Yoon acknowledges need for gender equality after US reporter’s query
President Yoon Suk-yeol said he plans to ensure that more opportunities will be given to women, in response to a U.S. reporter’s question about Yoon’s male-dominated Cabinet and the administration’s plans to improve gender equality in Korea.
During a joint press conference held after the summit with his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, Saturday, Yoon received the question from Washington Post reporter Seungmin Kim, who pointed out the lack of gender diversity among the Cabinet members of the new administration.
Currently, 16 out of the Yoon administration’s 19 Cabinet members including the prime minister are males, mostly in their 50s or 60s. Among the 41 newly-appointed officials at the vice minister level, 39 are men.
Kim also asked Yoon, who had pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family during his presidential campaign, about the government’s plans to improve gender equality in the country.
These questions from a reporter of foreign nationality to the Korean president seemed unplanned, as reporters were requested by the Korean moderator to pose only one question to their own president. Moreover, given that the press conference was held to share the outcomes of the summit, which focused on bilateral cooperation in economic security and global supply chains, the U.S. reporter’s questions about Korea’s domestic politics seemed unexpected.
After a short pause, Yoon responded, “If you look at the public official sector, especially the minister cabinet, we really didn’t see a lot of women advancing to that position thus far. Probably in various regions, equal opportunities were not fully ensured for women.”
“We have actually a quite short history of ensuring that. So, what we’re trying to do is very actively ensure such opportunities for women,” he added.
But Yoon’s remarks that equal opportunities have not been fully ensured for women raised eyebrows, as he has been insisting that systemic gender discrimination does not exist in Korean society — one of the reasons why he views the country no longer needs a gender equality ministry.