By continuing for the previous post about elderly females in Korean family, this post is about the older women's position in society of Confucianism culture.
It is true that elderly women's position in most cultures has not been same as
male old people. Most old women are regarded as minorities in society.
Confucianism affects into women's life- especially older women- not only in
households but also in working environment. The Confucianism of Korean society actually made older women suffer double hardness by giving them hard jobs and discrimination in work field such as lower wages than men, even though with the same or more amount of working. The prevalent Confucianism made women be forced to harshly work without being much paid. According to the Seoung-Kyung Kim in his book "Class Struggle or Family Struggle?", during the industrialization of Korean society, government actually made the notion of 'dutiful daughter' in factory. (Kim, 1997) Kim also explains the meaning of 'dutiful' in his book that "to be dutiful, a daughter should cheerfully accept her low social status and devote herself to the family that is about to expel her." (Kim 1997, 8) The designed low social status, which is from traditional Confucianism culture, made women be treated harshly in working field. For example, a Korean woman's interview (Su-hyon) in Kim's book shows the working class women's typical thoughts about working in factory. Su-hyon had worked in a shoe factory for seven years, married for a year and a half and had a baby daughter. In her interview, she said "I worked for a long time. My husband wants me to stay home too, so why should I go back to a miserable factory job at a sewing machine?" (Kim 1997, 81)
Even though there have been many changes in the hierarchy between men and women, the older people - especially older males- still have the strong concepts of the inequality toward older women. Even in current society, most families - including my family- do the ancestor worship male descendants first and then female descendants perform the ceremony. Not only this, all female cook the food for ceremony while male family members are talking or watching televisions. This tradition is getting weak by going down the generations but sex discrimination based on the Confucianism is still prevalent at current older populations in family and in society.
* Reference
Kim, Seoung-kyung 1997 Class Struggle or Family Struggle?.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
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