| Project Scope: Research, Presentation, Public Speaking
| Date: Feb 2018

Summary

A majority of women in South Korea have taken on major economic roles in society and work just as much as their husbands, but they are still the ones expected to uphold traditional values and work in the home.

Talk Content

What does it mean to be a “good wife”? How about a “good husband”? I grew up in a traditional Korean family, and every Korean holiday—Lunar New Year and Chuseok—my family would gather with relatives at my grandparents’ house. My two sisters and I always help our grandma, mom, and aunts prepare each meal. While we, the women, cook and set the table, my grandpa, uncles, and male cousins sit and talk and wait for the food to be served.

I didn’t think there was anything wrong with this, until recently, it started to bother me. Growing up in a culture where women traditionally are in charge of household chores, the fact that us females served the men in the household was natural. It makes sense for my grandma to do so, as while my grandpa went to work and made money for the family, it was her job to sustain the family through cooking and cleaning the house. However, the Korean culture is changing. Women are taking on more jobs, many of which have traditionally been considered male’s. Women are working just as hard as men, but why are they are still the ones expected to work in the house? To begin, how were these traditional gender roles established?

I was talking with my dad the other day about religion, and why people take on religion. And he was telling me how Confucianism was first implemented in Korea around the Chosun dynasty to better control the citizens—to keep people under a single ruler, as that is what Confucianism values: obey the ruler, obey those above you. Confucianism advocates patriarchy, and this led females in Korea during the Chosun dynasty to stay in the house while males were considered the “head” of the family with absolute power over others in the family, community, and society. This cultural value was only emphasized when Korea was under Japanese rule in 1910, where Korean farms and industries were suppressed, causing women to lose education and jobs, but instead, were forced to follow this ideology of being a “good wife and wise mother”, which, to this day, is a realistic “career option” for women.

As human, we devise methods to keep people together, as one, under control, and establishing gender roles was one way. And I grew up in the 2000s in Korea, where the country was still rooted in Confucian values, where it was natural for my grandma and other women to become housewives. Women submitting to men and working in the home cooking, cleaning, and taking care of children. And to this day, many of my friends’ moms stay in the house, and that is their way of supporting their family.

My mom, however, grew up in a household where they valued education for women. She has
two sisters, and all three of them attended college and have a job today. And when she attended medical school, she was one of the only few women in the field. But our culture is changing. Look at the millennials, look at our generation. Can you imagine girls graduating high school and not attending college? According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, also known as OECD, college entrance rate was 74.3% for women as opposed to 68.6% for men, and university graduation rate was 67.2% for women and 60.6% for men. Starting from the late 1990s to the 2000s and 2010s, Korea has seen the first female Prime Minister, the first female Minister of Justice, the first female presidential candidate, as well as the first female president. The number of women in the workforce surpassed 10 million for the first time in 2005, where 51% of women in Korea took on economic roles as compared to 39% in 1979. Soon, one in five Korean women became the “breadwinner” of their family. The percentage female labor force participation rate has risen from 47.0% in 1990 to 51.8% in 2015, meeting the OECD average.

Women are receiving the same, if not more, education as men, and are they are working just as hard in the economy, but why are women still the ones expected to do household chores? Why do we define a “good wife” as one that cooks good meals, tidies the house up neatly, and takes care of children well, while a “good husband” is defined as one that makes sufficient money for the family? Take my mom for example again—she works as the head of the anesthesiology department in her hospital, and she leaves home at 7:30am, and comes back home around 6:30-7:00pm. As if that wasn’t enough working hours, as soon as she gets home, she stays in the kitchen, standing for two hours until 9pm cooking and cleaning. Both my parents work, but my mom comes home earlier to take care of us. Why is that? Why not my dad? I mean, a part of the reason definitely is because my dad is more busy with a lot more responsibilities outside the house, but why is that? Why was he able to obtain those additional positions despite working just as much as my mom?

