The life women never led by Kim Ju Hyun
“Live your life,” a 65-year-old woman tells her 38 years old daughter Kim Ji Young in the movie Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982. This movie documents the daily life of an ordinary Korean woman born in the early 80s. When this low-budget movie wa s first screened, the movie caught on explosive popularity among women in the 30-4 0s despite its tedious representation of a housewife’s daily routine as a daughter, wif e, and mother. The movie delineates a well-educated and once ambitious woman’s lif e reduced to cooking, laundry, and an unending cycle of changing the baby's diapers.
In the scene when she is sitting on a park bench blankly looking far away, many Korean women can’t help but relate to her. Drinking her coffee, Ji Young reminisces abo ut her past, the moments when she won honors in high school, a competitive internsh ip, and most of all, the moment when her mother gave her the envelope of money tha t she earned from a side job to pay for her daughter’s private tutoring sessions, hopi ng that her daughter will escape the domestic life that the mother never had a chanc e to escape. From watching this movie, one cannot help but wonder why is it that Ko rean women who got the same amount of investment, education, and intelligence as b oys while growing up find themselves back in the same domestic environment from which she and her mother tried so hard to escape? There are many social factors, but it seems Korea's collectivist culture that promotes communal goals as opposed to i ndividual rights is one of the reasons why.
It is important to understand Korea’s modern history to get a perspective on t he challenges that hinder true gender equality in Korean society. After independenc e from imperialist Japan, Korea rapidly adapted to the changing era of post WW2 and joined the global trend of industrialization and urbanization. By the 1960s, Korea was praised as the miracle of the Han river due to accelerated economic growth. Then, K orea further induced huge economic growth. In the 70s the number of exports which was 40,000,000 dollars in 1961 jumped up to 1.59 billion dollars in 1973. Furthermor e, GNP(gross national income) jumped 20 times from 1961 (82 dollars) to 1973(166 3 dollars) and approximately 20 times fold again by 2021 (31881 dollars). Currently, Korea has become a global cultural icon with their K-entertainment showing their pr esence in Grammys and Oscars. While this country has seen speedy development in democracy, economy, and culture, feminism is so far behind in its progress. The stati stics are stunning. The number of males (17,090,000) participating in economic activi ties is 40 percent higher than females (12,189,000). The difference in wage gap beco mes wider with age. For laborers between the age of 25- 29, the wage gap was app roximately 1300 dollars. The statistic 30 years after reveals the wage gap as 25,000 dollars which is nearly 20 times.(mka.koreanews) No matter what many Korean poli cies, politicians, and male CEOs claim, it is undeniable that the social atmosphere or corporate culture that does not welcome married females to come back after matern al leaves exist.
Equal sexual rights seem so hard to achieve despite economic advancement, c ultural enlightenment, and educational support for females because of a long history of Confucianism that was firmly established for 500 years since the start of the Jose on Dynasty. One of the most important Confucianism ideas is that everybody has their roles and only by doing their best in their positions, they will achieve communal pe ace. (Cawley, Kevin N. “Korean Confucianism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford University, 24 Nov. 2021)This idea of everyone doing their best in their ow n position is not only applicable to women, but to every member of society. In compa nies, people are expected to “suck it up” and do what is told for a superordinate goal as a company. In schools, students are expected to follow the rules and play the role of docile student who only opens their mouth to answer the question that is asked. A t home, all members of the family are expected to keep doing their roles so their fam ily becomes more prosperous, nurturing, and achieve to be the best they can be. Wo men's roles in our current society are still expected to be daughters, wives, and mot hers for the good of the family. The most effective role as the wife and a mother of a family is still to take on a supportive role for the breadwinner who has a higher pote ntial to bring in more salary as the statistics show. For instance, there is a Korean word called Naejo, a cultural concept that indicates work, attitude, and assistance th at is required to keep internal peace in the family in order for all the other members to participate in the competitive Korean corporate world or in schools. A man who sa ys he needs to go to his son’s soccer practice will get silent demerits from his boss and a child who asks for an extension because his or her mother had to go take him on a business trip will be laughed at. Those demerits are all blamed upon the mother’ s incompetence naejo. Only a handful of women would be able to overcome the critic isms and the disappointed families of their loved ones for “abandoning” their families for the sake of their own careers. It is considered selfish especially if their salary do esn’t contribute significantly to the family income.
Although they pursue a free working environment, equal treatment, and choic e of life, society disputes each and one individual and considers them as a whole. Exi sting conventional social customs and collectivist nationality are still bound to female s by social pressure. A feminine society is one where the quality of life is the sign of success and standing out from the crowd is not admirable. Society pursues women w ho can blend into the group to be a part of it, nothing more. The new feminine ideal, gender equality should be promoted and women can live as what is conventionally be lieved muscularity, is interrupted due to deeply embedded social attitude, collectivis m. Collectivist culture overrides most other societal rules and regulations. A study b y Han and Shavitt (1994) proves Korea's high tendency as a whole. Their result prov es that Korean ads tended to employ appeals emphasizing we-ness, and family integ rity, whereas U.S ads tended to appeal to individual happiness, personal success, and independence. Similarly, in other research, more themes of group benefit and fewer uniqueness of the themes were found to be present in Korean ads compared with U.S . ads. (Collectivistic culture. Collectivistic Culture - an overview | ScienceDirect To pics. (n.d.). Retrieved April 17, 2022) In fact, South Korea according to Hofstede pos sesses an extraordinarily low Individualism score of 18. These numbers indicate “the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members”; a low number in dicates a more collectivist society in comparison to a higher number that indicates a more individualistic society (Hofstede, n.d). Individualists value the autonomy of indi viduals and therefore endow equal chance and opportunity regardless of one’s gende r. On the other hand, from the collectivist perspective society value woman’s person al goals and their social obligation which holds back women living in South Korea, a highly collectivist culture.
The movie, Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982 ends with a happy ending, Kim Ji You ng living a new life as a writer and the family regaining their happiness. Her husband promised to guarantee her life by parental leave and he shares chores and parenting. The movie ends spotlighting Kim-Ji Young with the ambitious aspiration to move for ward in her life and the movie leaves an ever-lasting impression by calling her own name Kim Ji Young. Contrary to the happy ending of a hyper-realistic movie about lif e in Korea as one’s daughter, wife, and mother, women living in Korea still face limit s due to social conventions. Women once dream of successful life where they can hit a mark of their own name. However, their dream is soon frustrated in the society wh ere women live the rest of their remaining life being called as one’s mothers, and on e’s wives. Throughout the la-la land ending in a realistic documentary, the scriptwrit er wanted to give courage to women living in South Korea so they could recover thei r life. As the movie conveys the message ‘Live your life to women living in Korea, th e audience is deeply touched by women living in under social pressure and carrying t he burden of the family that society thought to be granted. Long continued conventio n cannot change in an instant, the society should change its perception of gender rol es so that such convention is no longer passed on.