‘Not brainwashed robots’: North Korea’s ‘strong, creative and resilient’ women - MASHAHER

Key Points

A photo exhibition in Sydney depicts the changing roles of North Korean women.
Academics trace how women in the authoritarian state transitioned from traditional roles to breadwinners spurred by the famine of the mid-1990s.
More than 80 per cent of North Korean defectors are women.

One photo depicts a woman pulling a hand cart loaded with goods, another shows a young woman dressed up in a mini-skirt, sparkling earrings and high heels.

An exhibition held at the UTS Business School in Sydney offers a stark departure from the stereotypical portrayal of North Korea dominated by eccentric leaders, rigid regimes and a pervasive military presence.

Titled ‘‘, the exhibition explores the growth of women as breadwinners and entrepreneurs amid a staunchly patriarchal society.

Survivalist entrepreneur Haeju, 2015. A strong woman pulls a hand cart loaded with goods, likely for trade at a semi-official market nearby. Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

Dressed for success / Pyongyang, 2015. This woman enjoys a night out in Pyongyang, with her dress hemmed, notably, above the knee and the outfit finished with a designer-style handbag. Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

A ‘surreal’ experience

Lesley Parker is a Sydney-based writer and photographer who captured over 1,500 photographs during what she described as two “surreal” visits to North Korea in 2015 and 2018.

Sydney-based writer and photographer Lesley Parker is exhibiting photos she took during her visits to North Korea in 2015 and 2018. Source: SBS / Jennifer Scherer

Upon arriving in Pyongyang in 2015, she said she was immediately struck by how colourful the capital was.

Although she tried to approach the country with an open mind, she said media portrayals conditioned her to expect a grim place full of blacks and greys.

“The buildings are mint green, salmon pink, sky blue, and the people are dressed better than I thought they would be,” she told SBS Korean.

She quickly realised she would have to return “to get the pieces of the jigsaw to fit together better”.

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Public display of affection / Sariwon, 2018. A couple from North Korea are seen displaying public affection on a street. Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

With a deep-seated interest in “societies that are very different to our own”, Parker had travelled to the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

But her knowledge of North Korea was limited until a tenure as a media officer at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) brought her in contact with Professor Bronwen Dalton.

Dalton, alongside Associate Professor Kyungja Jung, had been researching North Korean topics for years.

She had already visited North Korea twice and was planning another trip in 2015 with her two children. She extended the invitation to Parker.

Lesley Parker, Bronwen Dalton and her children Alice (then 11) and Henry (then 9) stand in front of Kim Jong Il’s state with their North Korean guide during their visit in 2015, Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

Once described as a ‘hermit kingdom’, North Korea these days allows a limited number of overseas tourists. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the government claimed around 100,000 visitors were coming to the country each year.

Most of the tourists were from China and Russia, but some 5,000 were Westerners.

During their visit to North Korea in 2015, Lesley Parker (left) and Bronwen Dalton went to Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to view the embalmed bodies of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on display. Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

A glimpse behind the curtain

Dalton and Parker arranged their trip with a specialist tour company that had permission from the North Korean government to bring tourists into the country.

They flew from Beijing to Pyongyang with Air Koryo, the only airline operating in North Korea.

As tourists, Parker said they encountered limitations but also felt welcomed.

“You cannot move around freely. You have to have a guide with you at all times, but by the same token, it’s not true that those guards are necessarily military, and only there to spy on us.

“So (on) our first trip there were two lovely young women (guides) who had just finished university and had been to a foreign language college, so they spoke very good English, so they were absolutely lovely, they were really relaxed and they were fun,” she said.

Chanel on show / Pyongyang, 2015. The two guides on Lesley Parker’s tour in North Korea. One woman wears a Chanel-style brooch alongside the compulsory pin that displays loyalty to the Kim leadership, which can be seen more clearly on her companion’s blazer. Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

Parker said the guides only rarely asked her not to take a photo.

On one occasion, she was stopped from taking a picture of the statues of previous leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jung Il from the back.

The guides rushed over to her explained that it was considered disrespectful to do so.

“The image of the leaders is very important. You couldn’t take a photo from behind. When you took a photo of the leaders’ statues, you had to capture the whole statue,” she said.

Parker emphasised that she did not go to North Korea with the intention of holding an exhibition or doing anything public with her photos.

Simply aiming to capture what she saw in front of her, she observed that there were “two different worlds” in North Korea.

“There was one world where there was an elite enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Pyongyang, and beyond the borders of the capital were those people in the countryside who work really hard, lived very frugally,” she said.

Sharing women’s stories

For 10 years, Dalton and Jung had been exploring the lives of women inhabiting both these worlds.

They recently published a book, ‘North Korea’s Women-led Grassroots Capitalism’, featuring Parker’s photographs.

It covers 52 stories of North Korean defectors who now live in South Korea and China.

Associate Professor Kyungja Jung at UTS has been researching North Korean topics for years. Source: SBS / Jennifer Scherer

Jung, who closely observed and interviewed these women, spent a decade building trust by participating in activities such as bible studies and leadership training.

The academic, who was born in South Korea, expressed a desire to broaden common perceptions of North Korean society.

