By Tina Kim
South Korea elected its first female president, Park Geun Hye, on Dec. 19, 2012 marking the beginning of a new kind of leadership. This election comes as a revolutionary and paradoxical development for South Korea, a region historically influenced by Confucianism. Confucian beliefs of female subordination to male figures have–at some level–predisposed gender inequality throughout Asia. However, this election indicates a change from such beliefs and is symbolic of the modern progression of South Korean and perhaps Asian society overall. On the other hand, as the daughter of a former president, Park Geun Hye traces back to the legacy her parents left behind for the South Korean people.
Park Geun Hye has been noted to largely model after her mother, Yuk Young Soo, who was one of South Korea’s most beloved first ladies. Park Geun Hye’s father, former President Park Chung Hee, is known for promoting rapid industrialization and economic growth in South Korea. However, to others, he was a villain for the coldblooded crackdowns of his opponents in order to hold power. Nevertheless, he created an environment where companies such as Samsung and Hyundai would thrive and instituted the economic foundations that would permanently bring the South Korean people out of third world poverty. Today, South Korea is the world’s fifteenth largest economy and its modern society carries new hardships that President Park Geun Hye now inherits.
Interestingly, unlike female leaders who emulate stereotypically male characteristics such as toughness, aggressiveness, and domineering authority, Park Geun Hye has deviated from such an image. Instead, she has taken on a largely maternal persona–one that emits stability, principle, and trustworthiness. With the global and domestic economy declining, Park Geun Hye’s almost motherly dedication to her country is exactly what the South Korean people need.
Modernization and decreasing economic growth have brought many difficulties to ordinary individuals and family households, such as high commodity prices, skyrocketing college tuition, gender inequality in the workplace, and an increasing wealth gap. In response, Park Geun Hye has embraced and addressed these problems as a maternal figure for the nation.
A 60 year-old and never married woman, she once said, “I have no family to take care of. I have no child to inherit my properties. You, the people, are my only family, and to make you happy is the reason I do politics.” Since her election, Park Geun Hye has promised to institute government fully subsidized childcare for children under the age of five, so that mothers have the equal opportunity to work. In addition, she has proposed programs to prevent sexual assaults as well as increase government funding for social security and university tuition for the poor.
In order to improve domestic and foreign policy, South Korea needs Park Geun Hye’s quiet leadership of gradual change. Radical action will not resolve issues stemming from decades of conflict. In a region characterized by conservatism, division, and war, South Korea needs such a leader that can advocate diplomacy over aggression and maintain a level of national stability. For the past 15 years, Park Geun Hye has been a widely popular and successful politician in part, because of her cautious, yet tactful leadership. In 2004, she was nicknamed the “Queen of Elections” for masterminding the comeback of the conservative party in South Korea’s parliamentary elections. However, more than politics, modernization, and her maternal figure, Park Geun Hye was elected because she represented and reminded the South Korean people of the best and worst of their past.
Like the rest of the older generation of South Korea, Park Geun Hye lived a life of modest means in an era when the country was plagued with poverty from Japan’s brutal 36-year colonial rule and the Korean War. The hunger, hardship, and struggle defined the life during Park Chung Hee’s 18-year presidency. These were times when young women worked in factories on empty stomachs, when students worked several jobs in order to attend college, and when families and friends shared each other’s meager belongings. It was a period of great economic development but also of great loss for both its leaders and civilians.
During her father’s presidency, Park Geun Hye’s mother was killed in a North Korean assassination attempt aimed at her father. Park Geun Hye became the first lady at the young age of 22. Five years later, her father was also assassinated. Although not realized during his regime, many have attributed the higher standard of living in South Korea to former President Park Chung Hee even years after his death. Park Geun Hye’s parents and their generation’s sacrifices for national economic growth have become legacies that the South Korean people do not want to forget. For these reasons, the election of President Park Geun Hye was both timely and appropriate for South Korea’s leadership for the next five years.
Looking back on my country’s history as a Korean American, I hear stories of this era from my grandparents and parents. As much as there was struggle and sacrifice, there is pride in the fact that South Korea rose from the ashes of destitution, division, and war. This legacy defines South Koreans today, and the leadership that led South Korea to progress is what South Koreans wish to see repeated in Park Geun Hye’s presidency. Modernization today has created an array of new problems that remain unanswered. However, by electing the daughter of President Park Chung Hee as South Korea’s first female president, the South Korean people are looking for answers from history while adapting for a brighter future.
