Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

by Cho Nam-Joo

She truly believed he was a decent husband to her for not sleeping around and not hitting her.

Abortion due to medical problems had been legal for ten years at that point, and checking the sex of the fetus and aborting females was common practice, as if “daughter” was a medical problem.

When her older brothers, the ones she was so proud of she would often brag about them to her friends at the factory, began to earn a living, they put the youngest boy through school. He attended a teacher training college in Seoul thanks to their support, and the eldest was praised for being the responsible first-born son who brought honor to the family through his own success and provided for his family. Oh Misook and her sister realized only then that their turn would not come; their loving family would not be giving them the chance and support to make something of themselves.

Her life choices, being Kim Jiyoung’s mother—Oh Misook was regretting them. Jiyoung felt she was a rock, small but heavy and unyielding, holding down her mother’s long skirt train. This made her sad. Her mother saw this and warmly swept back her daughter’s unkempt hair.

Her first obstacle in school life was the “pranks of the boy desk-mate” that many schoolgirls experienced. To Jiyoung, it felt more like harassment or violence than pranks, and there was nothing she could do about it besides run crying to Mother and Eunyoung.

“Please—hic hic—assign me—hic hic—a new desk-mate. I don’t—hic hic—ever, ever want to be—hic hic—desk-mates with him—HIC HIC—ever again.” The teacher patted Jiyoung on the back. “You know what, Jiyoung? Let me tell you something I’ve known for a while that you haven’t noticed: he likes you.” Jiyoung was so aghast that she stopped crying. “He hates me,” she said. “I thought you said you’ve seen how he’s been treating me.” “Boys are like that,” the teacher laughed. “They’re meaner to the girls they like. I’ll give him a talking-to. Why don’t you take this incident as an opportunity to become better friends instead of changing desk-mates on unfriendly terms?” He likes me? He picks on me because he likes me? Jiyoung was confused.

The girls stowed away repulsive, frightening experiences with males deep in their hearts without even realizing it.

The woman said she was glad Jiyoung was fine, and suddenly declared, “It’s not your fault.” There were far too many crazy men in the world, she’d had her share of run-ins with these people, and the problem was with them, not with the women.

Even the usually reasonable, sane ones verbally degrade women—even the women they have feelings for. That’s what I am: gum someone spat out.

Another survey conducted in the same year showed that, among recruiting managers of fifty large corporations, 44 percent of respondents chose that they “would rather hire male to female candidates with equivalent qualifications,” and none chose “would hire women over men.”10

The most demoralizing answer came from the department head himself: “Companies find smart women taxing. Like now—you’re being very taxing, you know?”

What do you want from us? The dumb girls are too dumb, the smart girls are too smart, and the average girls are too unexceptional?

Her boss grumbled, “This is why we don’t hire women.” She replied, “Women don’t stay because you make it impossible for us to stay.”

“Living with the spouse’s parents is harder for the husbands than the wives,” they’d say. “Conflict between married men and their in-laws is becoming a societal problem these days. I don’t know him but he must be an obliging person to take in his mother-in-law.” Jiyoung thought about her own mother, who had lived with her mother-in-law for seventeen years. The grandmother looked after the youngest when the mother went out on hairdresser house calls, but didn’t take on any childcare labor such as feeding, bathing, or putting the three siblings to bed. She hardly did other domestic chores. She ate food the mother cooked, wore clothes the mother washed, and slept in the room the mother cleaned. But no one praised the mother for being obliging.

The gender pay gap in Korea is the highest among the OECD countries. According to 2014 data, women working in Korea earn only 63 percent of what men earn; the OECD average percentage is 84.13 Korea was also ranked as the worst country in which to be a working woman, receiving the lowest scores among the nations surveyed on the glass-ceiling index by the British magazine The Economist.14

The couple fought the entire drive back from Busan to Seoul. Jiyoung was sincerely hurt that Daehyun hadn’t said a word while his family treated her like she had some big physical issue, and he said he had kept his mouth shut so as not to ruffle feathers and blow the problem out of proportion by taking her side. She couldn’t understand his logic, and he said she was overreacting.

Think how meaningful and moving it is to be a parent. And if we really can’t find someone to look after the child, worst-case scenario, don’t worry about quitting your job. I’ll take care of us. I won’t ask you to go out and make money.” “And what will you be giving up, Oppa?” “What?” “You said don’t just think about what I’ll be giving up. I’m putting my youth, health, job, colleagues, social networks, career plans, and future on the line. No wonder all I can think about are the things I’m giving up. But what about you? What do you lose by gaining a child?” “Me? Well … I … Things won’t be the same for me, either. I won’t get to see my friends as often because I’ll have to come home early. I’ll feel bad about attending business dinners or working late. It’ll be tough to come home and help out with chores after working all day. And besides, you know, I’ll have you and our child. Financial support! As the head of the household. Financial support! That’s a huge responsibility.” She tried not to react emotionally to his words, but it was difficult. His list of potential losses seemed like such a trifle compared to the way her life could be thrown off course.

For safety reasons, the company allowed pregnant employees to push their work hours back by half an hour. When she announced her pregnancy at work, one of her male colleagues exclaimed, “Lucky you! You get to come to work late!” Lucky me, I get to retch all the time, am unable to eat or shit properly, and I’m always tired, sleepy, and sore all over, Jiyoung wanted to say but held it in.

Just as putting the care of your child in another’s hands doesn’t mean you don’t love your child, quitting and looking after your child doesn’t mean you have no passion for your career.

Breastfeeding every two hours and therefore unable to sleep for more than two hours at a time, she cleaned the house more thoroughly than before, washed the baby’s clothes and fabrics, fed herself well so she would produce enough milk, and cried far more than she’d ever cried in her life. Above all, she hurt all over.

The doctor chuckled to himself. “Back in the day, women used clubs to do the laundry, lit fires to boil baby clothes, and crawled around to do the sweeping and mopping. Don’t you have a washing machine for laundry and vacuum cleaner for cleaning? Women these days—what have you got to whine about?”

Since she became a full-time housewife, she often noticed that there was a polarized attitude regarding domestic labor. Some demeaned it as “bumming around at home,” while others glorified it as “work that sustains life,” but none tried to calculate its monetary value. Probably because the moment you put a price on something, someone has to pay.

Jiyoung was responsible and equal to the task of raising her child well, but she didn’t want to hear people tell her how proud they were of her or how noble she was. These comments made her feel guilty about being exhausted.

In fact, according to statistics, a stay-at-home mother with a baby under the age of two has four hours and ten minutes a day to herself, and a mother who sends her baby to daycare has four hours and twenty-five minutes, which makes only a fifteen-minute difference between those two groups. This means mothers can’t rest even when they send their baby to daycare. The only difference is whether they do the housework with their baby beside them or without.19

“The coffee was 1500 won. They were drinking the same coffee, so they must have known how much it was. Tell me—don’t I deserve to drink a 1500-won cup of coffee? I don’t care if it’s 1500 won or 15 million won. It’s nobody’s business what I do with the money my husband made. Am I stealing from you? I suffered deathly pain having our child. My routine, my career, my dreams, my entire life, my self—I gave it all up to raise our child. And I’ve become vermin. What do I do now?”

Even the best female employees can cause many problems if they don’t have the childcare issue taken care of. I’ll have to make sure her replacement is unmarried.