abortions at this stage, we can assume it’s not the norm globally. The Aid to Women Centre also cites a lot of risks and complications post abortion for women who have second trimester abortions. The Korean women have been subjected to a health risk, for the sake of maintaining their cultural patriarchy, which is not something we see a lot of for the western woman, in western culture.
If we further compare the western gender oppression to the Koren women’s via the outcomes for female babies, and the medical profession’s willingness to partake in oppression, and lastly the health risk of a woman choosing late termination (even if the practice was more common in the eighties-nineties), you see that this type of oppression is not a cultural norm in the west. It could be argued that pressure should be placed on the Korean medical profession for better regulation of abortion practices.
For Korean women their intersection of cultural oppression includes a key aspect western woman do not have. Which is: from the womb, females leave a bad taste in society’s mouth. Whether you have a girl or a boy, generally speaking, for the western woman it is a cause for celebration, not abortion.
The Role of Korean Women: Their ‘Double Jeopardy’ and Work
Being a woman with another characteristic that can be used for oppression (such as race or class), has been defined as ‘a double jeopardy’ by the black feminist Frances. M. Beal, in her work Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female (1969). In relation to the Korean woman, her double jeopardy is being female and living in a culture which defines her role in a specific way. Korean females are often not shunned for working or discouraged from working. In the west, the “right to work” caused a ruckus from predominantly white women in the second wave (1963–1980s) of feminism, against white men’s oppression. But the Korean woman is often expected to work, not for herself but to support the males in her family so that they can progress in life. Woman will work in substandard conditions with risks to their health, for terrible wages, to gain a few pennies to rub together in the contribution pot of male success. In Kim Jiyong, Born in 1982, the author writes:
“This was at a time when people believed it was up to the sons to bring honour and success to the family. The family’s wealth and happiness hinged upon male success. The daughters gladly supported the male siblings.”
This narrative comes in a scene where we see a Korean lady struggling with work to provide for a man and fulfill her cultural duty. Yet she could not dream for herself, and she could not be a success, and she could not work in the profession of her own desire.
Where culture meets feminism from this angle of work and roles in society, is a need to recognise the “double jeopardy” for Korean women — that is focused on cultural roles and norms for her as a woman in the world of work. Outside of being white and female, the cultural roles for women often do look very different for the black, brown, and minority woman; I have said this before and will keep saying it.
The Korean woman is in a similar position of not being able to pursue her dream of her ideal career, just like white feminists fought for the right to work against white men. However, what is unique to women in different communities is that it is a necessity for them to work and they are expected to, but not for them, for the patriarchy, in the context of Korean women. For black women this looks different which I do plan to write about in a future story. Sticking to the Korean women’s plight and experience, now, if this is not oppression worth noting, or checking the patriarchy’s behaviour to show them how it damages the Korean women, then I don’t know what is.
Where culture meets feminism from this angle of work and roles in society, is a need to recognise the “double jeopardy” for Korean women
Education of Korean Girls and Women
In addition to being expected to work minor jobs to support the patriarchy, the Korean woman’s education is sacrificed. Boys are prepared for school with the right equipment, books, lunches etc., as mentioned earlier. Later on, when it comes to further education, boys are encouraged to attend higher education to access the degrees that will land them high paying jobs. While girls are not put in this position, but it’s fine for them to work on lower paying jobs, in risky environments, to support this cultural norm and the patriarchy. If you’re a woman in the west, tell me: when was the last time this was expected of you, as a woman?
How Cultural Oppression Embraces Sexual and Physical Harassment
One of the most heartbreaking things about the cultural oppression Korean women face, for me as a reader of the author’s work, was how vivid it was that sexual and physical harassment is something Korean girls should just get used to. It appeared to be a cultural norm, something that starts from an early age and doubles down on the learning Korean girls gain around their status being lower than boys.
It appears that if a girl or woman is a victim, she is questioned over what she possibly could have done to bring the assault on herself. We do see this today in the western culture at times; it would be a lie to say we don’t.
The difference is when comparing the western woman’s potential experience of the doubt around her experiences, and the Korean woman’s, culturally it seems more acceptable to disbelieve a Korean woman. Also, it’s more culturally acceptable to physically/sexually harass women. For women, it’s almost like harassment is an expected life experience that is a woman’s responsibility to avoid.
One of the most dramatic examples of this embedded culture was while Kim Jiyoung was at school. She was bullied by a boy, and the teacher blamed her. The truth only came out when another young girl was brave enough to raise her hand and say what she saw. Later on, we follow young Kim Jiyong’s story as she makes her way home from school. A boy follows her, and even attempts to intimidate her with sexual advances on the bus. Her father’s response is to ask her, “what did you do?” for her to bring on his attack.
The Hangyang Dis Division of International Studies backs up the experiences of Kim Jiyoung; they reported in 2018:
- a sexual assault is reported across south Korea at a rate of 3 cases an hour.
- 98% of assaulters being men, and 86% of victims being women.
- One of the most common places of assault happening in the workplace.
The Hangyang Dis Division of International Studies also says in their report:
“Before you ask yourself why these women don’t speak-out, you must first understand the culture background of their society.”
