First Published in EPW,Vol-XLVIII, No. 10, March 09, 2013
On 25 February, Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former military ruler Park Chung-hee, was sworn in as South Korea’s first woman president following her tightly contested election victory on 19 December 2012.1
In more ways than one, her election marks a historic breakthrough for a traditionally Confucian country2 whose social, political and business fields are dominated by men. Although the country has shown a remarkably high level of economic performance over the past few decades,3 its global ranking in gender parity is not much to talk about.
Women hold only 14.7% of parliamentary seats, and only 79.4% of adult women have reached a secondary or higher level of education compared to 91.7% of their male counterparts. According to the...
