KWDI Korean Women’s Development Institute

 

 

Lee, Soo-Yeon

Lee, Hye Lim

Kang, Hye-Ran

Kim, Mi-Kyoung

Kim, Ha Yan

 

 

This study attempts to develop policies and projects for reinforcing gender equality culture and ultimately building gender equal society. The research methods employed are threefold: first, we built a theoretical perspective to define what a gender equal culture is. Second, we analyzed the gender equality projects which have been executed in Korea and also the countries advanced in terms of gender equality level to find out what they have accomplished and in what way they have to be complemented. Third, we consulted experts and interviewed citizens for the direction and contents of gender equality policies and projects in the future.

The analysis of the preexisting domestic projects shows that they have focused on raising people’s gender equality awareness and changing culture and ways of life through gender equality education, media, festivals, campaigns, and cooperation with business entities. The foreign cases show that they also have implemented gender equality education and awareness raising. However, they particularly emphasized the effort to use gender equality perspective to explore the nation’s vision and to develop a new gender equality paradigm. For example, the Nordic countries provide research funding to align social innovation with gender equality and make efforts to encourage men to actively participate in gender equality projects.

The interviews with experts and citizens yielded the ideas for innovating gender equality policies and projects such as the establishment of public relation strategies for enhancing the image of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, improvement of the quality of gender equality education, developing the gender equality projects with which men can sympathize, enlarging citizen participation, maximum utilization of media, and spreading women culture.

This study recommends gender equality projects and strategies in the following four areas: strategizing public relation activities for gender equality policies and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family reinforcing gender equality consciousness, gender equality education and establishment of gender equality environment and development of a new paradigm. Some of them are construction of a participatory website which provides a channel to discuss and promote gender equality, development of gender equality narrative, establishment of gender equality experience center, promotion of non-gender stereotypical job and provision of regular exhibition of feminist movies.