ジェンダー研究

Special Section

第 21 号2018 年

Gender and Political Leadership

Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President ofSouth Korea
Ki-young Shin
Ochanomizu University
South Korea elected Park Geun-hye as its first female president in 2012. She
was also the first woman to ascend to a top political leadership position in
Northeast Asia. Her bid for the presidency as a leading candidate throughout theelection campaign brought keen attention to the question of gender. The
literature on women in political leadership suggests that elections are a
profoundly gendered terrain where women and men face different opportunities
and challenges. This article analyzes the critical role played by gender in the
campaign strategies used by Park and her male opponent, Moon Jae-in. Both
Park and Moon mobilized widely accepted gender norms as core campaign
strategies to expand their support bases beyond their partisan constituencies.
They also strived to prove themselves qualified for the highly masculinizednational leadership position. This article argues that Park was able to present
positive new messages on women’s political leadership, capitalizing on thepromise of a “historically first” female presidency. Park’s construction of her
gender identities as a filial daughter of a former national leader committed to
the nation successfully portrayed her as the one and only woman destined to bepresident. This gendered campaign helped establish her not only as a qualified
and competent candidate but also one likeable and sympathetic to voters, which
eventually led to her successful election.
Keywords
Park Geun-hye, woman president, presidential election campaign, masculinity, Moon Jae-in

Introduction
Park Geun-hye was elected the first femalepresident of the Republic of Korea (Korea
hereafter) by a majority vote in December
2012 and stayed in office until March 2017,
when she was impeached and ousted. Her

dramatic rise to and fall from power drew agreat deal of attention, for she was the firstfemale head of state in Korea as well as in the
Northeast Asian region, where maledominance in politics remains pervasive. 1

1 Taiwan appears to be an exception, as women held 38% of the legislative Yuan in the 2016 election.

71

Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

Unlike other women political leaders in
Korea, Park demonstrated her politicalcompetence within a relatively short period
since her return to politics in the 1998 byelection. She rose quickly to become apotential presidential candidate, after she led
the national election assuming the position ofparty leader.
The literature on women and politicalleadership notes that women leaders tend to
face a double-bind dilemma. If womenleaders look feminine and soft, voters view
them as less competent and thus not qualified
for national leadership. However, if womenshow too many masculine traits, voterscriticize them as cold and unlikeable. Votersevaluate women leaders much more harshly
than men when they diverge from theexpected gender roles. Women leaders have a
hard time finding the right balance between
femininity and masculinity to meet voters’
expectations (See Deckman, Dolan in thisvolume).
However, not all women leaders
experience and respond to these double-binddilemmas in the same way. As Park Geunhye’s presidential election demonstrates,
gender stereotypes often benefit womenleaders in certain political contexts. Various
factors such as personal background, politicalcareer, family ties, and most importantly(male) opponents in the election influence thegender dynamics in elections. Moreover,whether or not a society has alreadyexperienced female leadership, or whether or
not it already has culturally specific genderroles associated with women leaders exist(such as St. Mary in Catholic culture), all72

shape different opportunities and challenges
for women aspiring to political leadership.
Previous studies on Park Geun-hye haveattributed her political fortunes mainly to herfamily background (Lee 2017, Hahm andHeo 2017, Hüstebeck 2013, Lee 2012,
KwonKim 2013, Kim 2012). These studies
have viewed Park as a surrogate for her father,
Park Chung Hee, a controversial
authoritarian leader from 1963 to 1979. Park
Chung Hee contributed to the nation’s“miracle economic development,” yet was
criticized for serious human rights abuses andauthoritarianism. This complicated legacy
Park inherited sharply polarized voters.
Members of the older generation nostalgic
for Park Chung Hee lent strong support toPark Geun-hye’s political leadership, while
those critical of his authoritarian rule doubted
her political competence. Her family ties
motivated both her supporters and her
opposition. Thus, although Park’s family
background facilitated her entrance into
politics, she also needed to overcome thedisadvantages of her family reputation to
expand her support base and win thepresidential election.
This article examines how Park managed
to accomplish this in her presidential
campaign. While both Park and Moon
mobilized socially accepted gender norms toappeal to larger parts of the general public,
Park was also able to present positive newmessages on women’s political leadership,
capitalizing on the promise of a “historicallyfirst” female presidency. Park’s constructionof her gender identities as a filial daughter ofa former national leader committed to theジェンダー研究nation successfully portrayed her as the one
and only woman destined to be president.
In this article, I define gender politics inelections as the politicization of candidates’
femininity and masculinity from theperspective of political representation as
manifested in campaign strategies. Toward
this end, I analyzed and compared Park
Geun-hye’s campaign under the motto the“well-prepared female president” and theopponent’s “people first.” Since both Park’sand Moon’s campaign strategies were
carefully aimed against each other, thiscomparative approach is essential fordemonstrating how gender shapes election
campaigns as well as how gender is arelational concept constantly redefined andconstructed in specific political contexts.

