Outside View

In South Korea, women are participating more in the economic and political sectors [n. 行业, 领域] than they were a decade ago. 

But career aspirations [n. 志向, 抱负] for female students in South Korea still tend to be based on the traditional division of gender roles. They are accustomed to thinking of such jobs as teaching and nursing, whilst their male counterparts [n. 职务相当的人] aim to become scientists and judges. 

Many of these young women are aware that if they want to be independent they need to train so they can have their own source of income. 

"In the previous generation, women did not have the right to speak, because they did not have their own financial support. Therefore, our generation of women must work to be financially independent." The growth in the number of women who work has caused the typical South Korean household to change. For example, there are more women living alone. This is because they can make their own money rather than depend on a man to support them. 

There has also been a rapid rise in the number of families in which both parents work. Married women increasingly want to participate in society but they need to balance family life and work.

"After marriage, we all struggle with how to take care of our children and work." The introduction of day care centers [日托中心] at some work places, such as the Chohung Bank [朝兴银行 (韩国第一家历史上百年的银行)，2006年并入新韩银行], has helped to make it possible for mothers to work.

Whilst these women are at work, their children are in the day care center. There they are usually very well looked after, receiving a balanced diet, playing lots of games and doing plenty of exercise.

Day care centers are increasingly popular all across the world because they enable parents to work. Women employees at Chohung bank find it a big help, although the system is far from perfect.

"So far, my children have been well taken care of by our day care center. However, it will be difficult when my children go to elementary school because I often have to work late. Who will take care of them? Our family recently decided to live together with our grandparents who might be able to take care of my children."

Mothers also face other problems when they go to work. Women have traditionally been responsible for raising their children and often feel a strong sense of guilt when they put their children into day care. Some worry that it will have a negative impact on their children and that they may fail as a parent. 

On top of this, South Korean women often end up being less well paid than men with the same education. 

"Korean women's status in the labour market has not been much improved in spite of a continuing rise in their presence in the labour force and the level of their education. The majority of working women are still crowded in low wage and low status jobs; many of which are found in the secondary market [二级市场；次级市场]."

So there are still lots of issues facing women going to work – they are still having to choose between their families and their careers. What can be done to ensure that women are rewarded for their valuable contribution to the working world? 

Listening in 

Talk

On 20 September Emma Watson [埃玛·沃森], known to the world for her role as Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter films, gave a speech at the United Nations in New York on gender inequality [性别不平等]. As a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador [联合国妇女署亲善大使], she announced a campaign called HeForShe to challenge gender inequality, and called for everyone's involvement. 

She described how, during the six months since her UN appointment, she discovered that fighting for women's rights has become the same as hating men, and she asked for this to stop. 

Her position is that feminism [n. 女权主义, 男女平等主义] is a matter of equal rights and opportunities for both sexes, not just women. She talked about how as a teenager she had to deal with sexualized images of herself in the media, how her friends stopped playing sport because they didn't wish to develop their muscles, and how by the age of 18 her male friends were unable to express their feelings. 

Her definition of gender equality is that as a woman, she should be paid the same as a man; she should make decisions about her own body; and she should be allowed to formulate [v. 构想,制定 (计划、制度、建议)] policies and make decisions about her country. It also includes being given the same respect as men. But as she says, "No country in the world can yet say they have achieved gender equality." 

She mentioned the love and support of her parents, who didn't love her less because she was born a daughter, and how her school didn't limit her to a choice of career or vision. But not everyone has had the same opportunities as she has had. 

She invited men to adopt gender equality as something they should be committed to. She referred to how her own father's role in her life was valued less than that of her mother, despite her needing both. She mentioned young men suffering from mental illness and unable to ask for help, or suffering for not achieving what they perceive to be male success. Men don't have the benefits of equality either. 

The campaign HeForShe is about freedom: freedom of women from prejudice, freedom for men to be vulnerable and human. She quoted the English statesman Edmund Burke [埃德蒙·伯克]: "All that is needed for the forces of evil to triumph is for enough good men and women to do nothing."

