Lawmaker reignites debate on women’s military service
A decades-long debate on mandatory military service for women has been reignited by Rep. Park Yong-jin of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), a presidential hopeful, who wants to change the current conscription system to encompass men and women who will both serve in the military for a shortened term.
Park claims the proposed change would cushion the negative impact of forcing young men to spend a year-and-a-half in mandatory military service. Others, however, say his idea is a political gimmick to draw support from young men while fomenting gender conflict.
The lawmaker called for women’s conscription in his book, “Political Revolution,” published Monday, suggesting the country change its military into an all-volunteer one, while making up for any shortfall in service members by conscripting not only men but also women for 40 to 100 days of basic military training.
Currently, all able-bodied Korean men aged between 18 and 28 must serve in the military for at least 18 months. Women can volunteer to serve in the military as officers or non-commissioned officers.
“With women serving in the military we can shorten the mandatory service period, while expanding the number of people subject to the service,” Park wrote. “This can also put an end to the unnecessary controversy on sexual discrimination about whether to give advantages in hiring to those who fulfilled their military service, as well as other conflicts related to service exemptions.”
During a radio interview, Park said it was inappropriate to force men in their 20s to spend time serving in the military for low pay. Rather, he said, the military should improve its reward and service conditions to entice more people to enlist. He added that soldiers’ salaries needed to be close to the average of workers at the top 100 companies here.
If the country adopts this system, Park predicted that the size of Korea’s active military will stand at between 150,000 and 200,000, down from 555,000 last year, but that the active service members would be composed of elite forces. Also, the number of reserve troops would grow to 20 million, up from the current 2.75 million, because of women receiving training, thus preventing an overall weakening of the military.
Women’s mandatory military service has long been a topic of heated debate in Korea, as the issue has been coupled with gender equality arguments in the hiring process.
In the past, the country gave additional points in civil service recruitment to those who completed their military service. But in 1999, the Constitutional Court made a landmark decision saying that such an advantage was unconstitutional and essentially “discrimination based on gender,” because only a few women were subject to this program while most Korean men served in the military.
More than 10 similar complaints challenging the court’s view have been raised since then, but none managed to overturn the decision, while triggering heated debate between the sexes.
In addition to Rep. Park’s claim, more than 114,000 people signed an online petition on the Cheong Wa Dae website as of Tuesday afternoon, calling on women to be subject to mandatory military service, citing the country’s declining birthrate and gender equality. The petition was posted Monday.
Those opposing women’s conscription say the debate should come only after the male-dominated culture in the military is overhauled and other forms of social discrimination against women are resolved.
Along with the physical differences between men and women, critics also say men already enjoy advantages in their careers as some companies tacitly acknowledge their male employees’ military service as related to their careers and pay them higher wages compared to women.
Rep. Kwon In-sook of the DPK,
2 who is also a women’s rights scholar, said in a radio interview that she partially agrees with Park’s idea on introducing a voluntary enlistment system, because “it will increase the number of female service members in the military, thus promoting gender equality in society.”
However, she said it was still too early to talk about women’s conscription, as it comes as an additional obligation.
Political campaign?
Although Rep. Park said his ideas were the result of lengthy research, pundits suspect him of seeking to draw the support of men in their 20s, many of whom cast their ballots for the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) candidates during the April 7 by-elections for Seoul and Busan mayors. Exit polls showed 72.5 percent of male voters in their 20s said they picked the PPP’s Seoul mayoral candidate Oh Se-hoon.
Former Dongyang University professor and political critic Chin Jung-kwon wrote on Facebook that Park’s idea was “unrealistic lip service based on a populist idea to win votes from men in their 20s and 30s.”
Chin said a voluntary enlistment system may be a long-term goal, but was unrealistic at present, mainly due to the high costs of having to pay competitive salaries to soldiers. He added that a constitutional amendment would be required for that idea to be realized.
After the elections ended in a crushing defeat for the DPK, the ruling party is striving to regain the support of men in their 20s. Rep. Kim Nam-kuk of the DPK is preparing a bill acknowledging military service as part of work experience for employees at state-run institutions, while Rep. Jeon Yong-gi also with the ruling party is calling for a revival of the merit program for former soldiers in the hiring process.
“Military conscription is not the core issue in addressing gender conflict and the difficulties in life faced by men in their 20s,” Prof. Kim Meen-geon at Kyung Hee University’s Humanitas College said. “Rather, the debate should be on how to provide more opportunities for the younger generation and create jobs. It is a misjudgment to think that men in their 20s will be satisfied just by changing the conscription system.”