On the 27th of April 2018, a historic inter-Korean summit was held in Panmunjom. The moment President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong-un shook hands was reported all over the world, and the news that a declaration of a formal end to the Korean War and denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula would be formalized in the same year caused excitement not only on the peninsula itself but throughout the world. That day, when various opinions and predictions regarding the rosy future of the Panmunjom pronouncement were flying around, an academic forum was held in Ewha Womans University's Postcolonial Department, on the theme of ‘women and the division system, within and without'. It was jointly hosted by the Korean Association of Women's Studies and Ewha's Center for Reunification Studies.

 

Affording significant attention to the reasons feminism needed to pay attention to the issues of North Korea, division, and what would happen after a formal end to the war, it did not seem merely coincidence that the forum was held on the same day as the summit. An in-depth debate was also carried on as to the current situation for North Korean women, both those residing in North Korea itself and those who had defected.

 

▲ On the 27th of April 2018, an academic forum was held in Ewha Womans University's Postcolonial Department, on the theme of ‘women and the division system, within and without'. It was jointly hosted by the Korean Association of Women's Studies and Ewha's Center for Reunification Studies. ©Korean Association of Women's Studies

The patriarchy of the division system, the masculinity of North and South Korea

 

What is the viewpoint from which feminism regards North Korea and division? Kim Seok-hyang, the director of Ewha University's Center for Reunification Studies, who chaired the roundtable, asked the panelists two questions. The first was 'what do you think is a feminist perspective?'

 

“A feminist perspective involves constructing questions which dismantle generalizations,” said Lee Su-jeong, professor at Duksung Women's University, explaining that “when conversations turn to pronouncements such as ‘this is universal, this is normal', asking new questions is what constitutes a feminist perspective, not merely seeking new answers”.

 

“Looking at the world from a woman's perspective” was Ewha professor Cho Young-ju's answer. “Not 'woman' only in the biological sense, but 'women' as those who oppose discrimination and violence, and have a long history of working to change the world. Looking at the world from that perspective, wouldn't that be feminist? Ultimately, a feminist perspective is one which aims to make visible issues, violence, and discrimination which had been invisibilized, and to reveal the mechanism of such invisibilization.”

 

Following on from this, Director Kim asked, “If we apply a feminist perspective, what are the issues raised by the system of division we live under, and how do we solve them?”

 

Yonsei University professor Kim Hyon-mi answered as follows: “We should think hard about what was rationalized and justified through the division system. An ultra-masculine military culture was rationalized and justified in both Koreas through relations of competition and hostility, and within the logic of that system many alternative values were subordinated and placed in a hierarchy.”

 

Professor Kim further claimed that the homogeneity, blinkered thinking, and hierarchical structure of the division system have allowed absolutely no scope for examining or acknowledging alternative values in South Korean society, and made this society extremely impoverished in cultural terms. We have to recognise that there is no difference today between the 'masculinity' of the two Koreas.

 

“When we speak of the division system, we imagine nationality, pure blood, and ethnicity, but there is also patriarchy,” said Lee Ji-yeon of Yonsei. “In fact, there are incredibly varied axes of power in our lives, and I think that this includes the structure of gender.”

 

She reminded us why feminism needs to be included in the debate when the conversation turns to North Korea and division. “Even when a society that is unified or integrated comes into being, vestiges can still remain through which the division system will be perpetuated. I think a feminist perspective is extremely important when we imagine such axes of power.”

 

What is the status of North Korean women today, after the emergence of the market?

 

“We casually say 'North Korean women', but this category is in fact extremely large.” In a presentation titled 'Wheel of revolution heading to the market: North Korean women's mobilization and marginalization, Professor Cho explained that she “investigates how North Korea has come to call North Korean women out of the home, their current positions, and how can this be interpreted.”

 

According to the presentation, “Since the mid 1990s, the emergence of the market is spoken of as a huge change in North Korean society,” one in which women have played a central role. “There are 404 public markets authorized by the North Korean state, and it is estimated that the majority of the 1,099,052 people who engage with them are women” (2016 Center for Reunification Studies, North Korea nationwide markets data).

 

“Women's participation in markets brings about a 'shift in consciousness' through the circulation of information and the construction of networks with those around them”, and “this first shift brings about another regarding the perception of women's abilities and rights.”

 

Professor Cho said that “we can see that while previously in North Korean society men held the position of 'worker' and women that of 'family caretaker', by entering markets in order to support their families women moved beyond this domestic sphere and ended up supporting the livelihood of the nation itself.” A considerable change thus came about in the gender hierarchy of North Korean society.

 

But “the flip side of markets being officially permitted was the emergence of a hierarchy between markets which are official and those which are not”. Picking up on the fact that “the managers and administrators of markets are generally men, and those with good birth status and family background”, she explained that “there are also aspects which limit the fracturing of the existing gender order in North Korean society”.

 

She particularly stressed the facts that “in spite of the substantial contribution that women's economic activity makes to the national economy, women's economic activity and labor power stops at national mobilization” and “division of labor between the sexes is still apparent in the overall economic structure”. Further, she suggested that “we need to ask what the position of women will become when intense economic activity begins in North Korea”.

 

“In order to be seen as a 'normal country', North Korea recently joined the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, delivered a report, and claims to safeguard women's rights in accordance with international norms.” They also “showed steps such as legislating and presenting the 2010 'DPRK Law to Guarantee Women's Rights'”. However, Professor Cho criticized this as “effectively rendering the actual circumstances of North Korean women invisible”.