I believe it’s because of the traditional gender roles imposed on us—because my mom is culturally obliged to take care of us, she sacrifices her time to work in the home, while my dad is able to achieve more outside the house. Furthermore, women are often treated differently in the work force, simply for being a woman. I have not experienced this personally, but I do know that in 2015, Korea had the highest gender wage gap out of all OECD countries with a gender wage gap of 37.2%. This means that when a man earns $100, a woman would earn $62.8.

Last year, I attended the 2017 Asia Pacific Cities Summit & Mayors’ Forum, a forum about innovation of cities, and I heard Cherie Blair, the wife of UK’s former prime minister Tony Blair, and also an advocate for women’s rights and equality, speak about gender inequality and the need to support women economically. She said there is an increasing gender gap in the access to technology, and males are 86% more likely to be funded by venture capital. Also, on a survey by an online job search site conducted on 573 female workers in Korea, 57.5% said they experienced gender discrimination while seeking a job, over 80% said they were discriminated against for work promotion, and almost 50% stated promotion beyond an extent was impossible.

From the employer’s perspective, this discrimination does make sense in a way, to hire male employees rather than female, especially those married. Working moms carry out many responsibilities in the house, and Korea’s maternity protection law allows pregnant women to leave for 90 days with the right to return to work. With so many responsibilities away from the workplace, it is reasonable that employers do not want to hire women for inflexible jobs that require high commitment. But with the help of men, we can lessen this burden on women. According to the OECD, although men spend 148.6 more minutes on paid work each day, women spend 182.3 more minutes than men on unpaid work in the house. In total, women in South Korea daily work 33.7 minutes more than men with paid and unpaid work combined.

The economy is changing, where women are willing and able to work just as much as men—why not change the tradition at home as well? Men can help women with household work. Of course, this is not to mention that there are exceptions. I know households where the dad and mom divides up the household work evenly. I know households where the dad stays at home, while the mom earns money. But society as a whole still holds onto the traditional values, as it is evident in the media we consume daily. How many of those Febreeze ads are targeted towards woman? How about those laundry detergent, deep fryer advertisements? Not to mention cultural expectations of women in the way they should look and dress, which activities they should and should not be involved in, what they should be interested in, as well as gender wage gap in the workforce.

As human, it is so natural for us to consume and live out the values of what media feeds us. And as a result, these never-ending expectations of women generally make all women more vulnerable, putting men in charge and reinforcing traditional roles of working in the home. There are so many legal and cultural barriers that prevent women from achieving their career goals. But women have the right to be able to balance family life and career, no less than the rights of men.

And at first, this is all I saw. I thought that with this inequality, men had to help women with household chores and everything would be fine. But the more I thought about it, I realized that it's not that simple. There is a reason that some work is meant for men, and others are meant for women. We live in a physical world, and we cannot ignore the fact that women were created to give birth, while men in general have physically stronger bodies. Men in South Korea are required to serve in the military - isn't that unfair? Being so caught up in how unfair it is for women, I didn't think about how men receive just as much, if not more, pressure, having to fulfill these physical obligations while being expected to financially provide for their family. Another thing I realized, is that there are some women who enjoy the household work. They are more comfortable staying at home, and they are completely happy supporting their family in that way.

A part of being human is fighting for balance between tradition and innovation. But it's hard when these traditions are based on the fundamental nature of humans, such as our physical traits and natural instincts. And this is why I believe there will be an endless debate on gender roles.

Originally, I wanted to target men, to tell them, help your wives in the kitchen and release the burden on them so they can fulfill their career goals. But now, I just want to ask all of you, to really think about your dream and what you want to achieve. If, as a woman, you feel that fulfilling these traditional roles and doing household work is what you want to do for the family, then definitely do so. But do it because you like the work, not because you feel defined by it. And if you feel that these traditional gender roles are keeping you from doing what you are capable of and want to do, then I want to encourage you to break free of these gender roles and communicate to find a way to balance family life and career.

In this way, I hope for a world where there will be no distinction between the definition of a “good wife” and a “good husband”.