Emergence of Park Geun-hye and
Women’s Political Representation in
Korea
Women are globally underrepresented inhigh-profile political office. Only in the lasttwo decades has women’ presence begun toincrease in executive office and national
legislatures (Zalalzai and Krook 2010,
Zalalzai 2013, IPU). The global average rateof women’s representation in legislatures
reached 20% for the first time in 2012.
Women’s representation in top politicalleadership positions, lags behind legislative
representation: As of January 2017, only 11

第 21 号2018 年

heads of state (7.2%) and 11 heads ofgovernment (5.7%) were women. However,
women have not been completely absent
from top political leadership in Asia. Until
2018, India, Indonesia, the Philippines,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Korea, andTaiwan have elected or appointed women in
top political leadership positions at least once.
A majority of them were from powerfulpolitical families (Jalalzai and Krook 2010;
Jalazai 2013; Derichs and Thompson 2013;
Skard 2014). When Park Geun-hye waselected president in 2012, she was the only
elected female president in the region.2 Likeother female Asian leaders, her rise to power
benefited greatly from her family
background.3
Until Park rose to power (and even when
she was in office), women’s politicalrepresentation in Korea was significantly low
in all levels of the legislature and theadministration. It took seventeen years for
women to become ten percent of the national
legislature even after the transition todemocracy in 1987. Legislative gender
quotas, first introduced in 2000, helped
improve women’s legislative representation,
but the rate of increase has been sluggish(Shin 2014; Yoon and Shin 2015).4 Since themid-1990s, women’s movements haveconsistently pushed for better representationof women in politics. However, theirdemands targeted legislative bodies and2 In 2016, Tsai Ing-wen was elected president by the popular votes in Taiwan.
3 But there have been other cases in Asia, such as through participation in the movement for
democratization (Skard 2014).
4 In the 2016 national election, women held 17% of the seats in the national legislature. In the last
three elections, there has been only 4% increase in the number of women.

73Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

electoral reforms and rarely consideredwomen’s representation in the administration
as a target (Shin 2015).
Before Park Geun-hye’s election, two
women had been nominated for prime
minister in Korea. The first prospective
female prime minister was Chang Sang, who
was nominated by the left-leaning president
Kim Dae-jung (1998–2002) in 2002.
However, the Hannara Party (then the
opposition party) blocked her appointment
for the real estate speculations and her son’s
US citizenship, and the expectation for the
first female prime minister was aborted.
Later the Roh Moo-hyun administration(2003–007) nominated Han Myeong-suk, alongtime women’s rights activist who hadheaded the Ministries of Gender Equality andEnvironment, as prime minister. She
managed to gain the endorsement of thenational legislature and was sworn in as thefirst female prime minister (2006–2007).
These two women were promoted on theplatform of left-wing governments. Theirnominations were welcomed by women’s
movements on a wide spectrum ofideological positions. Women’s groups
argued that increasing women’s presence inall levels of politics was essential for

