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I heard the following story from a college lecturer, a former student of mine. Showing a photograph of former lawmaker Kim Ok-sun, she asked her students to describe their perceptions of the person in the picture. They didn't know who the person was, but most believed that Kim was a man. Kim Ok-sun is a three-time female legislator who dressed like a man and was sometimes called ¡°butch¡± along with five-time lawmaker and opposition party leader Park Soon-cheon, in the 1950s and 60s. In contrast, in the just finished general elections, it was, for some sections of the public and press, a war of the ¡°beauty queens.¡± The ¡°butch¡± slur suggests a refusal to embrace conventional notions of femininity, while the "beauty queens" are seen to accept them. These responses to and images of woman politicians over the past 40-odd years, objectionable though they may be, are indicative of changes in female participation in politics in Korea.
The recent general elections brought in 41 female lawmakers, accounting for 13.7 percent of the total legislative seats. Fourteen were elected from district constituencies, three of them for the fourth time. Female legislators have increased not only in number. The increase of female lawmakers from electoral districts and on the party list of varying ages and divergent careers suggest that the role models of female legislators are no longer uniform, as was the case in the past. Accordingly, the expectations placed on them are widening.
Some hope they will play a leading role in changing a political culture characterized by regionalism and factionalism. Others expect that they will speak in one voice in initiating women-related bills and pushing women-oriented policies. Still others, noting that women's issues failed to attract attention during the general election and that there was little cross-party cooperation among women in the outgoing 17th National Assembly, urge that they now do form alliances transcending their parties. They expect women lawmakers to fulfill their duties as representatives of women.
Political representation means representing not the interests of particular groups but the will of the entire people or the demands of constituents. But female legislators face an additional demand: to represent the interests of women. It cannot be denied that the increase in women lawmakers owes a lot to the feminist movement, which aimed to institutionalize women's political participation. Hence the strong demands. But the calls to represent public opinion as politicians and also to stand for the voices of women as female politicians sometimes clash. The will of constituents may clash with women's interests, and the image of women lawmakers may have an adverse effect in elections. So how can broader public opinion be reconciled with women's issues?
The two are by no means separate. And instead of seeing it as a political burden, they can use the fact that they are both women and legislators as a political privilege. In this sense, I would like to make two suggestions to the incoming women legislators.
First, make efforts to resolve social inequalities in all forms. Politicians represent public opinion based on their political convictions and philosophy. One example is the division into conservatives and progressives. Demands for women's rights and human rights are both grounded on political convictions about social equality. So women's issues should be looked at not in the narrow sense but as an aspect of equality. In other words, female lawmakers need to play a leading role in issues involving the weak and minorities in general. This calls for them to lead a cross-party alliance for equality, transcending a cross-party alliance of women.
Next, give more weight to the fight for equality in the legislature. It's not female politicians alone who deal with women's and gender issues. For the development of democracy, all politicians should be sensitive to equality and gender. One of the roles of female legislators is to win over fellow lawmakers who are not interested in or sometimes hostile to women's issues. It falls to them to convince colleagues who are open to the problems of the disabled, for instance, but passive when it comes to gender equality, and peers who believe that the income gap should be narrowed but who are conservative on gender equality, that all such issues are connected. Congratulating the women members of the 18th National Assembly, I expect they will fulfill their duties as leaders in the development of democracy and the advancement toward a more equal society.
This column was contributed by Lee Jae-kyung, associate professor of women's studies at Ewha Woman's University.
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