She closed with some statistics. If we do nothing, it will take 75 years for women to expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. In the next 16 years, 15.5 million girls will be married while they are still children. Finally, at current rates it won't be until 2086 before all girls in rural Africa receive a secondary education [中等教育]. 

Finally, she asked people to consider joining the HeForShe campaign and to ask themselves, as she did of herself: "If not me, who? If not now, when?" 

Passage 1 

Presenter: Has feminism gone too far in the way men are shown in advertisements? Do you think there are too many ads now in which men are shown as stupid or weak?

Speaker 1: Definitely, yes. I can think of three ads right now where men are shown as stupid. The one that annoys me most is the one where this guy is doing this DIY job and he's no good at it, and his girlfriend is standing by waiting to do the job herself. Fine, if it was one ad, but it's not, it's a whole attitude now to men. It's not good for us, it's not good for women either. 

Speaker 2: Um, well, yes, I do feel that feminism has gone too far. I mean, great, women have made a lot of progress in the last 40 years, but it shouldn't mean we treat men as inferior [a. (地位或等级)低等的, 次要的], which is what we see in quite a few ads these days. So no, I don't really like the way men are portrayed in advertisements.

Speaker 3: Has feminism gone too far in advertisements? No way! Feminism has only just begun, there's no real equality of pay in this country, men still have all the top jobs. Women continue to be shown as objects in ads rather than as real people, and until that stops I really don't think we can say that feminism has gone too far. I agree that in advertisements these days men aren't always shown as super-masculine, but that's good and much nearer the truth. 

Speaker 4: Ads are about selling and I guess selling the idea that men are weak makes people laugh. And if people laugh at an ad they're more likely to remember it and therefore more likely to buy the product. But on the whole, I'd disagree. I think men are still shown driving expensive cars and working, you know, looking powerful. Then coming home to their wives who look after the children. 

Speaker 5: Well I find the way men are shown in ads annoying. There's that one where this woman is angry with her partner for his choice of car insurance. The idea is that she's smart and he's dumb [a. 笨的, 愚蠢的]. 

Speaker 6: I've never really thought about it. I think it's just to make people laugh, isn't it, to show the guy as a bit of an idiot [n. 笨蛋] and the woman as the boss. It's just a joke. I don't really know much about feminism. I don't think so, no.

Passage 2 

The differences between men and women interest everyone. What are these differences exactly? How great are they? To what extent are they due to biology and how much the result of upbringing? A lot of research has been done on the subject. Tests show, for example, that men tend to be more logical and analytical than women. Their spatial skills [空间技能] are better and they're better at problem-solving and mathematics. Girls, on the other hand, learn to speak earlier than boys and in general women have better verbal skills [言语技能] than men. They are more nurturing, have more empathy [n. 同情, 同感, 移情] and have better social skills. 

Research suggests that at least some of these differences are a result of our biochemistry [n. 生物化学] and brain function. Brain scans show that men have bigger brains than women. Before men get too excited about this we should point out that both sexes do equally well in intelligence tests. So the fact that men have bigger brains does not mean they're more intelligent [a. 聪明的, 有智慧的]. But there are other important brain differences. Men have more grey matter [灰质] in their brains and women have more white matter [白质]. Because of the different ways in which white matter and grey matter function, this could explain why men are better at spatial tasks and mathematics, and women are better at language skills. 

Now let's take a look at the effect of hormones [n. 激素, 荷尔蒙] on the brain. Testosterone [n. 睾丸素, 睾酮] is the hormone that makes the body masculine. It's present in both men and women but obviously there's a lot more of it in men. It seems that testosterone has the effect of making men more interested in systems and less interested in people. This would explain why women have better social skills [社交技能] than men. 

All this is not to say that it's biological differences alone that make men and women different. Upbringing is very important too and parents treat boys and girls quite differently. For example, up to the age of two, mothers make more eye contact with daughters and talk to them more. Men are a lot more physical with their sons and play rougher and noisier games with them. Both men and women speak more loudly to boys than to girls and girls are stroked [v.轻抚] more than boys. We will probably never be able to decide exactly how important upbringing and biology are in creating male and female differences. But the journey of discovery is fascinating.