democracy and for the realization of genderequality in society. “Women” in this caserepresented a minority perspective and agroup facing discrimination. However, whena conservative politician and daughter of aformer dictator, Park Geun-hye, emerged in asimilar context, the assumed straightforward
relationship between women’s politicalrepresentation and gender equality became
complicated.
Park Geun-hye rose to become a popular
political leader in the early 2000s when she
was selected to lead the corruption-stricken
Hannara Party, then in disarray, as part of theparty’s strategy for the national parliamentaryelection in 2004. 5 The party was so
unpopular that it was expected to lose mostof its seats in the 2004 election. Park waselected party leader to save the party fromcrushing defeat. Her personal fame andcommitment to the election campaign helped
the party defend many seats that otherwise
would have been easily lost. This event
elevated Park to become by far the mostpopular and favored politician across opinion
polls. 6 Being a woman had rarely been aproblem for her, nor had it been seen as
reflecting a lack of leadership qualifications.
On the contrary, gender equality advocates

5 Park was selected as a party leader when the Hannara Party fell into crisis as a result of illegal
political fund collection. She decided to dispose of the party-owned building and moved the party
headquarters to a tent pitched on the street. In the following national parliamentary election in 2004,
the Hannara party won surprising 121 seats under her leadership, which was far more seats that the
party had expected to win during such a crisis.
6 Park failed to win her party’s nomination in 2007, defeated by Lee Myung-bak, but in 2012, she
was selected as the party’s presidential candidate by earning an overwhelming 84% of votes in the
primary in 2012, where no other candidates of the party gained more than 9% of votes (Korea
National Election Commission 2013, 68).

74

ジェンダー研究did not share the idea that she deserved thefirst female presidency, because she was not
qualified to represent women.
Park has never been in a minority positionin her life, nor had she been an advocate forwomen’s policy issues. Her father became apresident in 1963 when she was eleven. Since
then, she lived a life different from that ofmost ordinary people. When her mother was
assassinated by a North Korean agent, she
assumed the role of first lady and acted in her
mother’s place until Park Chung Hee wasassassinated himself by an aide. Even after
she left the Blue House, Park never married,
unlike most Korean women of her age.
Because of her uncommon and tragic life
experiences, the Korean public regarded Park
as a unique type of woman, but also
sympathized with her.
Park’s emergence triggered harsh debates
among women’s rights activists. Their views
varied from welcoming support for her bid
for the presidency to strong reservations
about her credentials for representing
women’s interests. For feminist activists on
the left who had long struggled for genderequality and women’s political representation,
Park was simply not the right woman to serveas the first female president of Korea. In theirview, Park was a collaborator with anauthoritarian leader whose military regime
brutally cracked down on a fledging
democracy and reinforced women’s

第 21 号2018 年

oppression in the name of economic
development and national security. Park’s
rising prominence in politics spurred them to
ask what women’s interests meant and who
truly represented women’s interests(KwonKim 2013). This question reemerged
when she was later impeached.7

Campaign as Gendered Terrain
The results of the presidential election
were so close that Park (of the Saenuri Party)
won by a slim margin of 3.53% of the votes(51.55% to 48.02%).8 Gender politics added
a completely new dimension to the
traditionally partisan nature of the campaign.
In previous presidential elections, candidates’
sex and gender had rarely drawn any
attention. This was mainly because allpresidential candidates were male and the top
executive power and political leadership
positions were assumed to be a male arena. In
the 18th presidential election in 2012,
however, two competitive candidates of
opposite sexes raised the profile of gender
politics throughout the entire campaign
period. The election might well be seen as acompetition between men and women,highlighting women’s leadership potential ashead of state and its potential contribution toa more substantive representation of women.
Drawing on feminist election studies, thefollowing section analyzes the ways in which
gender played a significant role in the 2012

7 This article does not address how gender played out during the impeachment process, but somecritics did not hesitate to devalue Park’s failure as “women’s failure.” This view seems to have been
more prominent in opposition camps.
8 National Election Commission, http://www.nec.go.kr/engvote_2013/main/main.jsp (Accessed
March 27, 2013).

75

Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

presidential election in Korea.

