The division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 produced two rival regimes bent on disproving the other’s claim to independence and national representation. Beginning in 1946, the North Korean regime implemented a set of drastic “anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, democratic” reforms (Cumings 1981; S. Kim 2013; Scalapino et al. 1973; Seo 2005) which were designed to validate Pyongyang’s self-proclaimed lead in achieving superior independence and modernity. In this transformation, the 1946 Gender Equality Law is presented in official history as one of the most illustrious accomplishments of Kim Il-sung’s post-colonial reforms. The sudden leap towards gender equality created “
In North Korean parlance, the appellation “
However, contrary to North Korean claims that socialist construction has made
However, the fact that North Korean legislation and political campaigns never denounced tradition or domesticity (S. Kim 2013, 176), as was the case in the Soviet Union or China at different phases in their revolution, does not sufficiently explain why
To make better sense of the development, reproduction, and modification of
Notwithstanding, the institutional requirements of socialist construction and regime consolidation—i.e., economic planning with priority on heavy industrialization (Y. Park 2017, 304-353), the principle of family consolidation, and the repeal of uncontested divorce in 1955 (H. Park 2003, 52-53; Jo 1958, 14-15; Kim et al. 1992, 140-144), public distribution which effectively favored male heads of household (Cho 2013, 124; Lankov and Kim 2014, 87)—placed men and women in hierarchies and roles that most effectively fulfilled the dictates of socialism. While
Analytical Framework and Methodology
In previous scholarship, the dichotomous lens of the Cold War and prevailing top-down perspectives cast North Korean women as either emancipated or oppressed; glorified or exploited; agents or pawns in the state’s socialist program. However,
The prevalence of
Instead of framing the problem as a balance sheet of losses and gains for women or in relation to the prescriptive capacities/ambitions of the state regarding gender relations, the present study relies on historical evidence and migrant interviews to examine how both male and female service to Juche socialism—rather than patriarchy or Confucianism—produced such complex, paradoxical, and unintended consequences. The story of
1. What is the cause and consequence of socialist namjon nyeobi? 2. What is the analytic lens through which to make sense of a contemporary gender culture in which frequent references to namjon nyeobi persist? 3. What specific conditions have generated the gap between state promotion of gender equality and the reality of namjon nyeobi? 4. What are the implications for women’s economic empowerment since the Arduous March for effecting change in namjon nyeobi?
Historically, the origins of socialist
The more proximate reality of socialist
Interviewing North Korean migrants raises concerns regarding confidentiality and sample bias (Cho 2004; B. Choi 2003, 312-321; Jeong 2005; J. Kang 2015). To address the first issue and ensure maximum reliability of interview data, the entire interview process observed the Bioethics and Safety Act which requires researchers to inform the interviewees about the specific terms of confidentiality in a letter of consent subject under the approval of the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of the first author’s employer institution. The letter of consent explicitly states that the video recordings and transcripts of the interviews are saved in encrypted USB or external hard drives and accessible only to the participants of the present research. The letter makes it clear that the interview results are not disclosed to anyone else outside the present research team, and that no personal information about the interviewees is disclosed upon the publication of the interview results in peer-reviewed journals.
The second issue regarding sample bias is further complicated due to the regional imbalance of North Korean defectors, who mostly come from the two provinces closest to the border with China, namely North Hamgyong and Ryanggang (Cho 2004; Jung and Dalton 2006; Lankov and Kim 2014, 71). These two provinces account for only around twelve percent of the North Korean population this rural-urban gap is much wider than in developed countries (Song and Denney 2019, 453). Furthermore, they do not “constitute a representative sample of North Korean society because they have chosen to leave, meaning that their opinions about politics are systematically biased” (Dukalskis and Lee 2020, 1055). The over-representation of the two northern provinces reflects the regional imbalance of the defector community, as in other studies on North Korean defectors (Lankov and Kim 2014, 71).
