Study on Heroine Discourse under the Kim Jong Un Regime: Focusing on Articles of Women of Joseon

Abstract

For an overview of women’s policy in North Korea, 60 volumes of Women of Joseon (2012.1-2016.12) were subject to analysis. The journal has been the exemplary model that puts across the authority’s policy and explores various types of the heroine to push for a “learn from the heroine campaign.” The heroines in the journal articles can be categorized into five types of ideal womanhood – the hardworking woman, the woman revolutionary, the professional woman, the good wife and wise mother, and the woman supporting the military and volunteering. Those five types are used to examine the policy intentions of the North Korean authorities. The analysis of policy intentions found the collapse of conventional gender-based boundaries of labor areas; the spread of the Stakhanov movement; the propagation of the theory of the great family and paternalism of women; and succession by the third generation and political power of women. Like other socialist states, the North Korea advocates gender equality through policies. However, in reality, it defines its view towards women under its unique propaganda called “Juche Idea”, so that North Korean women are dominated by patriarchal ideology that prioritizes the father (the leader) and are socially restrained to realize themselves within the boundaries of the party and organization. They are also haunted by the male-centered patriarchal view of the family and undertake production activities in the labor force while simultaneously handling housework and childcare. Worse yet, women are faced with hardworking competition, production-quotas, and ideology-learning programs that aim to cover the shortcomings of the social economic system and maximize the use of labor forces causing women to be burdened with a double and even triple whammy.