Gender Politics in the Eighteenth
Presidential Campaign
Park Geun-hye: “A Well-Prepared Woman
President”
Feminist political theorists have argued
that the division between the public andprivate in liberal democracy is associatedwith the gender division between masculinity
and femininity. Men participate in the publicsphere as equal citizens while women takeresponsibility for domestic responsibilities(Pateman 1988). Femininity is thus
associated with family or the domestic sphere.
These stereotypical gender norms are asignificant disadvantage for women runningfor public office. Women are criticized for
discarding their primary gender roles, andtheir expression of femininity appears
inappropriate and unsuitable in public office.
While some women can take advantage ofculturally ascribed gender roles such as thoseof motherhood and caregiving, they are often
viewed as representing only women rather
than all citizens.
In contrast, overly masculine traits orshows of dominance risk triggering claims of
inappropriate aggressiveness, even thoughsome aggressiveness is expected in public
office. Women tend to be punished for
displaying dominance, while men never do(Duerst-Lahti 2014). As they are criticized
for being too soft or too tough, women cannever be just right (Carroll and Fox 2014).
Thus, while gender is intrinsic to all public
life and leadership, gender poses difficult
challenges to women running for public
office (Duerst-Lahti and Kelly 1995).
Gender Stereotypes?
Although being a woman did not handicap
Park to the same degree as other womenleaders, Park was not completely exempt
from gender double-bind problems. Her malechallengers in her party intended to dismiss
Park’s leadership qualifications based on her
sex and gender in the 2007 party primary. Her
marital status—she had never beenmarried—was one prominent example. In
Korea, single people are viewed as notmature enough to be considered adults. For
women in particular, being single often
signifies incomplete or flawed womanhood;for instance, a woman must have problems if
she cannot marry, single women are
negatively depicted as hysterical and areassumed to be unpopular with men. Implying
these negative gender stereotypes about
single women, male challengers argued that
she was neither qualified nor competent todetermine national education policies, since
she had never experienced parenthood
herself.9
During her second bid for the presidency,

9 Lee Myung-bak made this essentialist comment during the party nomination contest for the 17th
presidential election on Jan. 20, 2007. He was criticized for the sexism. Park refuted by asking if aman who did not fulfill military service (who was Lee Myung-bak) was qualified for the presidency.
http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2007/01/22/2007012200633.html (Accessed May 14,2018).

76

ジェンダー研究

another attempt to diminish her leadershipwas based on women’s competence innational security issues. Korea is a divided
state in direct confrontation with North Korea.
Militarism and national security have always
been primary concerns of the state. One ofher challengers in the primary argued
publicly that women are not qualified to serve
as president of Korea, since they do notparticipate in military service, as all men
do.10 For him, the idea of a female president
was premature in a nation as Korea, where
the current status of the cease-fire with North
Korea could deteriorate into war at any time;a strong masculine and military leadershipwas necessary for making tough decisions in
the event of war. Therefore, women with nomilitary experience or knowledge are notqualified for such leadership.
These arguments dismissing Park’s
leadership qualifications by emphasizing her
femininity held little resonance with the
public, since Park had never identified herself
as a women’s rights advocate, nor had she
expressed her femininity as traditionally
expected. Rather, her lack of femininity
sparked the often-asked-question, “is she areally a woman?”, which problematized herlack of traditional femininity. Park’spresidential election campaign took
advantage of this underdeveloped terrain of
womanhood. Her carefully constructed
gender messages based on her sex added apositive slant to her masculinized leadership,
which was an extension of her father’s
militarized leadership. As much as Park’s

第 21 号2018 年

popularity derived from strong support forher deceased father, her inevitableassociation with her father, both negative andpositive, was what she had to overcome toreach beyond her traditional support base.
Her being a woman contributed greatly tothis task.
A Marker of Change and New Politics
Park’s campaign slogan “the historic firstfemale president of Korea” helped
differentiate her political identity from that ofher father. The literature on gender andpolitics shows that because women have long
been marginalized in politics, they can often
be seen as markers of change and the adventof a new politics (Skard 2014). Because afemale president had been regarded as
impossible in Korea, Park’s candidacy
generated heated debates on female
leadership, and the possibility of her
presidency itself attracted great interest in hercandidacy. It was controversial whether Park
could be a symbol of new politics since she
had inherited her father’s loyal supporters in
her particular geographical region andrepresented conservative values. Nonetheless,her sex suggested that she as woman could bean agent for bringing about a fundamental
change in male-dominated politics. The
ruling Saenuri Party boasted that a femalepresidency would give rise to “the greatest
transformation and reform in Korea.”11 The
public might well have perceived that a
women president meant a bigger change thana change of government to the opposition

10 Lee Jae-ho, interview at the Press Center in Seoul on June 18, 2012.
11 http://news.joins.com/article/9933169 (Accessed May 14, 2018).

