[LETTERS] Obstacles faced by Korean women

I looked forward to reading the article about Park Geun-hye playing the gender card to distinguish herself from the other candidates, and for the first time I read exactly what Hwang Sang-min had said on a talk show about her identity.

When I read Hwang’s words I was shocked and deeply offended. Hwang’s derogatory and inflammatory remarks about Park Geun-hye insulted not only “the entire female population of the country” as suggested by the Saenuri Party, but also women globally.

He should not be allowed to teach because his thinking is clearly flawed, unscientific and politically incorrect. If he were a 95 year old man I would gently explain to him that it might have been true in the past, but in a modern society it is not true.

But to Hwang I would point out that in advanced countries such as Korea, women have economic and political power and that marriage and having a child has never made a woman a “real” woman!

He needs to attend a gender sensitivity training program. He should be censured by Yonsei University. He needs to make a public apology to Park Geun-hye, every female CEO in Korea, all Korean women, including his female students, and me.

I am a woman and that is not defined by having a husband and a child. When a professor of psychology at a top Korean university makes such ignorant remarks is it any wonder that Korean women are choosing not to get married and have children?

* Full-time lecturer, Gachon University
By Janice L. Newton