Reflecting International Women’s Day on March 8, a round table discussion at the Austrian ambassador’s residence in Seoul was devoted to gender equality. The all-female panel, drawn from Korea and Austria, consisted of a lawyer, a director of a contemporary art museum, a solo violinist, and an exhibition curator. The deliberately small setting allowed for a very open exchange of views and shed light on the topics of equal opportunities in the education system, tasks and burden sharing in family life, the gender gap in economic life, equality in the legal and social system, and gender-specific differences in language use.
One of the interesting statements was that the world of visual arts in Korea is strongly influenced by women, also in leading positions. Unlike in Austria, a language debate about “gendering” is not common in Korea. However, language-based dominance is very much expressed in the generation gap. In the Global Gender Gap Index, South Korea ranks 108th (out of 154), Austria 34th.