77

Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

Image 1. Park Geun-hye with supporters.

Source: Official Campaign Gazette of the Saenuri Party, 2012.

party. In this regard, her sex benefited her
campaign more than it hurt it by making her
campaign a historical first. Her campaign
literature was full of images of women,
including Park and young womensurrounding her as well as women in themarket (see Image 1). In contrast, men rarely
appeared in her official campaign literature.
This itself seemed to demonstrate how
different Park’s new presidency promised tobe. This value helped her overcome her
negative associations with an authoritarian
past to a significant extent. Opinion polls
indicate that “being a woman” ranked thefirst reason why supporters for Park favoredher (Lee 2012).
Filial Daughter
Park’s unusual career and personal lifetranslated into her specific gender image. She
entered the Blue House as a child. She spent
most of her youth during her father’s reign inpower for 18 years. However, she wasisolated after her parents’ deaths inconsecutive tragic accidents. These unusualexperiences attracted strong public sympathy
for her as a “pitiful princess” with unfailingperseverance. At the same time, no one dared78

doubt her commitment to national security,
for she herself was the biggest victim ofNorth Korean aggression. Her malechallengers’ criticism only increased public
sympathy for her.
Her political career also shaped her image
as a sacrificed filial daughter, long considereda venerable traditional role for women in
Korean society. She left graduate school after
her mother’s assassination to support her
father. For the next 6 years until her father’sassassination, she performed the first lady’srole in her mother’s stead. Her life history
was a good reminder to voters of older
generation of how unfailingly devoted she
was to her family. She declared that Park
Geun-hye would again devote herself to thepeople of nation. She even claimed that she
had married the Republic of Korea, as asymbolic proof of her sincere commitment to
the nation.
Park’s TV election campaign ad releasedon Nov. 27 in 2012, titled “Park Geun-hye’swounds,” emphasized this emotional
commitment (Kang and Kim 2013).
Hegemonic Masculinity
However, women in

top

political

ジェンダー研究

Image 2. Park Geun-hye in uniform
looking over the demilitarized zone.

Source: Official Campaign Gazette of the Saenuri Party,
2012.

leadership positions also need to demonstratestrong masculinity. Top political leadership isa prototype of hegemonic masculinity, whichis constructed by discourse and performance(Connell 1995). Studies of Angela Merkel inGermany demonstrate that female politicians
earn high recognition, “but this recognition
remains within the logic of a genderedsystem—emphasizing the possibility of awoman acting successfully as a man…The
discursive recognition of a powerful leader isoften accomplished by distancing leadershipfrom femininity” (Lünenborg and Maier
2015, 193).
As previously mentioned, Park Geun-hye
had never been an ordinary woman. She is adaughter of a powerful former president bybirth and by her training during her six years’
experience serving as first lady and assisting
her father. This political experience elevated

第 21 号2018 年

her beyond a level that any ordinary person
could emulate. She was viewed as having
been trained for the presidency directly fromher farther. A single woman with no military
service experience would have otherwise
been considered disqualified as commanderin-chief. However, her specific gender roles
as first daughter-cum-first lady, along withher familial ties to a masculine father who
was a military commander, all helped herovercome those obstacles. Ironically, themilitarized nature of the Korean presidency
contributed to her rise as the first woman
president.
Likeability and Familiarity
Many opinion polls show more womenthan men, and more elderly than younger
voters, supported Park in the 2012
presidential election. Specifically, women in
their 50s and older turned out to be her
biggest support cohort. One could argue that
her bid for the presidency boosted womenvoters’ interest in the election. In the last
decade, the 2012 presidential election was
the first time when more women cast a votethan men. In addition, the voting rate was thehighest in all recent presidential and national
elections for both women and men.
As Table 1 shows, the 2012 presidential
election drew heavy attention, reversing thecontinuous decline in voting rates since the1987 presidential election. The genderdifference was the biggest in 2012, with 1.6%
more participation among women thanmen.12 Exit polls suggested that Park attracted

12 This trend continued to hold for the 19th presidential election, but the gender difference narrowed:
men 76.2% vs. women 77.3% (Korea National Election Commission 2017). However, in the next

79Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

Table 1. Change in vote rate by sex and election.

