1 . The Right to Life
B. Women’s Status and Role at Home
population,246 the ratio of women is higher among workers and farmers, the two largest categories of manual labor. For example, some 75 percent of the employees are women at the Pyongyang Textile Factory, which is one of the largest and best-known textile factories in North Korea.
Considering that over 65 percent of all office workers, in the government and elsewhere, are men, the exploitation of women’s labor in North Korea is extremely serious.
The North Korean Democratic Women’s League (“Women’s League”) is an organization in which North Korean women between the ages of 31 and 60, must join if they have no other specific affiliations. But this is not a voluntary organization for the promotion and protection of women’s rights, and it does not exercise any critical or political influences as a social organization. It is simply the party’s external arm charged with responsibilities of mobilizing women for the construction of a socialist economy. Its main task is to perform ideology education of women.
superficially legal and institutional measures were taken to provide socialist equality between men and women, in reality the traditional patriarchal family structures were maintained in the families. Moreover, as the sole leadership of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il was solidified in the 1970s, pre-modern traditions began to be emphasized again in family lives. Furthermore, the family law, promulgated in 1990, codified various elements of pre-modern, patriarchal family order, Providing overall family support
North Korean authorities have always insisted that they guaranteed an environment for the equal social participation of women through such measures as the socialization of family chores and the rearing of children.
Contrary to their claims, however, emphasis was placed on the traditional role of women in the family. Because North Korean still retain the deep-rooted traditional concept that family chores and the rearing of children are the natural responsibilities of women, and because women have to participate in society as equal workers with men, North Korean women shoulder a dual burden. In connection with women’s role and mission in the family, North Korea mandates, “A woman is a housewife and a flower that enables a warm and healthy atmosphere to overflow in the family. It is the woman in the family who will take a good care of old parents in their late years of life, and it is the wife who, as a revolutionary comrade, will actively assist and support her husband in his revolutionary projects. Women will also give birth to and raise sons and daughters, and women are the primary teachers who will prepare the children as trustworthy successors of the great revolutionary tasks.”247
Worse still was the fact that as the economic situation deteriorated since the 1980s the demand for women workers dwindled drastically.
One result was the reduction of various socialization measures related to
247Park Young-sook, “Revolutionizing Families and Women’s Responsibilities,” in The Korean Women magazine, No. 3 (Mar. 1999), p. 15.
domestic chores and child rearing. This change in the status of women is also reflected in the North Korean Constitution. Article 62 of the 1972 constitution had stipulated, “Women shall enjoy the same social status and rights as men. … The State shall liberate women from the heavy family chores and guarantee all conditions for them to advance in the society.” But Article 77 of the 1998 constitution stipulates, “Women shall enjoy the same social status and rights as men. … The State shall provide all conditions for them to advance in the society.” Here, the clause
“liberate women from the heavy family chores” has been deleted. This clearly indicate that the policies to “socialize” family chores and childrearing have been weakened or cancelledduring the food crisis and economic hardship. Since sharing the burden in terms of household chores and childrearing is not practicedin most North Korean families, most women have been suffering from the burden of excessive workload. Their workload inside and outside of their homes, particularly in connection with securingfood, has tremendously increased.
According to the results of questionnaires and personal interviews with new settler women, the “voices” of North Korean women have become more influential in the family as their “economic capabilities”
increased through peddling and vending. But most North Korean women are said to believe that supporting their husbands as masters of the family is the best way to keep family peace and therefore they do not resist the traditional pattern of male-dominant family life. They also generally accept without resistance the common belief that all family matters, including earning a livelihood, are the responsibility of women.
In its first progress report on the CEDAW convention, North Korea said, “The traditional concept of division of labor between the sexes has disappeared. However, customary differences still persist; for example, calling husband the external master and wife the internal master, or heavy duties for man and minor chores for woman.”
Even though women for all practical purposes assumed the leading
role throughout the food crisis as the role of husbands shrank, the traditional patriarchal attitude has remained in most North Korean families. The source of this enduring perception of family can be traced back to the pre-modern “superior man/inferior woman” idea. North Korea defines the traditional concept of men being superior to women as the remnants of a feudalistic Confucian idea that should be rooted out, or as the reactionary moral precepts of an exploitative society. Unlike the official North Korean position on this issue, it is reported that the belief in the superiority of men is still strong among the inhabitants of North Korea. Along with the traditional patriarchal system, this belief in inequality is yet another factor that constrains the life of women in North Korea. Article 18 of North Korea’s family law clearly states, “Man and wife shall have the same rights in family life.” But in reality, the husband is the center of family life in North Korea. The husband, who is called the
“household master,” wields absolute authority in all family affairs, including matters concerning children.