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Korea Herald
February 17, 2004
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2004/02/18/200402180018.asp
Odd path to equality
A very novel idea has been presented by the National Assembly's
Special Political Reform Committee which has proposed establishing
26 additional constituencies where only women will run for
legislative seats. Aware of the criticism about reverse
discrimination in view of the Constitutional guarantee of gender
equality, the inter-party panel suggested that the new system only
be implemented for the next two parliamentary elections.
The committee's intention to increase female representation in
the legislature is praiseworthy in view of their extremely low ratio
in the current Assembly, with just 16 women against 257 men. But,
even if the proposal is adopted, the overall number of male
Assemblymen will not be immediately affected as the 26 seats will be
added to the present membership of 273, increasing the total to 299.
And there is also the possibility that women's representation in
ordinary constituencies may be reduced because the electorate could
give less consideration to women candidates in their districts, now
that they have a separate ballot for additional larger
constituencies with exclusively women candidates. In the proposed
election system, each voter would be given three tickets, one for
the ordinary district, another for the women only district and the
third for the parties.
Overall, the proposed system looks too artificial as a means to
increase the number of women lawmakers. It would be better to fill
half of each party's candidates under the proportional
representation system with women. And it should be left to
individual voters to decide whether to choose a man or a woman to
represent them, without forcing them to pick a woman from a separate
list.
Women's role in our society has grown remarkably over the years,
although the speed of its advance may still not be satisfactory to
many women's rights advocates. But the fact is that the female
proportion is increasing rather rapidly in recruitment to the civil
and legal services, teaching positions and even to military and
police academies.
What is important in order to ensure gender equality in our
democratic society is to find and correct, through legislative
efforts, any prejudiced and discriminatory practices against women
in domestic, social and national life. Establishing women's only
constituencies is not the right policy to remove gender
discrimination from Korean politics. |
