Confucianist Consequences and its Challenges by Christine Park
Korean Confucianism, Yu-gyo, is a long-standing tradition in Korea; filial piety, one of the three core values, is prized in a family over all other values. The samgangoryun states that there are five relationships that are necessary to ensure social order. Kings over servants, fathers over sons, and husbands over wives, to name a few. These relationships are parallel: wives should treat their husbands as they would kings, and sons and daughters should treat their fathers as their sovereigns. Younger people are meant to concede to the power of the people with more power, as dictated by the samgangoryun.
The hierarchy doesn’t stop at age; it applies to gender too. Men are granted more power in the family; the father is the head of the house and the wife serves her husband. Previously in Korea, it was illegal for doctors to tell parents the gender of their baby because so many parents chose to abort girls. Similar to Western culture, Korean children take their father’s family name. When women get married, they live with their husbands’ family and leave their biological family behind. Women do three times more housework than men, despite both partners working. Korean familial structures constantly give women and girls less power and agency compared to their male counterparts.
When parents tell their children to do something, they must not question the order. Questioning their authority, no matter how absurd the request, is inconceivable. As the child grows older, the agency one believes one has as well as the agency one believes others have vanishes. If one is in a position of power, “no” becomes a foreign concept, and one becomes defensive and offended. As children grow up, they carry these messages with them. To borrow
the words of Noam Chomsky, consent is manufactured. When children are taught that they can’t stand up to people in positions of power, they grow up to learn that setting their own boundaries is taboo. Men are in an indisputable position of power over women. Since consent is constantly
overlooked on a microcosmic scale- how will they be respected on a macrocosm? Escaping social conditioning is a challenge that every progressive must address. However, in certain situations, the challenge of escaping social conditioning has dire consequences. When little girls grow up, they are more at risk than their male classmates. Little boys grow up to be men in positions of power who see refusal as disrespectful, while little girls become women that believe even uttering dissent is frowned upon. According to a 2018 report, there are, on average, 80.4 sex crimes per day, counting only the crimes that are reported. Every hour, around three people in Korea become victims of a sex crime.
When women enter the workforce, they’re blatantly told to wear more makeup during job interviews. In 2016, 8 in 10 working women were sexually harassed. 78.4% just put up with it and 6.8% personally ask for an apology. Coworkers go out drinking at least every weekend and take part in the hweshik culture, an oppressive practice in which everyone in the office is obligated to participate lest they want to risk being singled out; you can’t say no if your boss wants to go drinking. 44.6% of sexual harassment happens during hweshik. 1 in 5 sexual harassment cases end in the victim leaving the workplace.
Yu-gyo values, programmatically established centuries ago, were made to be discriminatory; however, we as a society have now outgrown its medieval framework. The set of values that upheld social order have now corrupted modern society into one that condones complicity and selective hearing. The #MeToo movement took off in Korea and promptly
collapsed. People in power accused women of wanting attention, abusing their platform and conspiring to ruin careers for spite. Rape culture isn’t specific to Korea, but, in Korea, the mere discussion of it is silenced through a tradition of confucianism tainted with sexism.
The challenge that Korea faces is a cultural issue and won’t be fixed in the short-term. To begin addressing the deafening silence, people in positions of power must put down their pride. Parents who allow their daughters to ask why only they must go wash dishes with their aunts and grandmothers, teachers who allow students to question inane rules enforced in class and mentors who welcome dissent will usher in the necessary change.