South Korean women’s literature criticizes current society

South Korean women’s literature has strengthened and gained popularity in the recent decade for its direct discussion against the country’s patriarchal system, explained Nayelli López Rocha, a doctor in Korean studies. He added that The Nobel Prize in Literature for the writer Han Kang is important because her work is focused on questioning the gender roles historically established in Korea..

In interview with The Day, The researcher from the University Program of Asian and African Studies pointed out that the narrator Han Kang was recognized for “this literature, which she has strengthened along with other Korean or Korean-American literature, precisely for directly objecting to the patriarchal system.

The resonance it has had with the female public in countries where this structure exists, which is the majority of the planet, gives it that popularity, which allows it to connect with a lot of souls in different regions of the world.

Authors such as Han Kang, Cho Nam Jo, Lee Min Jin, Shin Kyung Sook and Kim Hye Jin produce works that reflect and question contemporary Korean society. They have a global impact because they address issues that make sense in many other societies, which as women we are questioning.added López Rocha.

He said that when the current president Yoon Suk-yeol, of the far-right party in Korea, was campaigning, one of his promises was to remove the Ministry of Gender and Family Affairs, because incited women to rebel. and removed it; Therefore, there is no coherence with her statement of pride that the writer has won the highest award in world literature.

It is important to note that Han Kang’s work has been recognized for his own effort to raise or make visible problems that question the South Korean reality and that has nothing to do with the entire cultural industry that tries to represent different realities.

The doctor in Korean studies from Hanyang University in Seoul explained that after the economic crisis of 1997, which affected South Korea, one of the two most Westernized and capitalist countries in Asia, the decision was made to invest in the sector. cultural. This is how export novels and music began to be produced. “The Koreans understand that they kill two birds with one stone: they use the human inputs they have and at the same time it will serve as soft power, influence, which they achieve even with Japan.

“It is a cultural strategy that has been proposed for more than 30 years, which has the support of the government, because it is through the embassies and cultural centers that they are dedicated to carrying out exhaustive promotions (…) It not only remains in the entertainment. The goal of this cultural industry is to open markets, gaining sympathy among the youngest sectors that are the most vulnerable in terms of consumption.”

Confucianism and patriarchal system

Beyond the existence of cultural promotion carried out by the South Korean government, Nayelli López continued, “there is a wave of women who have internationalized Korean literature in recent years, although there is data that since 1917 they have questioned the social order established and perpetuated since a patriarchal system, because Confucianism is.

The Confucian system permeates in a very particular way in social relations in Korea, which is reinforced after the war period, precisely in the construction of these two new countries, North Korea and South Korea, because it is rescued as something traditional.

The researcher reported that among the new wave of authors and works, the Korean-American narrator Min Jin Lee explores in the novel Pachinko “the life of a Korean woman who goes to live in Japan as a foreigner and then returns to Korea and has to rescue traditional elements of her family life that lead her to fulfill specific roles. He talks about the Japanese colonial period, when his family left the peninsula, and then the reunion with the present.

“Kim Ji-young, born in 1982, by Cho Nam-joo, tells you about a woman, her childhood processes, going to school, from the contemporary period, when she is already married and her behavior begins to be questioned due to her gender. Also this Please take care of mom, by Kyung-sook Shin, which emphasizes women’s contemporary roles such as caregiving and questions whether they are given permission to study and become professional if they are then required to marry, have children, and obey their husbands.

These texts They make sense because they focus on the functions of being a woman, on the disadvantages of following certain mandates, because they force us to get into a structured space and, even if you are aware of that problem, you do not have structural or power tools to cross those borders..

López Rocha mentioned that this generation of writers emerged when her country began to promote women’s professionalization, since Confucianism has education as an important point. So, they They see themselves and project themselves as capable of aspiring to be professionals, to enter a company, to lead, to be teachers and to investigate. They are not the same women who were their mothers, who had to accept certain norms to be able to pay for their daughters’ education..

He concluded: It is a very interesting generational intersection that will begin to question all the roles assigned by gender conditions, based on a discourse of not losing tradition, of continuing to be Korean, closely related to national identity, but that they understand that culture It is formed by humans and they are things that can be transformed, not necessarily eradicated, for a greater social and collective benefit..