S. Korean lawmaker reignites debate over mandatory service for women

Democratic Party lawmaker Park Yong-jin proposed that both males and females undergo 40 to 100 days of basic military training

Marine Capt. Cho Sang-ah, the first female aviator in the Republic of Korea Marine Corps (ROKMC), poses for a portrait in front of a MUH-1 Marineon helicopter. (provided by the ROKMC)

The debate over introducing military service for South Korean women is heating up again after a proposal by Democratic Party lawmaker Park Yong-jin calling for the adoption of a “gender equality military service” system.

Park has proposed that both males and females undergo 40 to 100 days of basic military training under a volunteer-based system.

Politicians and others shared a wide variety of responses to Park’s “compromise” between compulsory military service for women and a volunteer-based system. Some reacted favorably and said his plan should usher in a full-scale debate, while others dismissed it as Park “going overboard to win over male voters.”

Some feminists cautioned against approaching the issue of women’s military service from a “gender war” standpoint.

The topic of compulsory or other military service for women first emerged in public debate with a 1999 ruling by the Constitutional Court that found weighted scoring for military service in hiring decisions unconstitutional.

While working as a professor in 2008, current Democratic Party lawmaker Kwon In-sook wrote a paper titled “Women’s Participation in Conscription Systems: The Cases of Israel and Sweden.”

“The women’s conscription system has become an avenue for males to voice their dissatisfaction as the matter of compensation for completion of military service has escalated into a gender debate following the abolition of weighted scoring for military service,” she wrote.

Issues with women’s military service have not merely been a matter of the disgruntled perspective that “women should serve like men do.” Some feminist scholars and activists have called for a serious debate on the women’s military service issue in the interests of gender equality.

In a 2003 feature article, the feminist journal “If” wrote, “The last male bulwark where a taboo barrier still exists against women is in the military.” The piece argued that women and men should both perform mandatory military service for the sake of gender equality.

In her paper, Kwon also wrote, “Whether it is through a conscription-based system or otherwise, the increased number and growing role of women in the military is being recognized not only as an evident trend but also as a proper direction for policy.”

Democratic Party lawmaker Park Yong-jin (Hankyoreh photo archives)

In a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh, Seoul National University law professor Yang Hyun-ah said, “The current conscription system has given rise to claims of reverse discrimination among men while also posing disadvantages for women.”

“We need to have a discussion toward redesigning it,” she urged.

The cases often cited in the debate over women’s military service are countries where a conscription system exists for women, including Israel, Sweden and Norway. Park Yong-jin similarly said that he had examined overseas examples.

Israel has had both females and males perform two to three years of mandatory military service since its establishment in 1948. Norway and Sweden respectively adopted their conscription systems for women in 2016 and 2018, with both females and males required to perform nine months to one year of service.

But some argued that the foreign examples cannot simply be applied in South Korea as they are. As a reason, they cited the vast differences between those countries and South in terms of the achievement of gender equality at a societal level and issues of human rights and treatment within the military.

A paper by Duksung Women’s University professor Park Jin-su titled “The Societal Conflict Surrounding Adoption of a Women’s Conscription System and National Defense Reforms for Expanded Participation by Women” notes that in Norway, women represent a major force within the defense ministry, where five out of eight ministers of defense appointed between 2000 and 2017 were female.

The military is also viewed as a sought-after form of employment in job markets in Northern Europe. There, opportunities for women to serve in the military are seen as promoting gender equality.

The issue with Park Yong-jin’s proposal is that it was unveiled at a time when Democratic Party lawmakers had been discussing the idea of reintroducing weighted scoring for military service — a practice already ruled unconstitutional — in the wake of the party’s loss of support among males in their 20s in the April 7 by-elections.

“There may be a need for us to have a public debate about military service for women,” said Kim El-li, director of the Feminist Institute of Peace Studies (FIPS).

“The problem, however, is that these arguments have simply been used as a way of exploiting gender conflict to win votes among males in their 20s,” she continued.

“The issue of military service for women is something that has a bearing on national defense policy, population issues, national security and other areas. It should not be used simply as an election pledge to capture voters,” she said.

By Lim Jae-woo, staff reporter

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