“Most North Korean studies are limited and their research focused on nuclear ambition or ridiculing the leader’s hair style.

“So, we really want to show and deepen understanding of North Korean society in many aspects from ordinary people’s perspectives, especially women’s perspectives,” she said.

Professor Bronwen Dalton has visited North Korea three times. Source: SBS / Jennifer Scherer

Dalton, who first visited North Korea in 1992 while studying at Yonsei University in Seoul, has witnessed monumental changes in the country.

In particular, she pointed out the shifting role of women catalysed by the famine of the 1990s.

“The government devoted all of its resources to monitoring the movements of men, and they took their eye off women, but it was the women who in the shadows turned raw materials very secretly at night into (something through a) sort of value-added process and then began setting up markets in the streets,” she said.

That black market grew until North Korea established formal market systems in 2003.

Yellow kiosk / Pyongyang, 2015. Kiosks like this one in Pyongyang sell goods such as soft drinks, flowers and baked goods. The first street stalls appeared in the early 2000s. Source: Supplied / Lesley Parker

‘Finally, a matriarchy has arrived’

As breadwinners, women have been able to break traditional family dynamics, she said.

“Before it was a straightforward understanding that the men were the head of the family. Now they [men] in the eyes of many women are becoming just another mouth to feed because they’re not actually contributing economically to the family,” Dalton said.

According to Jung, one North Korean defector told her: “Finally a matriarchy has arrived.”

“North Korea is patriarchal, and the family line was passed down through father to son. But now, firstly, women prefer having less children, and secondly, if they can choose, they prefer daughters,” Jung said.

While sons are obliged to spend 10 years in military service and engage in formal employment, she said daughters can support their family’s trading activities alongside their mother.

More than 80 per cent of North Korean defectors are women

The growing mobility of North Korean women has had other impacts.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Unification in South Korea, more than 80 per cent of North Korean defectors who settled in the country last year were female.

Kumyoung Choi, a North Korean defector now living in Queensland, fled her homeland along with her family in 1997. Source: Supplied / Kumyoung Choi

Kumyoung Choi, a North Korean defector now living in Queensland, explained this phenomenon.

“As famine came, we had to find food. As a result, women thought a lot, went to a lot of places, and got a lot of information as well.

“Women heard rumours that if they went to China they could eat well, and there would be food and money,” she said.

Choi, who migrated to Australia from South Korea in 2015, fled North Korea along with her family in 1997.

Despite leaving at 15 years of age, she can clearly recall the gender imbalance she experienced in her homeland.

“Men were idols. And even when I went to my friend’s house, I often saw a separate meal was served for a dad only, and kids and mum ate together,” she said.

While North Korea established a law on sex equality on 30 July, 1946, it was not put into practice.

Daniela Gavshon, the Australian director at Human Rights Watch. Source: SBS

Daniela Gavshon, the Australian director at Human Rights Watch, explained.

“What we see is a Confucian system, which is very patriarchal, where women are taught to be subordinate to men and that filters into every aspect of their lives,” she said.

Choi said this system meant women like her mother faced “miserable” conditions.

“Do you know those ink pads you use when you stamp something? Because my mum didn’t even have a lipstick, I remember her putting the red ink pad to her lip before she went out.”

“As a woman, she might have wanted to wear pretty clothes and put on pretty makeup, but she lived a life without a single lipstick,” she said.

Fashion as a means of social status

However, Parker’s photographs show noticeable changes: women are seen wearing modern clothing, makeup and even Chanel brooches.

According to Dalton, many women have learned to use fashion as a means of social status.

“Even a vegetable seller that we talked to, she said that if she wore makeup and had her eyebrows tattooed, that she was less likely to be a victim of bribery and harassment from officials because she looked like a woman of means,” Dalton said.

Killer heels / Pyongyang, 2018. The younger jangmadang (‘market’) generation has grown up watching Chinese and (illegally) South Korean soap operas. They dress in current fashion, with the latest handbag and killer heels, and enjoy going to coffee shops, the movies and nightclubs on dates with their ‘oppa’. (Jung & Dalton 2024). Source: Supplied / LESLEY PARKER

She added that although the role has quietly transformed, having an opinion or strong will in North Korea can have severe consequences.

“Women are disproportionately the subject of harassment, imprisonment, bribery and other forms of deprivation, and also sex trafficking,” she said.

Choi said the exhibition stands as proof of how resilience in the face of prolonged systemic inequality and deprivation can lead to great achievements.

From left to right: Bronwen Dalton, Lesley Parker and Kyungja Jung attend the photo exhibition titled “Women of North Korea: The Quiet Transformation”. Source: SBS / Leah Hyein Na

‘Give a human face to the North Korean people’

Dalton said she hoped the exhibition would “give a human face to the North Korean people”.

Parker, too, emphasised that North Korean women are mothers, wives and daughters who have friends, love fashion and are busy living their lives as best they can.

“They’re not brainwashed robots. I certainly didn’t get that feeling when I was there.

“I was really struck by how strong and resilient and clearly creative human beings they are in striving to live in the system and still make better lives for themselves and their families,” she said.

Source Agencies

‘Not brainwashed robots’: North Korea’s ‘strong, creative and resilient’ women – MASHAHER