Women's roles and movements in Korean history

• Joseon (1392–1897/1910)
  • Extended family
  • Patriarchal and patrilineal
  • Yangban, wealthy: household manager
  • Peasants, lowborn: farm labor, village markets, palace women, palace physicians, kisaeng
  • Mother (male heir)
  • Mother-in-law: powerful
  • Ehwa Girl’s School 이화학당 (1886)
    • Ehwa College (1925) → Ehwa Women’s University (1946)
• Colonial period (1910–1945)
  • Factory workers
  • New women
  • “Good wife, wise mother”
    • Chastity, purity culture
• 1945–1987
  • Nuclear family, urban growth
  • Housewife
  • Mother
  • Small shops, factory labor, white-collar secretarial work
    • Expected to leave positions once married (middle-class ideal)
      • Greater honor in not working outside
    • Lower-class women maintain employment
  • Greater roles in social groups, organizations, and labor
  • Greater emphasis on education for boys and girls
    • Privileging of men over women
  • Minjung Undong (1961–1992): democratization and labor activists
• 1970s Christian women activists against sex tourism and industry
  • Sex tourism frequented by Japanese (colonial legacy)
  • Sexual violence
  • Criticizing women’s body as products
• 1970s/80s Women’s involvement in Democracy and Labor Movements
  • Kwan In-sook (1986): female student activist sexually tortured by police
• 1988 Equal Employment Opportunity Acts
  • Equality in job placement, promotions, retirement, job training, maternity leave
  • No “mechanism for implementation”
• More women enter workforce
  • Esp. after IMF crisis 1997
  • Women cheaper
• Increase positions in government
• Increase in advocacy
• Changes in family law (1991)
  • Could retain child custody after divorce
  • Equal inheritance for both genders
• 1990s Survivors of Sexual Slavery (Comfort women) Movement
• First sexual harassment case 1993: female research assistant
• Act on Punishment of Sexual Crimes and Protection of Victims (1994)
• Focus on everyday sexism, sexual violence, and rape culture
  • Before, rape considered crime against chastity
• Gangnam station murder (2016) and gender driven crimes

MeToo

• 2006: Tarana Burke coined
  • Solidarity for gender-based violence
• Viral 2017
  • Harvey Weinstein (October)
  • 700,000 uses in 2 days on Twitter
  • 4.7M users, 12M posts in 24hr on Facebook
• Korea

backlash against feminism

• “Men’s rights”
• Feminism equated to “mental illness”
• Election of President Yoon Suk Yeol
  • Abolished Gender Equality and Family Ministry (est. 2001)
• Based on fear of loss of privilege