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A Feminist History of Women Cross DMZ

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A Feminist History of Women Cross DMZ Volume 13 | Issue 33 | Number 7 | Article ID 4355 | Aug 17, 2015 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Crossing Borders: a feminist history of Women Cross DMZ Suzy Kim organized peace symposiums in Pyongyang and Seoul where women shared experiences of mobilizing to bring an end to violent conflict, and crossed the two-mile wide Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates millions of Korean families as a reminder that division can be overcome. As one of the members of the organizing committee of Women Cross DMZ, I travelled with other international women peacemakers to meet face-to-face with Korean women on both sides of the DMZ and cross the military demarcation line that divides Korea. On the seventieth anniversary of Korea's Women Cross DMZ international delegation with partition this August 2015, I write as a South Korean organizers (May 24, 2015) historian of modern Korea to reflect upon the experience specifically from a feminist On May 24, 2015, thirty women peacemakers standpoint. from fifteen nations, including American feminist activist Gloria Steinem and two Nobel One constructive definition of feminism defines Peace laureates, Mairead Maguire fromit as: Northern Ireland and Leymah Gbowee from Liberia, walked with Korean women of the 1. The belief that women and men are, and North and South to call for an end to the have been, treated differently by our Korean War and the peaceful reunification of society, and that women have frequently Korea on the seventieth anniversary of its and systematically been unable to division. The arbitrary division of the peninsula participate fully in all social arenas and in 1945 by the United States and the Soviet institutions; Union led to the creation of two separate 2. A desire to change that situation; and states, setting the stage for an all-out civil war 3. That this gives a 'new' point-of-view on in 1950 that became an international conflict. society, when eliminating old After nearly 4 million people were killed, assumptions about why things are the mostly Korean civilians, fighting was halted way they are, and looking at it from the when North Korea, China, and the United perspective that women are not inferior States representing the UN Command signed a and men are not 'the norm'.1 ceasefire agreement in 1953, which called for a political conference within three months to On all these counts, I am a feminist and so was reach a peace settlement. Over 60 years later, the explicit goal of the Women's Peace Walk: to we are still waiting. To renew the call for a call attention to the need to formally end the peace settlement by offering a model of Korean War through the full participation of international engagement, Women Cross DMZ women in the peace process so that long- 1 13 | 33 | 7 APJ | JF separated families may be reunited.2 While are women.5 The everyday reproductive labor peace is not solely a feminist agenda, the UN consigned to many women has become the Security Council adoptedResolution 1325 basis for women's call for the "valorization of fifteen years ago, confirming that women, who everyday life" so that the disruption and comprise half of humanity, must rightfully be violence caused by war and militarism are not part of any peace process. In the case of Korea, accepted as given, but problematized and the divided state of the peninsula heightens challenged.6 militarization and masculinization of society, abetting everyday forms of sexism as well as In this essay, I begin by exposing the subtle overt misogynist violence against women. forms of sexism embedded in the critical Politically, priority is given to the military and reaction to our Peace Walk while debunking national security over that of social welfare and the specific arguments made against Women human security, which affects both women and Cross DMZ and the women of both Koreas who men. In order to share these concerns and the supported and co-organized the walk. Then, I many different struggles women have engaged situate the Peace Walk within the broader in to challenge war-making and militarization, history of the global women's peace movement, we met with women of both Koreas on formal and finally go on to share some of my occasions such as the peace symposiums experiences behind-the-scenes of both planned in the months leading up to the organizing and participating in the Peace Walk crossing, but also through informal interactions that illustrate a feminist history of Women during bus rides and mealtimes. Cross DMZ. It is a historical fact that modern warfare has Debunking Sexism increasingly come to target civilians with an inordinate impact on women and children. One Thanks to the persistent work of the women's striking example of the impact of the current movement, it has become increasingly division