To mitigate these concerns, the authors tried to diversify the regional dispersion of the interviewees (B. Choi 2003, 330; Jeong 2005, 170), focus on “behaviors and processes that can be externally validated rather than on political opinions” (Dukalskis and Lee 2020, 1055; Seo 1995), and cross-referenced the interview results against other published analyses of defector interviews (B. Choi 2004, 330). In fact, eight of the twenty interviewees were selected from provinces other than North Hamgyong and Ryanggang; the interview questions focused on the daily lives and popular sentiments of ordinary people to detach the research from political prejudice (Y. Cho 2004, 72); and the interview questions and results were cross-referenced against previous studies that demonstrated the pervasiveness of
[Table 1.] Profile of Interviewees
Profile of Interviewees
Historical Origins of Socialist Namjon nyeobi
Previous studies have argued that the postliberation policies for “gender equality” were rolled back in favor of pro-family policies starting with the National Mother’s Conference (Jeonguk eomeoni daehoe) in November 1961. However, since pro-family policies and motherhood as a service to the state were common across socialist countries, they do not sufficiently explain how socialist construction refashioned
Initially,
The real struggle for women’s emancipation in Korea began when the Korean people’s struggle for national liberation entered the stage of the anti-Japanese armed struggle organized under the leadership of Marshal Kim Il-sung. In 1932, Marshal Kim Il-sung organized the anti-Japanese partisan units, presented the exact line of the Korean Revolution, and at the same time proclaimed the path ahead for women’s emancipation. For the emancipation of women, not only the legal equality of women must be achieved as Marxism and Leninism teaches, but also the practical conditions for political, economic and social equality must be guaranteed [italics added]. (Joseon nyeoseong 1960, 12)
From the 1960s,
This formulation itself was not intended to compel women to observe
Women were educated to revolutionize themselves within the parameters inherited from tradition or Confucianism, which “no legislation, or political campaign ever denounced” because “the family and the home came to symbolize the Korean nation in the North Korean Revolution” (S. Kim 2010, 745). This is different from China where women were encouraged to use Mao Zedong’s work to criticize domineering family members, such as parents, in-laws, or husbands (Salaff and Merkle 1970, 188), and femininity was subordinated to masculinity so that women were pressured to dress like men and act like men, but not vice versa (Yang and Yan 2017, 67). In North Korea, carrying a feminine demeanor and fulfilling her duties as a mother, wife, and daughter-in-law were key measures of a woman’s revolutionization. In the 1960s, the pursuit of Juche in the struggle against revisionism and dogmatism further elevated the significance of traditional femininity in the construction of revolutionary womanhood.
In addition to these, communist mothers were subject to additional instructions about how to remain a true Korean woman while modernizing herself as a selfless public servant. This included, for example, the regime’s instruction to women to don
The foregoing indoctrination had the unintended effect of strengthening patrilineal heritage and thereby reinforcing
Socialist namjon nyeobi in Post-Crisis Reality
The indispensable role of women in the survival of North Korea after the economic crisis of the 1990s has been well recognized and documented. Nonetheless, patriarchy is still cited by North Koreans as the most fundamental reason for the gap between the policy of gender equality and the reality of women’s subordination. Under these circumstances, the implications of women’s breadwinning role for gender equality are still unclear for several reasons: (1) marketization has added a new ingredient to the contradictory mixture of Koreanized radicalism and tradition; (2) throughout the crisis and afterwards, women’s determination to preserve the family strengthened, which had ambivalent consequences for gender equality (H. Park 2003, 143); and (3) male privilege and domination, which are built into the institution of socialism, cannot be contested in the peculiar political context of North Korea (Nam et al. 2017; Y. Oh 2001). The following interview findings provide the details necessary to understand the development, reproduction and modification of
Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality
Socialist
– In the average workplace, women usually arrive at the office thirty minutes before men to clean the office. (M9) – If a woman is a superior in the military, subordinate male officers never salute first. This is how strong namjon nyeobi is in North Korea. (M9) North Korea is still feudal and women’s human rights are pathetic. Women’s human rights are ignored. Men get better treatment because they have to work for the state. This was the situation back in the 1980s and still is the same. (M7) – The image of “Joseon nyeoseong” is one of innocence, simple-mindedness, and submissiveness. Due to the strength of namjon nyeobi, “Joseon nyeoseong” have the image of faithfully executing orders and obeying. (M6) – In North Korea, men think they have to be superior to women; and it is okay for women to be ignored. Women are socially unequal to men—women do not receive social