 

On the other hand, Professor Cho said we have to pay attention to “the ways in which North Korea has recently managed and presented the public image of North Korean women (Kim Yeo-jeong, Hyun Song-wol, Ri Sol-ju)”. “At the present time, when attempts are being made to advance inter-Korean relations to a new stage, we need to be interpreting the ways in which these women are represented, and these methods of women's representation need to be considered in the establishment of North-South relations.”

 

North Korean women in the Joseonjok Autonomous Region, and the possibility of 'alternative family'

 

Professor Kim Sung-kyung from the University of North Korean Studies spoke of how she had investigated the possibilities for solidarity and alternative family among North Korean women she met in the China-North Korea border region and Joseonjok women.

 

For 'ordinary' South Korean women living in South Korea, it's difficult to find common ground with North Korean women other than the fact of their being 'women'. In view of this, Professor Kim's research into sisterhood and alternative family among migrant women in the China-North Korea border region was a fascinating discussion.

 

“The global international system and migration network caused great numbers of Joseonjok women to relocate to South Korea to perform care work and service roles, and the space this left empty (care roles within Joseonjok society) ended up being filled by North Korean women, whose relationship with Joseonjok women had traditionally been one of cooperation.”

 

According to Professor Kim, the circumstances which led to women in North Korea becoming responsible for their families' livelihood “also came about for Joseonjok women, and (women) rushed into exploited labor for the sake of their shattered families.” However, “though it began as exploitation, every so often such an experience would lead to these women's empowerment, and so there are also cases where they came to South Korea, started work and then (realizing the inequality of the relationship) divorced their husbands.”

 

“Care work was the only means by which they were able to make a living, but though it was a site of exploitation, the situation is double-edged, and the actions of these women enfold multiple layers, showing them crossing back and forth between being passive victims and active agents. In such an environment, women construct women-only networks, or manage families (their own and others) as refuges for those who receive care.”

 

Calling them “women who cross borders, within and without,” Professor Kim Sung-kyung shared several case studies from her research. These were the stories of women who, after leaving North Korea, spend time in the Joseonjok autonomous region, on the border between China and North Korea. Though they generally support themselves through domestic care work, there are cases where they learn medical procedures that are illegal in South Korea but practiced in China, and make a role for themselves performing these procedures. She also told of subjects who found South Korea so full of hardships and constraints that they ended up choosing life in China, despite the fact of their illegal status there.

 

Among North Korean female defectors and Joseonjok women “there is striking solidarity among women who help and rely on each other in the process” of crossing borders.

 

Professor Kim stressed that “having broken down under the conditions of global capitalism, Joseonjok domestic life is now changing into new forms of family, in collaboration with care work performed by North Korean women.” And “the way of living in which people become family based on need” might be able to disrupt modern society's ideology of 'the family'”.

 

North Korean female defectors have a stronger 'will to work' than South Korean women

 

Jang In-suk, a senior researcher at Inter-Korean Hana Foundation, who gave a presentation on the lives of North Korean women defectors living in South Korea, mentioned that “unlike the sensationalistic reporting on North Korean women defectors that generally appears in the press, these women live varied lives that cannot easily be generalized. With the intention of making visible “the average North Korean woman defector,” she began to analyze “the lives of North Korean women defectors as seen through statistics”.

 

“Roughly 80% of those who have defected from North Korea over the past three years are women; 34.1% are in their 40s, 26.1% are in their 30s, and 15.9% are in their 20s, meaning 76.1% are in the 20s-40s range, which has a high level of participation in the labor market. Their employment rate is 52.6%, which is high compared with the 51.3% of general women (meaning all women residing in South Korea).

 

©Korea Hana Foundation

“The percentage of women who answered that having a job is good was 93.2, higher than 90.2% of women overall, as was the 67.9% who said that they had to continue working irrespective of [their] family, compared with 58.9% of all women.” Further, “results showed that 45.2% ranked work above family in order of importance (compared with 33.7% of all women), 35.5% said they were similar (all women, 48.4%), and 16.2% put 'family first' (women overall, 17.9%).” It can be confirmed that “overall, they are strongly inclined towards work and economic activity.”

 

But the kinds of employment open to them are limited. “So-called unskilled laborers were highest at 26.4%, followed by service workers at 23.3%.” This is in stark contrast to the fact that “26.7% of male North Korean defectors work operating technical equipment / machinery, and 25.7% are skilled workers or perform related functions”.

 

Jang In-suk explained that “because of this difference in occupational clusters, there is a considerable wage disparity between the sexes; the reason for the disparity in occupation is that female defectors with dependent children end up moving from one day job to another, as they need to earn money urgently and have no time to acquire new skills.”

 

Despite North Korean women defectors displaying the will to participate in the labor market, they suffer from the double burden of domestic work and childcare. “Among the barriers to gaining employment, the highest answer was 'burden of childcare' at 40%, higher than 'social bias against women and discriminatory customs' at 16.3% and 'inequality in the workplace' at 11.3%.”

 

Women of both Koreas living under the division system, and feminism

 

A hopeful viewpoint was put forward, that the circumstances of war and division which made South Korean society insecure and ripe to be constructed as militaristic, might soon disappear. The point was also made that the 'if' now needs to be discarded from the hypothetic 'if the war ends', and countless discussions will have to be had beginning 'when the war ends, we...'.

 

What would the end of the war really mean for feminists? This forum was a deeply meaningful place in which North Korean women who are living under the current division system (whether or not in North Korea itself), the positions afforded them, and the environment in which they find themselves were examined from the viewpoint of that concern.

 

The forum's participants also conveyed their hopes that feminists would pay more attention to the issues of division, North Korea, and discussions about ending the war, and that through this, new questions and issues would be delved into. [Translated by Deborah Smith]

 

*Published May 8, 2018 *Original article: http://ildaro.com/8196

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

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