The Good Korean Feminist Wife

I just discovered a fascinating new blog – Becoming a Good Korean (Feminist) Wife – after she reflected upon my 10 questions about your feminist parenthood. She has a baby son with her partner and the three of them live in Seoul. Here is her ‘On Adventures in Feminist Parenting’ post. You should read it.

My definition of feminism is at its very core an action. It is the work of helping people to become the best people they can be with the gifts and talents they have been given so that they are not constrained by boxes or hierarchies or artificially constructed limitations. And I suppose that I also have a core belief that the way to achieve this goal is ever changing – ever shifting. The reason is that patriarchal privilege, burden, and oppression are all intricately and artfully woven into every aspect of society. And even if we manage to define or pin down or explore one aspect of what we think is this privilege, burden, and oppression, it is challenged in the next minute by a new perspective provided by a different culture, practice, or concept. In my opinion, feminism is the opposite of rigidity, hierarchy, set expectations, and limitations. Feminism should be about flexibility, movement, fluidity, and the ability to become the person you have the ability to become instead of being constrained by roles and categories which are constructed not innate. You may have a different definition, but this is mine.

In practice, feminism is not always like this. Sometimes feminism and those who identify with it seek to make rigid boxes and theories and try to fit people into them. In this way, I think feminism is in the process of becoming feminist. Sometimes my feminism needs to become feminist.

I like her emphasis on ‘becoming’ throughout the post. The idea of your feminism evolving through life really appeals to me. There is something very interesting about exploring your own identity as a feminist while simultaneously exploring a new role in life, parenthood. Kinda why I started a blog. This blogger has another dimension to all that because she is also examining her identity in a new culture. It makes for really thought-provoking reading.

(You can find all the many other responses in this series here. If you’d like to respond to these questions yourself you can either email me your answers and I’ll put them on blue milk as a guest post or you can post them elsewhere and let me know and I’ll link to them).