Dialogues on Gender Inequality in South Korea and the UK

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In 2021 South Korea and the UK are each reckoning with the effects of sexual and gender inequality and prejudice. This network aims to establish a cross-cultural dialogue on how language, literature, and the arts intervene on issues of gender inequality in society. It will bring together scholars from the UK and South Korea, across literary studies and the social sciences, to explore the international circulation of texts, and the politics of reading and writing in the era of #metoo. The project will centre on two symposia, two workshops, and two visiting lectures, in order to investigate cultural exchange in discourses of gender inequality between the UK and South Korea. The field trips will include student-facing research-led workshops to explore the language and symbolism of gender inequalities in the wake of #metoo. Beyond the central structures of the network, we will work together to scope a range of opportunities for future collaboration and closer ties between the host institutions.The problem of gender inequality in South Korea is long-standing and it has come to a climax in the past five years. Following the femicide 'Gangnam Station murder case' in 2016, the global #metoo movement gained traction in Seoul with activists protesting against the wider issue of how Confucian, patriarchal structures bear on women. Despite the fact that South Korea has the most highly educated female population in the OECD, 'the country's gender pay gap of 37% is OECD's largest, far more than twice the average in member states (14%). Average female earnings are 63% of male ones' (Foster-Carter, 2019). In the Global Gender Gap Index, South Korea is ranked 102nd (World Economic Forum, 2021). Yet feminist movements in South Korea have experienced a widespread backlash.On paper, the UK's statistics on gender inequality present a more positive picture, with the country ranked 23rd in the 2021 Global Gender Gap Index. However, such statistics mask a culture in which the public discourse on equal opportunities embedded in institutions obfuscate the structural inequalities and prejudices, highlighted and heightened by the Covid pandemic. The Incel terrorist shooting in Plymouth in August 2021, Sarah Everard's murder case have catalysed national protests. However, the UK is yet to directly address the bases of gender-based violence in dehumanizing and sexualized language, as part of a national conversation. The proposed project puts language, literature and the arts at the centre of its enquiry into gender inequality and violence, focusing on the vibrant cross-cultural exchanges between the two countries in this area. It puts emphasis on understanding how literary texts and reappropriated words and phrases have exerted influence across these cultures to both readdress inequalities and - contrariwise - to perpetrate them. It investigates how the written word has encapsulated and been weaponized against inequality across South Korean and UK cultures. Mindful that Gender Equality is one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals it asks more broadly too how cross-cultural dialogues in the arts have provided inspiration and community in the face of sexual and gender inequality, looking at the ways in which language and literature can be weaponized, and in what forums, to challenge sexual and gender inequality in South Korea and the UK. The symposia and workshops will take place in English, with all core participants fluent in English, and its main stated focus is the English-language circulation of terms and ideas (English in South Korea; Korean translated into English). This said, we welcome and will promote the discussion of translation practices with support from named participants. The written and podcast outputs will be translated into Korean and translation will be available for the Seoul-based events.