recognition to a great degree and cannot file a claim even if they are sexually harassed nor expect protection in such a case. (F13) – Although gender equality is proclaimed, neither the state nor the family supports women’s ambitions. If a woman strives to attain a certain degree of social success, her parents, not to mention the state, would be the first to oppose it, saying “Why should a woman like you have such aspirations? (F12; F2) – Despite the education in gender equality, I have never even heard of such a thing as child support for a mother back in North Korea. (M14; F16) – The discrepancy between the proclamation of gender equality and namjon nyeobi comes from the fact that North Korea is actually a feudal dynasty rather than a socialist system. Despite the policy emphasis, there is absolutely no such thing as gender equality. (M15) – In security inspections, for example, it is customary for police officers to treat women much harsher, using swear words. As a general phenomenon, there are many cases where women are still disdained and looked down on. In this sense, the impact of namjon nyeobi is still very strong in North Korea today. (F19)
Mix of Traditional and Transitional Views
Based on their experience of
Both men and women understood gender equality to be imposed as a formality, necessary to mobilize women’s labor during the course of socialist construction and thereafter: “The intent of the Gender Equality Law socially is not to protect women legally but to indicate that women have been granted the right to work just as much as men. The Gender Equality Law was initiated to force women to work rather than to protect them” (M15). Similarly, another interviewee opined:
What I understood gender equality to mean was that it meant equal obligations between men and women rather than equal rights. It meant that there is no difference between men and women in terms of loyalty to the state. We were told in school that women could also become party cadres, join the army, and take up leadership positions in society. But not for once did I ever see it being realized because of male supremacy (namseong uwoljuui). Clearly, women suffer from discrimination. Gender equality was just rhetoric and does not include any right that has to do with women’s rights [emphasis added]. (F13)
Gender equality was something that existed in legal terms or in school education, but it was “not experienced in real life” (F12). The reason for this, however, was not due to male domination or the inability of women to oppose it. Many interviewees described how they believed that the institution of socialism itself bred
Namjon nyeobi, which is slowly declining but still exists in North Korea today, derives from the institutional problems of North Korea. On the surface, the regime claims to care about gender equality, starting with the Gender Equality Law, and defines women as having equal partnership in the revolutionary drive, but namjon nyeobi is maintained because men’s roles have much greater social and economic significance. Although namjon nyeobi is gradually disappearing, it will be difficult for the problem to be completely eradicated in a communist dictatorship such as North Korea where levels of economic and social development, as well as levels of scientific and technological development, lag far behind global standards. (M14)
Namjon nyeobi persists due to the feudalism inherited from the past, which permeates the social atmosphere of North Korea. In addition, the North Korean economic structure is still made up of sectors that require the physical labor of men. So, the thinking in North Korea is that society cannot function smoothly without giving preferential treatment to men. (F13)
In addition to the weight of convention and politics in the persistence of socialist
There are several reasons a woman needs a husband even if he is incapable of earning a living. First, a woman who lives alone after divorce, for example, is often subject to the danger of sexual harassment or assault. So even if her husband is deceased, for example, she tells her children to tell other people that dad went away on business. Second, the living conditions in North Korea are such that they require a man’s physical labor, such as cutting firewood, delivering [coal] briquettes, fulfilling the mobilization duties required of people’s units (inminban dongwon) or head of the household mobilization (sedaeju dongwon). These duties would make a women think it would be convenient to have a husband around. (M15)
The need for women to stay married despite the multi-layered burdens of family life in post-crisis reality is reinforced by the local conditions of the
These days, women in the jangmadang need the helping hand of their husbands. Men help out by carrying heavy packages and goods and protect the wife’s business from pickpockets. Having a husband comes in very handy for a woman. Every morning and at night the husbands shuttle back and forth carrying the goods for sale in the jangamang. The goods cannot be left in the jangmadang over night because they will be stolen. It seems women think there might be a synergy to be gained from being married. (M15)
Another condition that preserved the institution of marriage in North Korea was “the notion that domestic violence constitutes abuse does not exist in North Korea, and therefore it is not thought to be a reason to consider divorce even if a drunken husband beats his wife or children or swears at them” (F16).
