Make me a bowl of Kimchi fried rice, woman
Broadly speaking, the concept of a man asking a woman to make him a sandwich is an old-fashioned one at best in this day and age in the Western side of the hemisphere. From my experience, it’s a little less clear-cut in South Korea. Let me put it this way: a man expecting his wife to prepare a bowl of kimchi fried rice for dinner in Korea isn’t really worth a raised brow. In fact, he shouldn’t even have to ask.
The social status of Korean women?
Though I am Korean myself, that’s arguably only by ethnicity. I’m a third-culture kid who grew up in a blend of Western, Chinese and Korean cultures. While I can’t say I’ve ever fully integrated into any of these, I can at least offer various perspectives. And the Korean culture is, well, hardly backwards in coming forwards as a male-dominant culture.
Growing up, the Korean women I knew – family, friends and acquaintances – were utterly complacent about what others might view to be sexist practices against women in Korea. (Every visit I’d be peppered by well-intended advice from my grandmother and aunts, telling me that I should learn to knit, cook and get plastic surgery because that is what a man would want from me. Thanks, fam.) It’s actually been a pleasant surprise to see women call to be treated equally and be free from harassment in South Korea, what with the #MeToo movement and feminist rallies in recent years.
Photo: S. Korea Announces Tougher Rules on Sexual Violence (Source: http://koreabizwire.com/amid-growing-me-too-movement-s-korea-announces-tougher-rules-on-sexual-violence/113269)
Korea's "misogynistic culture"
Though Korean women commonly handle the family finances or almost single-handedly rear their children, up until recently they were rarely expected to do more than follow their husband’s guidance. Did you know that in Korea, up until the late 2000s the family registry had to be done under a male head of the family? The government registered families under a patriarchal figure, with each member defined by their relationship to the male head. You’d be surprised to learn how much indignation the proposal to change this system met in the Korean community. Allow family registrations under a woman’s name? Preposterous!
Photo: South Korea's "anti-feminist" wave is on the rise(Source:https://www.thenewslens.com/article/161187)
As a country with one of the world’s widest income gaps between men and women to this day, the concept of a female breadwinner is still difficult to swallow in South Korea. While many Korean women have successfully climbed the career ladder across various industries, it hasn’t been easy. Frankly speaking, my personal experience working in a Korean company in 2008 kind of sucked because of blatant gender inequality. As one of the two Korean women in the company among a throng of men, I quickly discovered that it wasn’t so much a glass ceiling I had to contend with as it was a massive brick wall. (With a moat. Full of sharks.) For women to survive in male-dominant industries at the time, they had to have serious grit and, in many ways, ‘become one of the boys’.
It’s been a hard slog getting the Korean mindset to change their gender biases. These views are baked into the very culture itself. As recently as the mid-2010s, the Korean government updated their education guidelines to say that high school students must be taught that women should look pretty, while men should aspire to earn lots of money. Somehow, I don’t see such guidelines flying in any modern society in the West. The education ministry showed real reluctance in changing these guidelines despite the urging from people who spoke out against these stereotypes.
Take care of men before giving birth
Even more recently, at the start of 2021, a website for the Korean city government’s pregnancy and childbirth information centre published tips for pregnant mothers that stunned many mothers-to-be. Hilariously, pregnant mothers near their due date were advised to clean their fridges and fill them with easy-to-prepare meals in advance, as well as wash and iron clothes enough for three days for their husbands and any children. The backlash wasn’t pretty; even men were offended by the insinuation that they were useless. In response to the criticisms, the guidelines under fire were duly removed, but it’s pretty telling that they were published at all.
The late movement toward gender equality
I’d like to see hope in the fact that criticisms against gender biases are growing. The rising voices demanding gender equality in Korea seem to indicate that women are finally acknowledging and recognising, out loud, that some things have to change. However, the biases are so deeply ingrained, any meaningful change is bound to take a while.
Still, the journey appears to have at least begun. As rocky a road as it may be, there is a desperate need for women to be able to gain freedom from these restrictive expectations for their roles in the family and society. I look forward to the day that it won’t just be about making it acceptable for a Korean wife to turn to her husband and tell him to make his own damn kimchi fried rice. It’d be a day where such an expectation doesn’t even exist to subvert.
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