Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

OFFICIAL SPOILER WARNING: I would highly recommend reading the novel itself before reading through here, but I’m not your boss. There will also be spoilers for a few other readings as well because I went all-out on this one.

A few weeks ago, I finished reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, and I wanted to provide a few of my thoughts as well as go into detail about a few real-world examples of the deep-rooted sexism displayed within the text. The book was originally published in 2016 in Korean, and translated into English by Jamie Chang last year. To my surprise, this is the book that Red Velvet’s Irene read back in 2018 and faced backlash from male fans for doing so, while BTS’s RM has read it as well and didn’t face the same consequences (of course). While this in and of itself proves the entire point the book makes, there’s several more examples worth noting.

As for my thoughts, I think this book serves its purpose well. It provides a clear introduction to contemporary feminist issues in Korea by using nonfiction sources throughout to prove the purpose of the book that much further. The book isn’t difficult to understand, and it’s quite short, so it could easily be implemented into middle school reading lists to start a discussion about sexism as well as open younger audiences up to international readings. My only worry with this would be middle schoolers treating their Asian and female peers worse as a result, but that’s more of a flaw with school systems being apathetic and complicit towards racism than anything else.

Finishing the book, I couldn’t help but think of The Essential Feminist Reader, specifically passages 20 and 40; The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892), and Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963), respectively. For context, The Yellow Wallpaper was written during the “first wave” of American feminism, think the rights to vote as well as in some contexts fighting to end slavery*. I would suggest reading both pieces now to avoid spoilers. The themes of both Kim Jiyoung and The Yellow Wallpaper are about how toxic and isolating it was to be a woman in their respective time periods. Throughout The Yellow Wallpaper, the narrator is often told by her husband that she’s hysterical, she shouldn’t be writing, and to just rest as if she has a cold and isn’t a victim of systemic misogyny. She sees a male psychoanalyst and is paranoid about the judgement she might receive from other more “put together” women of her time. This is a clear parallel to Kim Jiyoung, having her life narrated by a man, being admitted by her husband, and given sympathy without meaningful changes that could potentially better her condition or better society as a whole.

On the other hand, Friedan’s writing in the 1960’s was during the “second wave,” where women were focused on escaping the restrictive, lonely housewife life post-war/baby boom through gaining economic rights (fun fact, U.S. women couldn’t legally have their own credit cards until 1974)**. The thesis to The Feminine Mystique is essentially that women were constantly told that the way to live their best life was to constantly sacrifice their own happiness in order to take care of children at home and her husband after work, and becoming a stay-at-home mom in that day and age was extremely isolating. Women would be afraid to share their feelings of loneliness because they wouldn’t want to burden their husband and didn’t want to risk seeming like a dysfunctional family to others. The internet didn’t exist and neither did mom groups or the like, and whenever women would try to venture out of their restrictions, they would be ridiculed for not paying enough attention to their families. This correlates to how Jiyoung was expected to be, to quit her job after having Jiwon and to focus on tasks at home, alone.

There’s no one reason for why Jiyoung ended up with her condition, but being isolated after having thriving social connections in her work life and being influenced by the other suffering women of her life, it’s easy to understand why her loneliness felt amplified. Another aspect of this is how useless her husband Daehyun is. He says he’ll help with raising the kid like it’s not his own, and doesn’t stand up for her at family functions. He has sympathy for Jiyoung, but still perpetuates misogynistic attitudes, just like the psychoanalyst at the end. This shows the ignorance, complicitness, and apathy men show towards women relentlessly until they happen to fall in love with one. It also shows how much effort is going to be needed in order to fix this issue, especially considering recent scandals such as the Burning Sun and Nth Room chat. Officials have yet to sentence Seungri, yet sentenced Nth Room chat leader “God God” to a life in prison. In Korea, sex crimes towards minors are unforgivable (see: Cho Doo Soon) by the general public, but sex crimes involving adults aren’t treated seriously at all, to the point where it’s laughable to consider taking a case to court. This is often the case in the states also, but that might be for another week. Thanks again for reading.

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*I can’t begin to tell you how absolutely abridged this is, but it’s interesting and maybe something worth writing more in-depth about later. However, I think this essay needs to focus on only sexism to avoid becoming an entire thesis. If you want to look into these topics on your own, I’d look towards passage 7 of The Essential Feminist Reader, written by Sarah M Grimke or even articles about early Quaker settlers. Happy reading!

**This is also extremely condensed.