Women's Policy Paradigm in Korea : Between Development and Democratization

I intend to look over the historical deployment of state policies on women in Korea from 1946 to 2002. The first state office in charge of women's affairs ('Women's Bureau') was initiated in 1946 under the American military regime, but there could hardly be any stable and organized execution until the 1960s. Under the Park Jeong-Hee regime (1961-1979), policy agendas concerning women were regulated and minimized according to the foremost mandate of economic growth and social order. I suggest that the basic frame of women's policy under the Park's regime could be described as 'developmental paradigm'. After the collapse of Park's regime, newly organized women's movement found their voice for women's equality, and mutual cooperation of women's movement and democratization movement was very effective. We can describe the basic frame of women's policy in 1980s as 'democratization paradigm'. In 1990, the main focus of Korean women's movements was increasingly concerned with 'the unique problem of woman' such as sexual violence and sexual harassment. I suggest that a kind of new 'feminist paradigm' emerged and extended in the process of legal struggle. The women's policy paradigm in Korea is now placed somewhere between developmental paradigm and democratization paradigm. How to get through a 'paradigm shift' is very important, for we cannot be satisfied with policy agenda in which women's problems are regarded as residual and exceptional.