Women in a Mirror

Wo'n Yun-jong, Ahn Jo'ng-a, Lee Hye-ran

How would you feel if you got 40% lower wage than your colleague, for the only reason that you're a woman? This is the reality of the modern Korean women and it is true that many of Korean women are in discriminatory situation. For a better understanding of this situation, it is essential to know the status of women in history, Chosun Dynasty and the similarities of the two societies. Modern Korea mirrors Chosun Dynasty in social prejudice, employment discrimination and protest in accordance with women.

The Chosun Dynasty is a country erected based on Confucianism and other similar notions such as patriarch arrangement and these different concepts can be accumulated and summarized into three widely known codes existed during the Chosun Dynasty which empathize the exceeding duty and the maltreatment of women. And this will make equivalence with the source of discriminations toward women of the modern Korea which will be proved by two different statistics supporting the mirrored cause of discrimination from history to the contemporary society. First of all, the codes that women were supposed to follow according to the book "Challenges for Women" written by Chung Sei-Wha, 1984 were the Sam-jeong-ji-do: women must serve three males- father, husband and son. Another code was Ch'il-geo-ji-ak: women must not do the seven evils which is disobedience to parents in law, infertility, adultery, jealousy, bad illness, talkativeness and stealing. Last, Pu-haeng-pyon: women should stay in their status, must not go outside of their own houses for social activities; should make food and clothing for men; should not become involved in political affairs; accept marriages arranged by parents and when a women failed to follow any of these codes she were to be expelled from the house or get divorced. From these codes we can see how much women were pressed by the social oppression or by a mighty form of social prejudice that women had to bear, with the oppressed women's opinion, social life and right, and the exceeding duty, responsibility and obedience in addition. And we can see the equitable factors of creating discrimination towards women in the modern Korea, a remnant of the past Korea's society. According to the statistics "The obstacles for the working women" of 1998 released by the Korean hall of Statistics, "28.2% of people of both sexes think that the obstacle is due to social bias, 29.3% due to their other responsibilities such as raising children and house keeping, 12.5% due to their disadvantages in salary, position and treatment, and only 14.3% blamed the actual inferiority of women's capability and lack for sense of responsibility." Briefly we can conclude that 70% of people consider the cause of discrimination towards women as the social bias, their overwhelming responsibilities, the discriminating treatment at work and their exceeding burdens beside their work, all comes under the exceeding duties and maltreatment toward women. To strengthen the fact of the exceeding duties and maltreatment working as the obstacle to women, we can take a reference at the other statistic which shows that "51% of women had to quit her job either when getting married, or during pregnancy or leave during their children's growth to get reemployed, and only 26.8% permanently worked with no interference of their having a family." Accordingly, these modern social feature of today can best be explained with the Chosun Dynasty's social prejudice in a form of a heavy pressure on women's duties, responsibilities and the overall social bias derived from the previously widely carried out codes. In other words, the cause for discrimination in the past mirrors today's cause for discrimination by its deep repeating social prejudice.

Women of today are able to have professions in many fields and their situation has improved comparing with women in Chosun, but it is still difficult for women to be recognized as having same ability as men and discrimination towards women still exists. In Chosun, women were strictly restricted by Confucianism; there were four professions for women, which were palace maids, medical assistants, kiesaengs, and shamans. Palace maids performed menial tasks such as household chores in the royal palace, but fortunately some of them whom a king had a fancy for could be selected as a royal consort. They had to give up everything at a young age. Usually girls went into the palace between the age of 4 to 10 and they learned many things like royal court language, readings of Chinese characters, and calligraphy for their culture because they could become a consort. They were not able to get married and they couldn't quit till they died. Female medical assistants treated many women who rejected being medically treated by men. They were not bound like palace maids so they were able to get married. And kiesaengs were singing and dancing girls highly trained in the arts, and shamans were strictly restricted because of the settlement of Confucian social order but there were lots of people who required exorcising. Women of Chosun who had these careers were regarded as humble and superficial because women of noble birth didn't have to take up jobs. Women of Chosun were not admitted as an individual, they just belong to certain social class or one's family, so they were not able to have careers and take part in social activities. Comparing with women of past, modern women are able to have a career and have the right to participate in social activities with men, but there are employment discriminations caused by prejudices of men towards women. From UN's survey of women's status over the world, Korea ranks 83th country among 102 countries in women's equality, which is lower than Islamic countries and Confucian countries. According to statistics from the Bureau of Statistics of Korea, in Korea, there are nine female politicians out of a total, 299, and 159 high ranking officials out of 8,571. The distribution rate of each are 3 percent and 1.9 percent. The difference of wage between men and women has narrowed the gap, but women still get lower wage than men, 61.7 percent of men's. In contrast with women in Chosun, modernwomen are able to have a career in many fields, and the careers that they can have are no more limited in 4 careers of Chosun, but there are still difficulties for women to have a career. There are still many people who think that women do not have the same abilities and qualifications as men According to the statistics from the Bureau of Statistics of Korea, 28.2 percent of Korean people think that women have difficulties in getting a job because they are less capable and qualified than men. Korean women's status has improved in many aspects, but women are still suffering from the discrimination in being hired or getting a promotion. We can think through this that women of Chosun and today are not entirely different from each other, because we can't say that the factors of the employment discrimination of each period are different. The difficulties and obstacles of modern Korean women shows us that women are still suffering from discrimination caused by the prejudice which has mirrored Chosun.

Although at the time of the Chosen Dynasty, women's reaction to gender discrimination was not similar to the present reaction, it has influenced today's movement of women's rights. There was a tendency to consider the gender discrimination as a natural circumstance. Therefore, there were not any notable reactions through the history of Korea. But some literature of that time protrays gender discrimination of women and their resentmen. One of the greatest female poets of Chosun, Hunansulhun - her name is made of four Korean letters - has left a number of poems and essays that deals with problems of male dominant society and stereotypical model of women. Even though she has written many works including the most famous book, "Nansulhungip," they could not be published due to the pressure of male dominance. In other words, the reaction to discrimination in Chosun was individual and it was only through the unpublished literatures; therefore, it was not supportive. The way of resisting for women's rights has improved in modern society. Women now assert their equal rights, and their voices have become stronger. In 1960, the first organization of women's right movement was created and has become more active in 1980's. And now, the number of women's organizations has reached 145 and they are influencing society. They have influenced establishing laws dealing with sexual violence and sexual equality for employment. In 1996, the governments enacted the laws that are named "the special laws for sexual violence" and "Laws for sexual equality for employment." Comparing to past movement, today's resistance toward gender discrimination has become more organized and powerful. The feminist writer of Modern society, Kimshinmyungsuk - she has two family names in order not to have only father's - said that she has been greatly influenced by the fact that there was such a strong feminist, Hunamsulhun, who lived in strict Confucian society. The Chosen's women's resistance was more like induvidual and not supportive. But it is obvious that they became the motivation and spiritual starting point of today's women's movement.

The observation of our history in some aspects has already helped us explain the modern Korea's negative phenomenon. And a little more deeper and wider observation would surely allow us to discover a greater amount of the mirroring social features to our contemporary Korea. This tells us that the Modern Korea will someday become the past and will be in a position to be mirrored by the future Korea. Thus it would be recommendatory that this society should be a good example to leave a positive remnant to our future Korea, not like this discriminatory women's status from the past.