President Yoon says he's late learner on gender equality

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He admits pitfalls of meritocracy in a society where gender inequality still persists

By Kang Hyun-kyung

President Yoon Suk-yeol's nominations of two women on May 26 to fill the remaining two Cabinet minister positions ― in the education and health ministries ― out of 18 Cabinet posts were announced a day after his dinner with the outgoing National Assembly speaker and vice speakers.

During a dinner hosted by the president to acknowledge the Assembly leaders' service ahead of the end of their two-year tenures on May 29, Vice Speaker Kim Sang-hee confronted Yoon by addressing the thorny issue of gender that has been pitting young men and women against each other in Korea. She said that some candidates had tried to play the gender card to their advantage during the presidential election, creating "an unnecessary tension" between women and men. She then advised President Yoon to take the issue seriously, noting that he is now the president, not a presidential candidate.

In response, Yoon shared wisdom of the pitfalls of meritocracy in a society where gender inequality persists, which he said he recently learned from an unnamed aide. According to him, he was supposed to choose a Cabinet minister nominee among several candidates ― one of whom was a woman who was behind the male candidates in terms of evaluations.

"One of my aides said that the female candidate's lower score compared to those of her competitors might have been the result of systemic gender-based discrimination, and thus her score didn't necessarily reflect that she was less capable than her male competitors," Yoon was quoted as saying.

It was a Copernican Revolution-like moment for the president, as he stated that his aide's insight woke him up and he realized his failure to see what cannot be seen in the evaluation materials or score of a candidate. Yoon said that he is now determined to give women more opportunities in public office, admitting that he had been too narrow-minded so as not to be able to figure that out, and that this narrow-mindedness might have been because of his relative short experience in the political arena.

Before that, President Yoon had been stubborn in his selection criteria for Cabinet nominations. He had continually said that his selections would be solely based on merit, ruling out any possibility for selection based on affirmative action criteria or political considerations. He noted there would be no quotas for women or people from the Jeolla provinces, both groups that have been historically underrepresented in public office.

Yoon's "meritocracy-first" nominations resulted in his Cabinet being dominated by males in their 50s who graduated from Seoul National University. Before Thursday, when the two female Cabinet minister nominees were announced, there were only two other female ministers out of 16 appointed, accounting for only 19 percent of Yoon's Cabinet.

The Korean portmanteau of "seo-oh-nam," which stands for "men who graduated from Seoul National University and are currently in their 50s," has become a key phrase for describing the kind of aides Yoon selected.

President Yoon Suk-yeol with his iconic uppercut gesture after a Cabinet meeting on May 25 in the Government Complex Sejong in the administrative city / Yonhap

Criticism has erupted about Yoon's male-dominated Cabinet.

Shin Gi-wook, a professor of sociology at Stanford University and director for The Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research, warned of the dangers of meritocracy.

"Meritocracy is maintaining an elitist patriarchy in practice and represents (the vested interests of) the existing Korean political and policy establishment," he told The Korea Times.

Shin said that diversity is as important as meritocracy in selecting Cabinet members. "More importantly, he (Yoon) must better understand the value of diversity as a source of innovation and improved performance, rather than just a social and political consideration. Silicon Valley is a great example with its success achieved through harnessing diversity."

Kim Jin-suk, a prosecutor-turned-lawyer, said that Yoon's meritocracy-first selections are self-contradictory in a society like Korea, which has long been dominated by a patriarchal culture.

"People can improve their capabilities if they are assigned to do something that they have never done before. Thus, I think capabilities are the result of accumulated experience and sufficient training to get things done against all odds," she said. "In many fields, however, women are not given equal opportunities to men and thus, they don't have the chance to improve their skills. So, what happens is that when good jobs are posted, it is always males who are picked, because previously they have been given more opportunities to improve their skills."

Considering his related remarks, some are starting to believe that President Yoon may be more of a late learner about the importance of gender equality, rather than an "anti-feminist" as he is often portrayed in some international media outlets.

Due to his past career in the male-dominated prosecution field, he had little opportunities to train himself to be aware of the importance of gender equality or develop his sensibility on related issues.

