2012 and 2013 have been momentous years for South Korea’s political landscape. Unless you’ve been living under a rock Patrick Starfish-style, you’ll likely have taken note of the fact that Park Geun-hye, a longtime National Assembly representative of the conservative New Frontier Party (also known as 새누리당, the Saenuri Party, and formerly known as 한나라당, or the Grand National Party) won the December 2012 presidential election by a narrow margin and became the first female president of South Korea. Though she cuts a rather controversial figure (being the daughter of one of South Korea’s most simultaneously revered and reviled military dictator will do that to you — and indeed, the opposition progressive Democratic United Party [민주당, the Minju party] has often accused Park Geun-hye of riding her father’s coattails to power), it is difficult to deny that having a woman in CheongWaDae (청와대, or the Blue House) is nothing short of revolutionary in South Korea.
I’ve harped on it countless times before, but South Korea is just not a spectacular place to be a woman. With an atrocious gender wage gap, more or less institutionalized sexism when it comes to hiring and promotions, and a whole host of problems related to the tension between raising a family and pursuing a career, South Korea’s poor gender rights record is often cited as an anomaly among OECD countries. That a woman managed to take the election is meaningful, even if such meaning is nuanced or requires that it be contextualized within Park’s background and inherited legacy. Some have even gone so far as to declare that it signifies a watershed in how Seoul will handle women’s rights issues from here on out. You hear that, ladies? A watershed! Change is just around the corner!(...)
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© Dana for seoulbeats, 2013. |
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Post tags: Girl's Day, Korean culture, Korean politics, Park Geun-hye
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