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Once upon a time, it made headlines when a woman broke into one male-dominated field or another; by now, more and more men are crossing the gender divide in the workplace in the opposite direction. They are not afraid to break with the stereotype. They are mostly, of course, in their 20s and 30s; and while male nurses have long been commonplace, now there are male makeup artists, nail polishers, florists and even belly dancers in Korea.
At the Korean branch of global cosmetics brand Bobby Brown, 12 of the 200 makeup artists are men. Lancome has two, Shuemura six and Giorgio Armani three.
Surveys by job information providers clearly show the shift from traditional gender roles at work. According to a poll by Albamon, an affiliate of online job portal Job Korea, the ratio of men wanting to work in the beauty industry increased from 5.21 percent in 2004 to 8.93 percent in 2006. The ratio of male nurses jumped from 3.67 percent to 21.42 percent during the same period.
The trailblazers went through considerable difficulties entering woman-dominated professions. Therefore, they are armed with unusually excellent professional skills. Makeup artist Park Ki-suk faced strong opposition from his parents when he declared his chosen profession. ¡°My parents told me to get out if I wanted to become a makeup artist. But easing customers¡¯ distrust was more difficult than persuading my parents,¡± says Park. ¡°I practiced and practiced every day to become a good makeup artist.¡± Nail polisher Choi Sung-soo was also teased by his relatives. ¡°They told me to castrate myself if I was going to be a nail artist.¡± But now he is so successful that he teaches a nail art class at a high school and serves as an assessor for the nail artist license test. ¡°I thought that few men work as nail artists and therefore I would stand out if I entered the business,¡± he says. ¡°And my decision turned out to be right.¡±
The main force motivating the shift is high unemployment. Bae Eun-kyung, a sociology professor at Seoul National University, said prejudices about gender roles in jobs are dwindling significantly since young people have had difficulty getting jobs since 2000.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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