Yoon was a prosecutor for 26 years ― almost his entire life ― after graduating from Seoul National University, before he entered politics last year as a presidential contender. In the prosecution, he had been mostly involved in the special investigation unit, handling corruption and financial crimes involving business tycoons and politicians.

"The prosecution itself has been male-dominated," Kim said. "The field that he was in, the prosecution, was in fact much more male-dominated than other fields. All the prosecutors there were male."

Kim, the former head of criminal justice policy at the Supreme Prosecutors' Office, served in the prosecution from 1993 to 2017 before she joined the Seoul-based law firm, Barun Law. When she passed the state bar exam in 1991, she said there were only 12 women who passed out of the 300 total selected that year.

She said that Yoon also seemed to have fewer opportunities to expose himself to issues related to women.

"There are male prosecutors who are aware of the barriers and various disadvantages facing women in workplace. They came to develop their sensitivity toward gender inequality mostly through their family members, such as through their wives who have jobs and go through gender-based discrimination in their workplace, or adult daughters facing discrimination in employment situations," said Kim. "Compared to these compassionate prosecutors, Yoon had little opportunity to learn about gender inequality. He was single for a long time. He met his wife later (in 2012 when he was 52) and his wife had her own business and the couple has no daughters."

Kim said that President Yoon appears to be one of the men who was indifferent to the importance of gender equality, rather than a sexist.

"When he served as the prosecutor general, I heard that he discovered some talented female prosecutors and had them promoted to give them opportunities to train their leadership skills and tried hard to increase women's representation inside the prosecution," she said.

President Yoon Suk-yeol poses with Kim Hyun-sook, the minister of gender equality and family, after awarding her a certificate of appointment on May 26 in the presidential office in Yongsan District, Seoul. Yoon, who pledged to abolish the ministry during the presidential campaign, appointed Kim to lead the ministry until the completion of the revision of the current law that regulates government restructuring. Yonhap

President Yoon earned his negative reputation as an "anti-feminist," mainly due to his campaign pledge to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. He has said that the ministry had outlived its mission.

Ahn Cheol-soo, who served as chairman of the now defunct presidential transition committee, said that the ministry's key functions, such as designing policies to promote gender equality and policy support for marriage migrants, would be transferred to other ministries, or a new ministry with a different name would be created to handle those issues along with other issues related to Korea's aging society and low birthrate. Their vision for the gender equality ministry will be unveiled later this year when the Yoon government completes the revision of the government administration act.

Professor Shin said that either Yoon or his aides, or both, need to improve the president's international image, noting that being an anti-feminist is one of the three negative qualities of Yoon that has paved the way for his image as a "strongman." Two other negative qualities about him are that he was a fierce former prosecutor and that he is an anti-China politician.

"He needs to offer a good alternative to abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and in addition to less inflammatory policies, revise his rhetoric on gender issues," he said. "His nominations of two more women for his Cabinet were a positive sign. He must fix this anti-feminist reputation as soon as possible to take on and be effective in the global leadership role he is required to play."

Yoon is not the first politician to express a pessimistic view of the gender equality ministry ― conservative former President Lee Myung-bak also threatened to dissolve the ministry when he was elected back in 2008.

Some believe that the ministry is also partially responsible for creating a reputation that it failed to live up to some of its commitments. Its slow response and inappropriate response to a victim of sexual harassment perpetrated by former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon drew the ire of the public. At the time, in mid-2020, the ministry had referred to the victim as the "accuser."

Then minister Lee Jung-ok infuriated some with her answer to a lawmaker who asked her opinion about the sizable budget being spent to hold by-elections to elect two mayors in Seoul and Busan as a result of the sexual violence committed by the former holders of the posts, Park and Oh Geo-don. Lee had said that the by-elections would provide people with a collective learning opportunity to become sensitive to gender issues. When asked whether the two cases were power-based sexual crimes, Lee refused to answer directly, saying that the two cases were still under investigation. Although Korea's gender equality ministry has been in operation for over 20 years, these replies of Lee in the cases of the two former mayors, both of the Democratic Party of Korea, triggered some to start a campaign to abolish the ministry.