Looking at Park's future presidency from afar without considering its historical and social context, it is rather tempting to celebrate it as a sign of positive social change in the conservative Asian country -- women have finally arrived. Or have they?
Certainly, there is an affirmative note in the conservative party's calculation that they need to woo women voters and promote feminine leadership as a positive alternative to a male leadership soiled by corruption and power struggle.
We can appreciate its significance even more when this change is juxtaposed with the 1990s when many pregnant women in South Korea aborted female fetuses to ensure that they would have at least one son among one or two children they were willing to bear. The positive meaning of feminine leadership is also a step forward from older generations of women leaders in South Korea and elsewhere, who either downplayed their gender or ignored it altogether to avoid any negative consequence for their political career.
However, looking into it, the gender politics of Park's candidacy is replete with contradictions and ironies. Here are a few examples.
Read more at CNN, published 22 December 2012.
Looking at Park's future presidency from afar without considering its historical and social context, it is rather tempting to celebrate it as a sign of positive social change in the conservative Asian country -- women have finally arrived. Or have they?
Certainly, there is an affirmative note in the conservative party's calculation that they need to woo women voters and promote feminine leadership as a positive alternative to a male leadership soiled by corruption and power struggle.
We can appreciate its significance even more when this change is juxtaposed with the 1990s when many pregnant women in South Korea aborted female fetuses to ensure that they would have at least one son among one or two children they were willing to bear. The positive meaning of feminine leadership is also a step forward from older generations of women leaders in South Korea and elsewhere, who either downplayed their gender or ignored it altogether to avoid any negative consequence for their political career.
However, looking into it, the gender politics of Park's candidacy is replete with contradictions and ironies. Here are a few examples.
Read more at CNN, published 22 December 2012.