Women
Men

2002
Presidential
election

2004
National
election

2007
Presidential
election

2008
National
election

2012
National
election

2012
Presidential
election

70.3
71.3

59.2
63

63.1
63.3

44.3
48.4

53.1
55.7

76.4
74.8

Source: Korea National Election Commission, each year

more women voters to the polls. In the city of
Daegu (Park’s constituency), the voting rate
was 79.7%, higher than the average voting
rate of other major cities (76.8%). Both men(78%) and women (81.3%) participated in
the election at much higher rates than thosein other cities and regions (75.4% for men,
78.2% for women). It is notable that thevoting rate of women of 40 years and older
was highest in the city of Daegu (84.4%)(Korea National Election Commission 2013,356). Also, the voting rate of women in their
50s in the 2012 presidential election (82.9%)
was the highest among all elections in the
Korean history (Korea National Election
Commission 2017, 27).
Interviews with working class women in
the 50s who supported Park echo thisstatistical outcomes (Lee 2012). They found
Park filial and likeable, also believed that hewas cleaner and more sincere than most malepoliticians. Women of Park’s generation
grew up watching Park’s performance as firstlady. For them, Park Geun-hye was the mostfamiliar politician. Voting for Park was anempowering political action for women who
had hardly been as having active politicalagency.
Moon Jae-in: Head of an Ordinary
Household
Moon Jae-in’s campaign challenged Park
Geun-hye’s campaign to become the firstfemale president. Moon Jae-in, a lawyer
turned politician, began his career as an aideto the former president Roh Moo-hyun. He
was known as a person of good will andintelligence as well as a best friend andsupporter of Roh. His short political careerand service as second man in the Rohgovernment gave him a reputation forsoftness and a lack of political charisma.
Park’s masculinity posed a great challenge toMoon, despite his natural sex. Had Park notbeen the daughter of Park Chung Hee, Moon
would have never been questioned about his
masculinity simply by virtue of his being aman. However, Moon had to compete with awoman candidate to demonstrate true
masculinity. This raised the possibility ofmen having gender apart from that
determined by their natural sex and its
traditional standards (Duerst-Lahti 2014, 31).
Moon employed two gender images topresidential election in 2017 held after Park’s impeachment, the voting rates in the city of Daegu
and the surrounding province dropped in contrast to the general trend of increasing rates in otherregions.

80

ジェンダー研究

contrast himself from Park Geun-hye. The
first was that of a first son (Jangnam) who
was also a responsible father himself. To
counter Park’s filial daughter message, Moon
claimed that he would be the first son of thenation. In Korean culture, the first son is thecentral figure of the family. First sons havebeen expected to take over the position ashead of the family for generations. The first
son takes responsibility for all family mattersand makes important decisions.
The second gender construction was thatof a generous but competent male leader able
to understand the hardships of the young(male) generation. He also shared military
service experience with the younger
generation through his own lived experience
as a young man. These were all carefully
selected images to contrast against Park’s
gendered images as the first daughter and theinherited commander-in-chief traits fromPark Chung Hee.
First Son
In Korean culture, the first son is a cultural
icon of responsibility and someone to rely on.
However, the expectation for the role of thefirst son is also an embodiment of patriarchal
family values. Traditional families had
invested most resources in the upbringing of
the first son at the expense of daughters andyounger brothers, since the success of thefirst son would guarantee the survival offamily members. While daughters were
expected to marry out to become a memberof another family, the first son would protect
the family no matter what happened. Moon
put forward the message that he was a

第 21 号2018 年

Image 3. Moon Jae-in with his wife.

