The Types and Meanings of Maternal Heroes in the North Korean Songun (Military First) Era

Abstract

This study analyzed the background, type, and meaning of the emergence of maternal heroes in the Songun period of North Korea. The North Korean authorities have introduced an ideal mother model and have continuously emphasized the maternal role of women. This prolonged emphasis became the first background for the mother hero to come out when the nation was in crisis in the Songun era. The second reason for the appearance of maternal heroes in the Songun era was the severe food shortages in the 1990s, which caused a rapid decrease of population as the number of infant mortality increased due to starvation and malnutrition. In addition, the low birthrate of women spread due to serious economic difficulties. The North Korean authorities have established the title of the maternal hero and actively promoted childbirth. The third is the collapse of various welfare systems including the state ration system. When the social security system that the North Korean socialist regime boasted about was not operating smoothly, the government forced women to take care of orphans and elderly people without families to depend on by accepting them as members of their families. The maternal heroes promoted based on these backgrounds in the Songun era can be sorted into four types. A hero’s mother who raised her child as a hero, a mother who gave birth to a lot of children, a mother who raised many children to become soldiers or soldiers’ wives, and a mother of a large socialist family, who adopted orphans to foster instead of leaving them for the state to raise. Creating a maternal hero system in this way, and forcing women to be like this in the Songun era, can be regarded as the North’s gender policy, which was to mobilize the female workforce according to the demands of society in that time. It seems that gender roles in North Korea are maintained through the hierarchical gender policy in which men are in charge of national security and women are responsible for daily life, such as reproduction and child care.