The Division of Gender Roles in the Family in South Korea Traditions - Personal Statement Example

I was born and raised in South Korea and come from a family of five that includes my father, mother, sister, brother and me. When growing up, the dynamic was one in which my father was the breadwinner, and my mother was a housewife. In traditional Korean culture, men are valued more than women and boys are raised to understand this. My father went to work weekdays and mother did the cooking, cleaned the house, did the laundry and took care of us every day. On weekends I would often notice my father reading the newspaper and/or watching sports to relax and restore his energy for the next week while my mother was busy preparing meals and continuing to do house chores. I never saw my father going into kitchen when my mother was home except for when my mother went to our relatives for a couple days. During this time, my father washed dishes by himself. It was clear that my father’s responsibility was making money to support his family and mother’s responsibility was taking care of her children and doing house work. My father’s other role was as the head of house and decision maker. When it was time to buy a house or a car, both of my parents went out to see houses or cars together; however, the final decision was always made by my father. There was no shared role between my father and mother. I learned how to act as a girl by parents’ teaching. When I wore simple t-shirts and jeans to go out to meet my friends, my mother pointed to my outfits and chose good looking dresses for me. When I spoke loud, my parents pointed out I should speak softly. However when my brother was talking in a low voice, my father told him “Speak like a man.” My father stressed to my brother that men should be able to play any sports, so he registered some classes for my brother such as Tae Kwon Do, Judo, Basketball, Baseball and Track. He did not register any sport classes for me or my sister. My parents had two sets of expectations and rules and they applied one for my brother and the other for my sister and I. I started having doubt of practices of maleness and femaleness when my mother started working to support the family. My father quit his work and started hisown business. However, it did not go well. My mother looked for a job to help my father. She worked for eight hours a day, came home and did all house chores the same as when she was a housewife. When I saw my mother dragging her tired body to the kitchen, something in my heart made me very uncomfortable, that was feeling of unfairness. I did not verbalize my thoughts; instead I helped my mother with house chores because I was a first born child and was a girl. The unfairness of rules, expectations and responsibilities for males and females was something that got under my skin when I became an adult. After my sister got married, she was struggling with her job descriptions. My sister was entitled a new role as “a wife,” and the role of being a wife came with many responsibilities like being a traditional house wife such as cooking, doing laundry and cleaning. She also performed in my brother-in-law’s supposed role; as a breadwinner. She told her husband that he needed to do some house chores because it a heavy burden on her. His help was not enough to lessen this burden. She told him about the same matter many times; but his action stayed the same. When my sister was complaining about her burden to my mother, she said, “That is your job. Don’t complain. Helping you or not is his choice not his responsibility.” My sister stopped complaining for peace in the house. When I got married, I felt this problem was real and it emerged once again. I am well educated, have a professional job, and make more money than my husband makes. I am feeling emotions of unfairness of the expectations and responsibilities between a husband and wife; but I did not complain. My husband noticed I was very busy with school and work, he decided to help me. He said, “I will wash dishes, but promise me not to tell anyone especially my friends.” I asked him the reason. He said, “I am a man,” and I encouraged him that it was fine. But, he said that is not okay. He helped me a lot with house chores; but every time when he does house chores he reminded me that no one is supposed to know this. Our beliefs and values about both sexes play a big role in shaping the rules, norms, expectations, behaviors and responsibilities for males and females. In the past, there were clear roles between men and women; men were solely the breadwinners and women were the housewives. There were not shared roles between them. In these days men and women are taking one many of the same roles. Many women are well educated and work in a variety of work places now; however, our beliefs and values on male and females have not changed. Men are seen as independent, strong, dominant and active. By contrast, women are dependent, weak, subordinate and passive. Society has evolved quickly; but beliefs and values of gender roles have hardly changed. The role of the breadwinner is not limited to men any more in these days and his role is entitled to men in the past. As such, a paradigm shift, a radical change in our beliefs and values, should occur in gender roles. Beliefs and values are based on our tendency to divide behaviors or responsibilities between men and women. For instance hamming a nail is a masculine work so most women cannot do it. By the same token, the belief that a flower arranger is womanly job so men should not do it is another example of this flawed thinking. We need to eliminate this tendency. Both men and women can hammer a nail or make flower arrangements. Both men and women can be independent, strong, dominant and active or both can be dependent, weak, subordinate and passive. We need to eliminate comparing two sexes in opposite ways and reconstruct our values and beliefs in equality level. Men oftentimes shape the rules, norms, expectations, behaviors and responsibilities for other males. This “man box” refers to gender roles and expectations of how men must behave; these expectations come from family, peers, and media. As I mentioned earlier, my husband enforced me not to tell anyone that he did wash dishes because he did not want be shown his masculinity decreased. He has been raised and shaped to act like a man since he was a baby. In the house, he was supposed to play with a dodge truck not a doll, he was supposed to wear blue clothes not a pink, he was not supposed to cry in front of girls, and not supposed to show his emotions in general. In school, he was supposed to be active, he was not supposed to cry in the football field, and he was supposed to be tough. School boys need to pay more attention to their behaviors than in home because they do not want to be named “gay.” Peer pressure drive boys to fit the guidelines of the man box. Media has not changed at all over decades. Reflections of men and women in the 2000s is almost identical to the way it was in the 1950s; men are shown as conquerors or a bosses and women are shown as a loser or a subordinate. These agents carve males to act like a man. Men constantly fear of showing diminished masculinity to other men. Interestingly decreasing masculinity is caused by doing women’s work or performing some opposite behaviors from the man box. As a result, men sometimes want to wash dishes or to clean the house in secret like my husband did. To establish equal rules, expectations and responsibilities between men and women, men need to get out of the man box. Over the decades, our society has been changes tremendously but the gendered human being still remains. Rebuilding our values and beliefs and escaping from the man box for men will help reestablish the justified rules, expectations, and responsibilities among men and women. Read More