From a young age, women were taught the virtues of subordination and endurance to prepare for their future roles as wife and mother.
Filial piety refers to the “attitude of obedience, devotion, and care towards one’s parents and elderly family members that is the basis of individual moral conduct and social harmony”.
In the ideal Confucian home, women were expected to prioritize obedience above all other virtues, following the command of their fathers as girls, their husbands as wives, and their grown-up sons as widows.
Virtue of chastity is particularly supposed to be abided by women, which means remaining virgin before marriage and fidelity to the husbands, alive or dead.
[7][8] When the Soviet Russian troops occupied the area north of the 38th parallel on the Korean peninsula in August 1945, a series of revolutionary decrees were issued.
[10] Article 11 of the CEDAW, to which North Korea is a party, provides, “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment in order to ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, the same rights.”[11][12][13] Democracy and gender equality were stated as important legal principles in the Constitution of the Republic of Korea first promulgated in 1948.
[15] The economic crisis that disrupted social stability in North Korea in the 1990s greatly affected the lives of women.
They were previously restricted to nationally designated job positions and mainly stayed at home after marriage, mobilized through the Women's Federation.
[16] There are no women on the all-important National Defense Commission or the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the WPK, which determines the party’s policies.
A significant number have joined the black market (jangmadang), leading to a surge in mobility as they seek economic opportunities in new cities, regions, and even across national borders.