Even if women earn a living, they do not act in an arrogant manner or ignore men. Rather, women become breadwinners in order to save their families. They do not look down on their husbands for being unable to make a living. They understand that men are obligated to fulfill their duties to the state at the workplace. Women still hold patriarchal values to the point that they do whatever they can to save their families and do not disregard their husbands even if they are unable to make a living. (M17)
As for the future of
Namjon nyeobi will continue in the future because men will not discard their patriarchal thinking. Men think that it is their superior right and prerogative and will not let it go. They think it works to their advantage to look down on women. While namjon nyeobi is considered to be a flawed notion in South Korea, there is no comparable awareness in the North. Men do everything they can to hold on to it [italics added]. (M11)
Still others thought that
Most interviewees agreed that while it will be difficult for
Even though namjon nyeobi will not likely disappear altogether, it will improve greatly if living conditions improve in the future. Catching up with just half the level of South Korean development will go a long way to improving namjon nyeobi. In the past, North Korean women could not walk past their husbands whose eyes were buried in the newspaper without lifting their heels to show respect. However, women have discarded such practice by now. As this example shows, namjon nyeobi is not so dominant anymore. (F12)
The reinforcement of fixed gender roles combined with the principle of family consolidation strengthened through post-crisis times as the imperative of survival further heightened the will to preserve the family for women whose breadwinning duties were executed in close association with men. Both imposed and uncontested in multiple manifestations,
In theoretical terms, women’s emancipation in socialism everywhere was achieved by full submission to the vanguard party (Yurchak 2005, 11) which, in the context of North Korea’s hyper-militarization and rivalry with the South, implemented policies that continued to sustain male privileges at home and work (Y. Park 2017, 273). A strict division of gender roles has been reproduced in the construction, consolidation, and revitalization of socialism spanning over seventy years. In this context, what education and employment of women, which are generally understood to be conducive to female empowerment (E. Kim 2017), can achieve for gender equality in North Korea is somewhat uncertain. This is because education in gender equality as a revolutionary feat already achieved by Kim Il-sung will mean more of the same kind of indoctrination in the anti-colonial, nationalist agenda, as opposed to a feminist or a human rights concern; state penetration in labor conditions and marketization are also heavily gendered; due to the political environment, gender inequality cannot be contested collectively or openly (Y. Oh 2001, 97: Nam et al. 2017, 202).
The strength of ideology and policy, however, does not preclude change in popular practice and sentiments. As described in the foregoing section, men and women exhibited both traditional as well as transitional outlooks regarding socialist
Men or women, superior or inferior, liberated or oppressed, each person played his or her own designated part in the construction of socialism and its revitalization since the Arduous March. Each role was indispensable and executed invariably in close interaction with the other both in private and public realms. In this process, some were well rewarded; some barely managed; and some became disenchanted. These sentiments and consequences cut across status, region, class, and sex. Until direct conversations with North Koreans become more frequent and sustainable, scholars looking in from the outside can only hope to do at least a modicum of justice to the multitudes of experiences men and women have had as socialist Koreans and ordinary human beings.