Source: Official Campaign

Gazette of the United

Democratic Party, 2012.

trustworthy and reliable leader just like thefirst son of ordinary families.
However, the first son can serve the family
only when he marries a hardworking andobedient wife who would carry out all duties
to serve the family. Thus the first son needs
to be also a patriarchal husband and father.
Image 3 represents such an image of a
responsible father and husband. It was also
intended to deliver an image of an ordinary
family to emphasize that Moon comes fromthe same kind of family as other typicalfamilies, in contrast to Park. In Moon’sfamily, the husband and wife are depicted asembracing hierarchical gender relations, withhim standing and his seated wife looking up
to him with love and respect. However, Moon
does not even look at her. He looks to the
distance as he embraces his grand ambitions
and aspirations to serve the nation in the
future. His wife stands by him, lending full
support as his domestic partner. Moon’s TV
commercial, “launch of the campaign”
released on Nov. 27 carried similar images.
The scene where his wife was ironing in the81Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

shadows while he was napping in a chair
drew criticism from many feminist activists.
It is doubtful whether this traditional
division of labor by gender could haveappealed to women of younger generations
whose own family values had now changed
tremendously.
The Marine Corps
It was the opposition party male candidate
Moon whose gender was challenged andwhose qualifications were subject to doubt.
Due to his softness, his own politicalindependence apart from the former
president Roh was called into question.
Moon, more than Park, invited skepticism
from the conservative constituency about his
leadership in a time of security crises.
Conservative parties had frequently criticized
Moon’s party for being too soft on North
Korea. For Moon, the most imperative task
was to dispel persistent doubts about whether
he and his party were tough enough to defend
the nation from outside aggression. Moon’s
biggest challenge was to prove a strong
masculinity that would qualify him for thepresidency.
Masculinity is embraced and acted out byboth men and women. Duerst-Lahti analyzed
U.S. presidential elections from theperspective of dominance and technicalexpertise masculinities and found that two to
three times as many “dominance masculinity”
words as “expertise masculinity” words had
been represented in newspaper articles. She
thus concluded that “dominance masculinity
drivestheethosofpresidential
campaigns…posing particular challenges for

82

Image 4. Moon Jae-in with young
soldiers.

Source: Official Campaign

Gazette of the United

Democratic Party, 2012.

women” (Duerst-Lahti 2014, 40).
The incumbent president at the time of theth
18 presidential election was Lee Myungbak, who came from a corporate background.
Korean citizens had elected him with thehope that his business expertise would lead toa better economy in the neoliberal era.
However, such a prospect did not emerge,
disappointing his voters. That public
sentiment generated a political apathy
towards the value of technical masculinity.
Therefore, Moon had to be re-gendered as a
tough man in order to differentiate himself
from the unpopular incumbent president; on
top of that, he had to project a stronger andtruly competent masculinity as a contrast to
Park’s inherited masculinity as a strongman’sdaughter.
His strategy was to play up his masculine
leadership style by portraying himself as astrong and reliable man who had endured atour of duty in a special military unit. The
official campaign literature for Moon Jae-in
highlights this effort. In this image, Moon

ジェンダー研究

converses with soldiers sitting next to eachother. In contrast to the young men’s short
hair and tough face, however, Moon looks
more considerate than strong and tough.
Competition with Park to display hegemonic
masculinity resulted in Moon’s intelligent
and generous leadership being downplayed,when it could have successfully presented adifferent masculinity than a militarized
masculinity.
The outcome of the campaign was mixed.
Newspaper analyses show that both theconservative news daily Chosun and theprogressive news daily Hangyere used more
words describing soft and feminine
leadership for Moon than for Park. Although
Moon’s support rate increased to become
close to that of Park, he never overcame
Park’s lead. As Youn and Lee argued, amajority of voters did not seek feminine
leadership in the 2012 presidential election,
but instead elected masculine leadershipfirmed embodied in a female leader (Younand Lee, 2014: 218).

