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글쓴이 : 최고관리자
날짜 : 26-04-10 13:39
조회 : 61
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 https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10687862 (45) | ||||
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Weekender
The women behind Korea’s fight for equality From courtroom battles to public testimony, voices that changed attitudes toward women Alongside South Korea’s rapid modernization, women's lives have been profoundly transformed. Korean women continue to face structural barriers, including one of the widest gender pay gaps among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and persistent gender-based violence. The push for equality has also fueled intense debates over feminism and gender relations in Korean society. Yet there have been major gains in education, employment and political participation. Across literature, law, politics and social movements, generations of women have challenged entrenched norms and risked their livelihoods to expand the boundaries of opportunity. To mark International Women’s Day on Sunday, The Korea Herald revisits the lives of pioneering figures who helped reshape women’s rights in Korea and laid the foundations for the progress seen today. Lee Tai-young (1914–1998) Korea’s first female lawyer dismantles male-centered family law Family-related laws were revised, and the five-century discrimination collapsed. … But nothing new was earned by women. We came where we were supposed to be. Interview following the 1989 revision of family laws South Korea’s modern family law system was rooted in the male-centered Confucian order of the late Joseon era (1392-1910) and later influenced by Japan’s patriarchal civil code during the colonial period, influences that persisted even after liberation in 1945. After becoming Korea’s first female lawyer in 1952, Lee Tai-young found that family laws contradicted the constitutional principle of gender equality. She began providing legal aid to women disadvantaged by a legal structure that privileged male authority. At the time, men were granted primary rights in matters such as inheritance, family headship, and child custody. The system constrained women’s legal standing and was widely seen as reinforcing the country’s longstanding preference for sons. Over four decades, Lee played a key role in challenging those provisions, contributing to revisions that gradually dismantled the foundations of male family headship. At the center of that framework was the household head system, which passed legal status primarily through the male line, placing women, including mothers and grandmothers, under male authority. Lee called for its abolition as early as the 1950s, even though similar systems had already been dismantled in Japan and North Korea in the late 1940s. The system was eventually struck down by the Constitutional Court in 2005, years after her death. A poster criticizing male-dominated family-related regulations of South Korea (Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations) A poster criticizing male-dominated family-related regulations of South Korea (Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations) “A sound tradition and beautiful practice from the perspective of men can cause deep resentment for women, and then it cannot be objectively sound and beautiful,” Lee said during a 1957 National Assembly hearing on civil law revision. “The tears of Korea’s wives, daughters, daughters-in-law and mothers flowed endlessly under the outdated feudal family system.” Lee received international recognition, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1975. Her legacy continues through generations of female lawyers and through the Korea Legal Aid Center for Family Relations, which she founded in 1956 to provide legal assistance in family matters. |
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