Danielle Valenzuela Valenzuela

Prof Allie Turner

Jobs for Women in South Korea

In the graphic novel Ms. Marvel, by G. Willow Wilson, there were scenes of

gender inequality that had occurred within Kamalas family. One example is where

Kamala was treated differently from her brother, meaning she was treated more strictly

compared to her brother. This novels problem of gender inequality also can correlate

to the problems that the real world has. One way would is having gender inequality for

women in South Korea. Some ways women in South Korea are being treated differently

from men are by unequal access to jobs, an unfair amount of job discrimination and

having social construction and culture that gives unfair advantages for women. Back in

the day women were also treated unfairly even to this day , even though there has been

some improvements on women's gender equality there are still systems that make up

gender inequality, and this makes women's lives more harder to live with the country's

inequality of genders social construction.

Back track to 150 years, Korea had accepted a religion which is called

Confucianism this religion gave the idea that men are greater than women. This

concept also why gender inequality is still stuck in the Korean society. Since the norm of

gender inequality for women has been in Korea for so long, it became deeply rooted in

their society that it may take a while to be able to make any progress with gender

equality. And this religion has affected many aspects of the South Korean culture,

including the persons role in society.

 Women in South Korea is known to be one of the worst country that has inequality

gender with an unfair amount of women working compared to men. In fact, as it said in

The Huffington Post , South Korea is ranked 125 out of 142 of the countries of most

equal pay for similar work. This is seen, that South Korea still isn't able to accept or

change their ways of having more gender equality as they are also one of the highest

ranked for gender inequality of work. Since women have limited access to jobs , this

makes the jobs for both genders wider. As Hyojeong Kim said, the gender wage gap

was 37.4 per cent. This creates a more unfair of money distribution to the men and

women and thus, giving women with the less wealth at a disadvantage. That is also why

South Korea is rank 125, because how would there be a most equal pay for similar

work if women are only limited to jobs that they are allowed to work in. While men are

able to work in specialized jobs where women weren't allowed to go in.

The social construction of South Korea, was a concept that was believed that

women were only meant to stay at home. And up to this day it is still accepted and

thought of as appropriate for women to only stay at home while the men work. Since

this was expected to be the social role of women, more than 1 in 5 of women would

leave their jobs to pursue being a housewife and take care of the kids. While less than

1% men only use their paternity leave as companies pressures the males that by having

paternity leave, it can prevent them from being more successful in their job. And that is

why in general women has less higher positions given in their jobs because of usually

having to quit their once they are married. While men in the other hand, would be the

ones with higher position because they were prevented from not working.They were

also given more support to keep pursuing their career and were given more benefits
compared to women. This gives women a lesser chance to go further with their careers

as they are given expectancy that women are only supposed to stay at home and take

care of children.

Another way that women in South Korea have different treatment compared to

men, is the lack of job diversity for women. As it says in the article by Darcie Draudt

Korean women comprise 19.4 percent of lawyers, 23.9 percent of doctors, and 23

percent of university professors. There is a low amount of women that is working in

these specialized areas, since it is known that would take awhile to work and study for

all these jobs ,by the time they are finished they could have been married and leave

their careers. There was also a report from the Wall street journal that there were 1,787

companies in South Korea and only 13 women who were CEOs. As there is a big

difference of both genders in this position. The reason could be because women are

still not looked upon as equal to male. This shows how women are not given a fair

advantage of jobs available compared to men.

In conclusion, It is seen that there is an issue of women being treated differently

to men and that there are certain expectation of both genders that could have been

found unfair and which could be a cause of concern. Even from back then to today,

there is still an issue of having a huge contrast of job for women compared to men.

Some ways women in South Korea are being treated differently from men are by

unequal access to jobs, an unfair amount of job discrimination and having social

construction that gives unfair advantages for women.

Danielle Valenzuela

Valenzuela

English 115, 11:00

Professor Allie Turner

 Works Cited Page

Draudt, Darcie. The Struggles of South Korea's Working Women. The Diplomat, The Diplomat, 26
Aug. 2016, thediplomat.com/2016/08/the-struggles-of-south-koreas-working-women/.

Hyams, James. Women Are Not Equal in Korea. The Korea Observer, The Korea Observer, 29
Jan. 2015, www.koreaobserver.com/women-are-not-equal-in-korea-25893/.

Kim, Hyojeong. A Long Way To Go For Gender Equality In South Korea. HuffPost Canada,
HuffPost, 20 Nov. 2016, www.huffingtonpost.ca/girls-twenty/gender-equality-south-
korea_b_8523302.html.

Koo, Se-Woong. Opinion | South Korea's Misogyny. The New York Times, The New York Times,
13 June 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/opinion/south-koreas-misogyny.htm