[Campus Commentary]Strong women are a sign of good fortune

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[Campus Commentary]Strong women are a sign of good fortune

There is an old Korean saying that goes, “A household will experience bad fortune when the hen sings and the cock is silent,” which was a way of encouraging women to remain humble.
However, these days, anyone who uses that proverb will have to apologize for a slip of the tongue and be ready to be branded as someone who believes in the old days.
The rapid growth in women’s power started a long time ago.
The number of women who have become key members of society has increased remarkably, and the gap in scholastic ability between boys and girls has become a serious social issue in Korea. Women are much more powerful than they used to be.
The power of women is also visible in the universities. At the newsroom of the Konkuk Bulletin, 10 out of 12 reporters are women. The ratio of female reporters is remarkably high, not only for the Konkuk Bulletin, but also for the other news outlets of Konkuk University.
Also, by participating in the the Union of Seoul Region Campus English Newspapers events this writer found that the situation is the same in other universities as well.
Of course, the low rate of male reporters might be due to the fact that they have to join the army in their early 20s, and partially due to an assumption that women are generally considered to be better than men in terms of linguistics.
However, other statistics, including the number of applicants for school activities and school records, show females are still more active and enterprising than male students.
However, there has always been friction between Korean society and women’s rights, including sexual harassment in the workplace.
The problems haven’t gone away.
The corporate atmosphere is still male-oriented, and women are treated as inferior to male employees.
Universities are often considered to be a pre-society, meaning the atmosphere reflects how society will be during the next generation. At this point, with the high potential that female students have, the problems should go away or the future will hardly progress. I hope society matures and creates an atmosphere of mutual respect for women.
A house will not have bad fortune when the hen sings, because the singing of the hen is the sign of the newly laid egg.
Clearly, that is a welcome sound.

*The writer is the editor of the Konkuk Bulletin, the English news magazine of Konkuk University.

by Park Joon-young
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