In the article, "From Agrarian Patriarchy to Patriarchal Capitalism: Gendered Capitalist Industrialization in Korea", John Lie describes Korea's transition from agrarianism to capitalism and how it affected gender. Lie argues that gender liberation emerges after patriarchial captialism is implemented. Under agrarian partriarchy, gender was regarded as "invisible and ineffective as a source of identity" (35) and basically "embedded and subsumed"(35). Lie describes how class divided women in agrarian households in sectors such as elite and lower class/peasant. Peasant women differed from the elite women because of their roles as hard workers ("working harder and longer than men in general" (35)). Peasant women also collaberated and mobilized according to their concerns. Under patriarchal capitalism, Lie argues that gender is disembedded with apparent gendered labor roles(37). Industrialization ended agrarian patriarchy but erected another type of patriarchy which "denigrates female work and workers" (38). Women began to unite because they received a common gender oppression. In the name of resistance, Korean women started a women's movement to end gender oppression at the workplace and at home.
After reading this article, I feel like Korean women's struggle for liberation is similar to American women's struggle. During and after WWI and WWII, American women were employed with jobs that would have been labeled as "men's jobs". American women began to notice their significance and their rights to equality with men. As a result the first wave of feminism with NOW began. Women's position economically and professionally affects their perception of their innate rights.
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I agree with your comments and I would like to add that the oppression of women is connected to so many things. You mentioned the strong role that women played during WWII and I couldn't help but think that the simple fact that women were home while the men fought the war was problematic. Gender oppression exists in so many aspects of our society. Who is to say that because a man has a penis he can be drafted to protect our country because his penis makes him better equipped to do so. How unfair to men! And how unfair to women who are expected to stay home and "hold down the fort" until the men return so they can reposition themselves as mens subordinates. It's really a bunch of bull when you think about it. Men and women can both take a bullet for the country just like men and women should be able to "hold it down" in the absence of a spouse.
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