Conclusion
Park Geun-hye’s presidential candidacy
and her subsequent victory in popular voteraised many questions about gender andpolitical representation in Korea. Park
capitalized on her gender roles as a filial
daughter of a former assassinated president toappeal to conservative values and recall aprosperous time for the nation, as well to

第 21 号2018 年

evoke new leadership to break the security
crisis caused by North Korea. Toward thisend, gender strategies played a central role incampaign politics. However, it is unfortunatethat Park’s presidency did not bring about
any tangible achievement in gender equality
and women’s lives during her tenure. She
herself had to step down following
impeachment. Just like her rise and election
to the presidency, her fall was alsosignificantly gendered. Her sex became ablatant target of political criticism. She wassexualized and re-gendered as a selfish andincompetent woman.
This also raised considerable doubts thatthe failure of the first female presidency
could be viewed as the failure of female
politicians in general, and her fall seen as a
proof of women’s political incompetence.
Yet, her presidency played a positive role inthat at least considerable awareness wasraised about women’s representation in
Korea by highlighting the masculine andmilitarized nature of political life and how afemale presidency can change this ubiquitous
yet invisible phenomenon.
The prospect for women’s politicalleadership in Korea is therefore still far in
distance. The popular discourse of Park as theone and only woman who was a princess anda strongman’s daughter, all limit women’s
political leadership to only specific types ofwomen. Thus, top political leadership has
been reinstated as a masculine terrain.

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Gender, Election Campaigns, and the First Female President of South Korea

Funding
The research for this article was funded by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grants-in-Aid for
Scientific Research [C], “Woman President and Women’s Political Representation: The Case of Park Geun-hye inSouth Korea” [grant number 26360042]; The Ministry of the Republic of Korea and the National Research
Foundation of Korea [grant number NRF-2015S1A3A2046903]

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（掲載決定⽇：2018 年 5 ⽉ 16 ⽇）

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要旨

韓国大統領選挙におけるジェンダー・ポリティクス：朴槿恵と文在寅の選挙キャンペーンの比較研究
Ki-young Shin2012 年の第 18 回⼤統領選挙で、朴槿恵が韓国初の⼥性⼤統領に選出された。彼⼥は東アジア地域における、初の⼥性の最⾼政治指導者でもある。2012 年の選挙は、最有⼒候補であった朴槿恵と、⽂在寅との、事実上の男⼥⼀騎打ちであったため、その性別が⼤きな注⽬を集めた。⼥性と政治リーダーの先⾏研究によれば、選挙は極めてジェンダー化された領域であり、⼥性と男性は異なる機会と困難に直⾯する。本稿では、朴槿恵と対抗⾺の⽂在寅両候補の選挙戦略に着⽬し、ジェンダーがどのような役割を果たしたかを分析する。両者はともに、⽀持基盤である政党⽀持層より広範な票を獲得するために、伝統的なジェンダー規範を
選挙のコアの戦略として動員した。また彼らは、分断国家の⼤統領に求められる軍事化された男性性を備えた候補者であることを証明しようとした。朴槿恵は、国の繁栄に⾝を捧げる
親孝⾏娘として親しみと同情を持たれるとともに、元⼤統領の⽗親から政治リーダーシップの教育を受けた唯⼀の⼥性、というジェンダー・アイデンティティを打ち出すことで、⼤統領としての資質と能⼒を⽰すことに成功した。他⽅で⽂在寅は、⾰新政党の候補であったにも関わらず家⽗⻑制家族規範に訴える戦略を取り、政治的理念と相反するジェンダー戦略を
取った。

キーワード
朴槿恵、⼥性⼤統領、⼤領領選挙戦、男性性、⽂在寅《筆者紹介》

Ki-young Shin is Associate Professor in the Institute for Gender Studies and the Graduate
School of Humanities and Sciences at Ochanomizu University. Ph.D. in Political Science.
Winner of Betty Nosveld Best Paper on Women and Politics (Western Political Science
Association, 2004). Research interests include gender quotas, comparative women’s
movements and gender policies in East Asia. Recent works appeared in International Political
Science Review, Politics & Gender, Pacific Affairs as well as many English, Japanese andKorean Edited volumes.

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