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One thing that I have become quite comfortable with is what we call in North Korea “culture of maid.” Although there were not many times I called for a “maid” (paid housekeeper), women who are busy working can call a keeper to ask for help on kitchen work and earn money in the area she can be best at and the housekeeper can earn money doing housework, so both sides end up in a win-win situation.
However, in North Korea, having a maid in a private household was considered as “discrimination against human beings” and selling and buying with money is one of the elements of the “rotten” capitalism, thus they abolished such the maid cultures since long ago.
This created an uncomfortable situation where the women who are busy working are too busy having to work at home too and those women who are good at housework have ability to earn money but cannot.
Kim Jong Il, Also a Leader for the Discrimination Against Women
The irony here, is that in the society where the “maid culture” had been abolished for so long for it was considered as discrimination against human being, allowed the high level cadres to secretly have maids at their households since the beginning.
In conclusion, the government had been allowing the high level cadres to discriminate human being. Perhaps for this reason, compare to South Korea where the remnant of discrimination against human being – maid culture – had remained all along, the actual discrimination against human being is much more prevailing in the society of North Korea.
From men’s perspective, women are not human beings. A well known evidence of that is Kim Jong Il’s remark to the former South Korean president Kim Dae Jung on the 6.15 Inter-Korea Summit Meeting of 2000. To Kim Dae Jung who flew over to North Korea, Kim Jong Il said that DJ was a lucky man who had a the fortune of having a good wife. At the same time, he said this.
“All women have to be good for is laundry and raising kids.”
Kim Jong Il did not hesitate to show his belief of laundry and raising kids are menial works men must not do yet women are subordinates beings without vision (future dreams) who must devote themselves into laundry and raising kids. This is not only what Kim Jong Il believes, but it is a prevalent thought among North Korean men.
Compared to men, women receive inhumane treatments in North Korea. The women who receive such inhumane treatments are also categorized into different levels. Women without a husband are treated worse than married women, and the daughter-in-law is considered as a “slave” by the mother-in-law.
Women who have no job are considered lower than those who have, women who have not graduated from university are considered lower than those who have. Women from rural area are considered lower than those from city and women living outside Pyongyang are considered lower than those living in Pyongyang.
We Must Build a Society Where Common Sense Work in North Korea
For such kind of discrimination, when I stayed with a defector family for about ten months in Yanbian after I defected from North Korea, the husband of the host family showed all sorts of disrespect and maltreatment to me and my son because I was a woman who did not have a husband.
For such kind of discrimination, my mother in law frequently searched through the pockets of my clothes hanging in my closet and disregarded the pregnant daughter-in-law but ate delicious food with “her family only.”
This kind of mentality prevails, even after defection. A defector woman used to tell me she wishes to divorce her husband if she had a chance whenever she met me although her husband helped her a lot in the housework. I asked her why for he helps her so well but she answered me that her husband does not regard her as a human being and that she can no longer stand his simultaneously mean and nice treatments.
Simply abolishing the maid culture cannot solve human discrimination against human beings; changing the human consciousness can only solve it.
However, North Korea made a mistake and believed that just as materialism it wishes to eradicate the problem could be overcome by eradicating what appears to the problem, for it believed “conscious lied in the physical phenomenon.” Their thoughts caused serious social discrimination and built hostility and segregation within the society. For this reason the society has become a place where nobody can easily live in.
The women who can be employed with the kitchen work they are familiar with – professional housekeepers! Only when those women not as the targets to be discriminated but accept and respect them as another kind of professionals would North Korea become a livable land where the common sense makes sense.
