The Paradoxical State: The Political Economy of Multidimensional Gender Inequality in Korea

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ABSTRACT Why do Korean women, who live in one of the most technologically and economically dynamic countries in the world, lag so far behind men in most important aspects of social life? Conventional answers to this question believe that more government intervention is needed, but Korea has followed state feminist policies since democratisation with limited success. This article draws on insights from the field of feminist political economy and the theory of performativity to propose a revised model of state–society interaction that better explains this puzzle. Historically, the South Korean state has oscillated between creating gender inequality for its economic and political nation-building projects, and then seeking to reduce it for the purposes of social reproduction. However, this reverse movement is ‘sticky’ because many non-state actors’ performances of gender inequality are resistant to state feminism, and others are closely associated with national identity. We conduct a plausibility probe of our model by applying it to three key performances of gender in Korea: traditional culture, conscription, and sex work. Our findings suggest the need for more bottom-up activism and campaigns against actors within and beyond the state who continue to resist gender equality.