Supporting the last point above, we see workplace sexual harassment when Kim Jiyoung enters the world of work, in the field of marketing. A male security guard takes it upon himself to install secret cameras in one female toilet, then uploads the images to a pornographic site. He shares his assault with other men in the workplace, the cat is only let out of the bag when the word reached Kim Jiyoung’s female friend via her boyfriend — who warned her to use a different bathroom. The women engage in sexual assault litigation against the company; then the male CEO of the company responds to the women who were victims of the pornographic website experience:
“It’ll ruin this company’s reputation if word gets around in the field, The accused male employees have families and parents to protect, too. Do you really want to destroy people’s lives like this?”
What we see here is sexual harassment at its finest, with a spoonful of misogyny mixed in. It could be argued that any boss would respond like this, especially a male boss, to protect their company. Yet the men themselves who were part of the sexual assault admitted what they did but see no wrongdoing — that’s the cultural dynamic around overlooking women and sexual assault the Hangyang Dis Division of International Studies is probably referring to in their citation about understanding culture, above.
When compared to western culture, this is not something that would be taken as lightly. It could even be argued that a CEO (for the good of their company) is more likely to disassociate with the offenders of sexual assault to protect their brand. Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, the American rapper who currently at the time of writing has four sexual assault cases against him, has been dropped from all of his lucrative money making deals by big companies. Russell Brand, who is also caught up in sexual assault cases, lost his YouTube monetised channels, and Jonathan Majors was dropped from his acting roles due to his accusations of sexual assault; this has all happened in 2023 at the time of writing this. In the west what we see here is a different response to women’s sexual assault. We have a “cancel culture” for men. Korean has a “what did we really do wrong? You can’t cancel us” culture. For the fourth wave feminist, this is something to challenge when culture meets feminism. The patriarchy needs checking around their handling — literally of women and their bodies, which they feel are free to access for all.
About Married Life and Korean Women’s Oppression
For the Korean woman, she is often forced to give up work (if she has been lucky enough to find it), once she gets married. The pressure to get married is high, and her choice between work, marriage, and children is due to cultural expectations; this is not a woman who can have it all in any way shape or form. Once a woman is married it is an expectation, demand, and almost her duty to now start popping out babies — that are male, mind you. So that he can “bring the success, prosperity, and respect to the family,” as mentioned earlier.
It was around 2014 when Kim Jiyoung finally secured work, battling through the sexism she faced as a Korean woman, which I deep dive into in my essay, Is Feminism to Blame For Korean Women Taking Down The Patriarchy. Then Kim Jiyoung left work, just as one in five Korean women quit their job citing: marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and care, or the education of their younger children, according to Women’s Lives Through Statistics in 2015, Statistics Korea. Around the time Kim Jiyong was faced with life changes the author asserted that:
“The workforce participation rate of Korean women decreases significantly before and after childbirth. Its percentage starts at 63.8% for women aged twenty and twenty-nine, drops to 58% for women aged thirty to thirty-nine.”
What this shows is that when culture meets feminism in this area for women, there is greater pressure, expectation, and demand for them to leave work to have male children, and if they do return to work after birth — to work to support their son’s progression. The latter, the author demonstrates, often means taking a lower paying job and giving up a career. Kim Jiyoung went from being a marketing executive in a male, sexist, environment — but she made it! — to considering part-time work in an ice cream parlour. This expectation is not a cultural norm for many of us western women, but one we need to be sensitive to, if we are to be inclusive female advocates.
Husbands also add to this pressure to leave work but fail to see what their wives are giving up. This plays out for readers clearly when married Kim Jiyoung is pressured by in-laws to have a child, then discusses it with her husband. They have barely been married five minutes at this point:
“And what will you be giving up Oppa?
“What?”
“You said don’t just think about what I’ll be giving up. I’m putting my youth, health, job, colleagues, social networks, career plans, and future on the line. No wonder all I can think about are the things I’m giving up. But what about you? What do you lose by gaining a child.”
Her husband, true to his culture, did not see Kim Jiyoung’s personal goals, dreams, and rights to work go down the pan, in favour of producing child after child until she has a boy. Only to then take work well below her skills to provide for the male child.
For intersectionality to really make an impact in this fourth wave of feminism, as I said in the opening, eyes must be opened, ears must be fixed, and the advocate for women’s rights must step outside not only their race, class, sexuality, able body, but also their culture to understand how oppression looks different for different demographics of women. This is how the patriarchy’s behaviour oppresses some women; the men do nothing to change a son’s position being more valuable than daughter’s from the moment they are conceived. They take this status norm in their culture as chance to exploit women sexually, physically, and even financially with Korea having the largest gender pay gap in the Asian countries. The patriarchy’s behaviour is culturally harming women; this is not my opinion, this is based on the data, statistics, and evidence presented. My message to the patriarchy is: don’t argue with me, argue with the evidence, and do something about it.
What are your thoughts and feelings now that you’ve seen cultural oppression by reading these words?
Thanks for your readership, I hope my writing gave you something to think about. If I’ve caught you in a good mood or you’re feeling kind, you can buy me a coffee here: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/MeAndMyMuse. Why not follow me for more of my thought-provoking muse?
Further reading:
For more of the good stuff, follow Fourth Wave. Have you got a story, essay, or poem that focuses on women or other disempowered groups? Submit to the Wave!