Tina Kim is a second year Communications major and Public Policy and Urban Planning double minor.
at 10:43 am
I believe the article contains many unintended inaccuracies about and misunderstandings of Park Geun-hye, her policies, and Korean politics and society in general.
First of all, the article needs to look at the most fundamental underlying fact about Park. The author wrote, “In a region characterized by conservatism, division, and war, South Korea needs such a leader that can advocate diplomacy over aggression and maintain a level of national stability,” as if Park is a revolutionary figurehead who could change South Korea’s characteristics of “conservatism, division, and war.” However, the author overlooked the fact that Park is the leader of the Saenuri Party, the conservative party of South Korea whose party policies are defined by “conservatism, division, and war.” More specifically, in regards to South Korea’s relationship with North Korea, the Conservative Party prefers cooperation with the United States in multilateral economic and political pressure on North Korea over more pro-North Korean policies (increasing humanitarian aid for North Korea, for example) that resemble the “Sunshine Policy” from 1998 to until the election of President Lee Myung-bak, who is also a member of the Conservative Party. Although Park did, during the election, separate her policies toward North Korea from those of President Lee, claiming that she looks forward to a cordial relationship with North Korea through means such as but not limited to humanitarian aid, amongst the South Korean people and media, this action of Park is regarded as a smart political election strategy to: (1) appeal to the population of undecided, moderate, and even liberal voters and later in the end of the election period, (2) attract the votes of the liberal voters who supported Ahn Cheol-soo over Moon Jae-in and who became a huge group of undecided voters after Ahn’s withdrawal of his candidacy. Therefore, it is still dubious as to whether Park would truly keep her promise during the election, and this is indeed the greatest challenge for Park during her term: whether she can keep her promise by separating herself from her conservative party and from her predecessor President Lee.
Second of all, the author wrote as if the fact that a female president was elected is a revolutionary, progressive change: “However, this election indicates a change from such beliefs and is symbolic of the modern progression of South Korean and perhaps Asian society overall.” In my opinion, I believe the author regards this change in a way similar to how Americans feel about Barack Obama’s presidency, first African American president who overcame racial stereotypes, differences, and discriminations. However, Park’s election to the presidency as a woman indicates minimal change, if not no change at all. Park did not win the election because she was a disadvantaged woman who fought against the norm and is a revolutionary figure of change; She won because she was a member of the conservative party that bases its support from a group that takes up the majority of the voting population: the old. This election exposed a stronger social disunity. In essence, the old, who, frankly, will not physically live in this country in the future as living human beings, determined the future for those who will live in this country. The population of the old in Korea is characterized by support for the aforementioned conservative policies, yet they voted for Park, who supposedly promised that she will show a more cordial relationship with North Korea and other domestic policies that are more moderate than her party’s conservative policies. The question is thus: Did voters vote for Park for whom she is as a candidate and for her policies or did they vote for Park for the conservative party and for her status as the daughter of a dead President of the past in the 1970s, the time period when the population of the old had the peaks of their lives (a fact which even the author acknowledges in later parts of her article)? I believe it is the latter. The election of Park as the President is hence a symbol of more division between the conservative and the liberal and between the old and the young.
Third of all, the author described the motherly and womanly image of Park and wrote as if she won the election for such motherly and womanly image and policies by writing, “A 60-year-old and never married woman, she once said, ‘I have no family to take care of, I have no child to inherit my properties. You, the people, are my only family, and to make you happy is the reason I do politics.’ Since her election, Park Geun Hye has promised to institute government fully subsidized childcare for children under the age of five, so that mothers have the equal opportunity to work. In addition, she has proposed programs to prevent sexual assaults as well as increase government funding for social security and university tuition for the poor.” This is inaccurate in that this election was characterized by extremely similar policies from Park and from the forerunner of the liberal party, Moon Jae-in. Hence, this election was regarded as one that was not determined by the policies, but by whether or not you identified yourself with the conservative party or the liberal party. This supports my previous claim that this election is a symbol of more division between the conservative and the liberal. Park was voted not because people became more open to a female candidate and not because of her policies, but because of her party, the conservative.