By Mark Peterson
This article, like most of mine, is quite optimistic. I've been in and around Korea for 57 years and I've seen the tremendous, even miraculous things that Korea has done. Korea has overcome huge obstacles in its way in the past, and I am optimistic it will do so in the future as well.
The success stories include economic development, maybe, first of all. But I like to quote Horace G. Underwood of Yonsei University, who enjoyed saying, "The education miracle preceded the economic miracle."
And indeed, Korea leads the way, internationally, in all kinds of measurements of educational success: the highest literacy rate, the highest high school graduation rate and the highest college graduation rate. I must quickly add that I know there are all kinds of criticisms of the educational system, but still, Korea's basic accomplishments are at the top of any standard of performance.
Women's rights is one area that is still behind in many ways, but I see optimism on this front as well. Let me list what I see.
In the late 1990s, Korea had a birthrate problem: the desire for having a male heir, coupled with the new technology of determining the gender of a fetus in the womb led to a shocking rate of selective female fetus abortions. In certain rural areas, children coming into the first grade were 90-percent boys. The selection of gender was working, but the society was clearly out of balance.
People asked, "Who will our boys marry?" And so Korea changed. Not only did Korea stop aborting female fetuses selectively, but the cultural ideals of society changed. Afterwards, suddenly, girls were preferred over boys. I heard friends say, "When you get old, a daughter will take better care of you than a daughter-in-law." Thus, the gender balance in births was largely restored.
The problem now in Korean society is that people are not marrying as well as not having children. I hope Korea sees the error of its ways, as it did with the female fetus abortion error, and starts to behave like a normal nation in marrying and having children.
The issue in so many of these cases of social change, is the role of women. And I see some reasons for being optimistic here.
I understand that the household head law has finally changed and allows a woman to be the head of a household when registering at the "dongsamuso" (neighborhood office). Insisting on a male head was out of step with even traditional Korean practice. If you study Joseon dynasty census registers, as I have, you see female heads of households all the time.
I found out recently, in talking to officials at our local Korean consulate ― we are in the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Consulate ― that women are now passing the foreign service exam at a rate of about 70 percent. It used to be that fields of education and medicine were fields where women could excel and compete with men, but now we can add government service to that list.
Women are still quite far behind in holding elected offices in Korea. The percentage has gone up one percent or so per year in recent years, to where it is now around 20 percent, but in this regard, Korea elected a female president before the United States ― which has yet to do so, although a woman was the candidate from a major party in 2020, Hilary Clinton.
But once again, we see Korea is out in front of the U.S. in important ways. I like to say that Korea is in some ways more democratic than the United States, and the evidence I cite, is not just that Korea elects mayors and governors, whereas they once were appointed, but in Korea, university presidents are elected from among the faculty. That never happens in an American university. Although I understand some Korean universities have backed off from that standard.
The thing I'm looking for as the symbolic victory for women in Korea, is the reshaping of thinking about the jokbo (genealogical tables). I've written about this topic before, but there is no need for a jokbo to be a male-dominated document. In Korea prior to the 18th century, it was not male-dominated.
But in the last 300 years, the jokbo has become a document of male genealogy. Up until the end of the 17th century, jokbo meant looking at ancestors who are on both the male and female sides of the family ― looking at all the ancestors, not just the males. It was called the palgojodo, the chart of the eight great great grandfathers and grandmothers.
When Korea can break away from looking at the jokbo as a men-only document, and when Korea can start looking at all ancestors ― female and male, grandmothers and grandfathers ― and when Korea starts talking about ancestors on female lines, then I'll know that Korea has arrived at gender equality ― well, at least closer to it.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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The success stories include economic development, maybe, first of all. But I like to quote Horace G. Underwood of Yonsei University, who enjoyed saying, "The education miracle preceded the economic miracle."
And indeed, Korea leads the way, internationally, in all kinds of measurements of educational success: the highest literacy rate, the highest high school graduation rate and the highest college graduation rate. I must quickly add that I know there are all kinds of criticisms of the educational system, but still, Korea's basic accomplishments are at the top of any standard of performance.
Women's rights is one area that is still behind in many ways, but I see optimism on this front as well. Let me list what I see.
In the late 1990s, Korea had a birthrate problem: the desire for having a male heir, coupled with the new technology of determining the gender of a fetus in the womb led to a shocking rate of selective female fetus abortions. In certain rural areas, children coming into the first grade were 90-percent boys. The selection of gender was working, but the society was clearly out of balance.
People asked, "Who will our boys marry?" And so Korea changed. Not only did Korea stop aborting female fetuses selectively, but the cultural ideals of society changed. Afterwards, suddenly, girls were preferred over boys. I heard friends say, "When you get old, a daughter will take better care of you than a daughter-in-law." Thus, the gender balance in births was largely restored.
The problem now in Korean society is that people are not marrying as well as not having children. I hope Korea sees the error of its ways, as it did with the female fetus abortion error, and starts to behave like a normal nation in marrying and having children.
The issue in so many of these cases of social change, is the role of women. And I see some reasons for being optimistic here.
I understand that the household head law has finally changed and allows a woman to be the head of a household when registering at the "dongsamuso" (neighborhood office). Insisting on a male head was out of step with even traditional Korean practice. If you study Joseon dynasty census registers, as I have, you see female heads of households all the time.
I found out recently, in talking to officials at our local Korean consulate ― we are in the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Consulate ― that women are now passing the foreign service exam at a rate of about 70 percent. It used to be that fields of education and medicine were fields where women could excel and compete with men, but now we can add government service to that list.
Women are still quite far behind in holding elected offices in Korea. The percentage has gone up one percent or so per year in recent years, to where it is now around 20 percent, but in this regard, Korea elected a female president before the United States ― which has yet to do so, although a woman was the candidate from a major party in 2020, Hilary Clinton.
But once again, we see Korea is out in front of the U.S. in important ways. I like to say that Korea is in some ways more democratic than the United States, and the evidence I cite, is not just that Korea elects mayors and governors, whereas they once were appointed, but in Korea, university presidents are elected from among the faculty. That never happens in an American university. Although I understand some Korean universities have backed off from that standard.
The thing I'm looking for as the symbolic victory for women in Korea, is the reshaping of thinking about the jokbo (genealogical tables). I've written about this topic before, but there is no need for a jokbo to be a male-dominated document. In Korea prior to the 18th century, it was not male-dominated.
But in the last 300 years, the jokbo has become a document of male genealogy. Up until the end of the 17th century, jokbo meant looking at ancestors who are on both the male and female sides of the family ― looking at all the ancestors, not just the males. It was called the palgojodo, the chart of the eight great great grandfathers and grandmothers.
When Korea can break away from looking at the jokbo as a men-only document, and when Korea can start looking at all ancestors ― female and male, grandmothers and grandfathers ― and when Korea starts talking about ancestors on female lines, then I'll know that Korea has arrived at gender equality ― well, at least closer to it.
Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah.
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