system on Korean women can be seen unacceptable to overtly belittle or discriminate from the disproportionately large number of against women, but subtle forms of gender women among North Korean refugees, topping discrimination (and more overt forms such as at 80 percent this year.3 Furthermore, the wage gap) continue and seem to manifest in according to estimates by aid workers, 80 to 90 some of the vocal reactions against Women percent of female refugees from North Korea Cross DMZ. Often coming from men, we were are trafficking victims.4 Such gendered analysis painted as naïve do-gooders whose hearts brings into greater focus the experience of might be in the right place, but certainly could women and girls in armed conflict andnot understand the complexities of the Korean militarized societies, providing crucial insights situation. Unfortunately, such attitudes came into the day-to-day consequences of thefrom the right, left, and those in between. For ongoing war on women's lives. To be clear, example, Stephan Haggard couched his own women are neither "natural" victims nor support for the walk as "soft and fuzzy" even peacemakers; we are no better suited than men while acknowledging that the group consisted to work for peace despite consistentof "high-powered women," warning that "We misunderstanding that advocating women's need to be clear-eyed. The poverty, participation in the peace process must rely on malnutrition and even starvation of the North a belief in essentialized gender roles that see Korean population are not the result of women as "natural-born" pacifists. Women have sanctions; they are attributable to the nuclear become iconic peacemakers insofar as the vast ambitions, bloated military and ideological majority of caretakers in contemporary times absurdities of the regime."7 Numerous scholars, 2 13 | 33 | 7 APJ | JF such as Rudiger Frank,8 have shown how recognized and acknowledged each other as sanctions have comprehensive detrimental equal partners toward eventual reunification.11 effects on a population, but somehow women's What is left out of these formulae for opposition to sanctions is labeled naïve. Worse reunification is the role of the international still, in a follow-up blog post evaluating the community in supporting such initiatives for Peace Walk, Haggard writes that the" main peace and reconciliation. As we were made question is simple: how badly did they get painfully aware in the back-and-forth between played?"9 As I will describe below, this was no the South Korean government and the UN game or walk in the park, and we were not Command over who could give the final "played". approval of the DMZ crossing, the unending war is not just a North-South problem, but very Another sympathetic critic, Tae Yang Kwak, much an international issue as the war was an aired his disappointment this way: "Despite international war even while it was a civil war, their laudable goals and inspirational vision, and the UN Command has jurisdiction over the Women Cross DMZ failed in their execution. southern side of the DMZ today. But Kwak They failed to collaborate with South Korean proceeds to write that "even a basic women and a broad spectrum of NGOs. They understanding of Korean history would reveal failed to overcome the innate, postcolonial that the Korean War can have no formal end, apprehension against foreign paternalism. They because it had no formal beginning." Here, he even failed to demonstrate a clearis likely referencing Bruce Cumings' nuanced understanding of Korean history."10 argument that "civil wars do not start; they Regrettably, Kwak's critique bordered on come" because of the complicated origins contempt, too quick to pass judgment without beyond the first shot fired.12 But Cumings having all the facts. In a nutshell, his critique is would disagree that there can be no formal that we didn't cross at Panmunjom as we set end. A formal end, and one that enables a out to do and were bused across the DMZ with political settlement that embraces the other celebrity women at the center without the side, is absolutely imperative if the core genuine involvement of Korean women – North problems of the Korean peninsula are to be or South – and of all days on May 24, the resolved. Even with Abraham Lincoln's International Women's Day for Peace and magnanimity toward the Confederacy at the Disarmament, which happened to coincide with end of the American Civil War, the divisive the date that South Korea imposed sanctions on history of that conflict continues to haunt North Korea for the alleged sinking of the contemporary American society as indicated by South Korean corvette Cheonan in 2010. He the recent killing of nine people on June 17, tells us that the real problem is South Korea's 2015 at the Emanuel African Methodist lack of interest in acknowledging North Korea Episcopal Church in Charleston, South as a genuine partner in brokering a peace Carolina.
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