Would North Korea accept a female successor?
Dictatorial leader of misogynistic regime reveals daughter at missile launch. Could she best the next Yingluck Shinawatra?
Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, was seen holding Kim Jong-un’s hand at a missile launch on November 19 in a photo published by the DPRK’s state-run news agency KCNA.
This is not the first time the rest of the world has known of Kim Ju-ae, who is the second child of Jong-un. Dennis Rodman held the then-newborn when he visited the Hermit Kingdom in 2013. South Korea’s National Intelligence Agency believes Kim has three children with his wife Ri Sol-Ju. Kim’s first child, born around 2010, is believed to be a boy but has never been publicized in a photograph.
North Korea is a traditional country beset by fundamentalist Confucian-style misogyny. The Kim regime is a sexist organ that keeps a harem of comfort women, and the Workers’ Party condones and engages in the sexual abuse of women, including female market vendors and prisoners. Could the regime and the country accept a female dear leader?
Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong has been appointed to a high-profile role in the Workers’ Party’s Political Bureau and on the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, a policy-making committee that ranks above the cabinet. She would not be there if it were not for her father, grandfather, and brother. There are no other women on the commission, and there have only been half a dozen female cabinet members in the entire history of North Korea.
In this way, Kim Yo-jong is similar to other Asian political leaders like Benazir Bhutto, daughter of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto; Indira Gandhi, daughter of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru; Corazon Aquino, wife of Senator Benigno Aquino, who was assassinated by Philippines President Marco’s regime; and even Park Geun-hye, daughter of South Korea’s developmental dictator Park Chung-hee. They all rose to power on the legacies of their fathers and husbands.
They were seen, in various degrees, as non-threatening replacements for popular male figures of power. Some of them and many other female leaders in the same mold carried on the programs of the patriarch to whom they were beholden. Others challenged the patriarchal culture and blazed their own trails. When they stepped out of line, male figures tried to put them in their place.
Mark R. Thompson, a professor of Asian studies and international studies at the City University of Hong Kong, wrote of the challenges Aquino faced during her rule:
In the Philippines, after toppling dictator Ferdinand Marcos to become president in 1986, Aquino faced two deeply antagonistic male rivals in her own cabinet, including her vice president, Salvador Laurel who demanded Aquino make him “virtual head of state”. Defense minister Juan Ponce Enrile launched a series of military coup attempts, with Laurel openly supporting one revealingly called “God Save the Queen”. This would have returned Aquino to her “proper” role as a woman, as a mere symbol, not the real holder of political power, which, as the ideology of patriarchy made clear, was a man’s job.
This being North Korea, obviously, family ties are a prerequisite for men to rise up to the status of supreme leader, too—and a helpful factor for other positions. But there are many more men who rose to power for reasons other than family. And, within prominent families, it is much more likely for men to be chosen.
New DPRK cabinet leaders appointed in 2021 (via Yonhap/Korea Times).
Linda K. Richter wrote in a 1990-91 issue of Pacific Affairs,
Though such factors may also explain the emergence of some male leadership in these regions, men seem to have a wider choice of routes to power, while for the top women these variables seem to be the dominant patterns to power.
The few women in power are raised by defenders the patriarchal administration to oppose reforms aimed at increasing equality. “What we have sadly seen is, though not always, that women also become foot soldiers of patriarchy because they have to survive within that system and defend the values [that brought them to power] but discriminate against them,” Ambika Satkunanathan, a Sri Lankan human rights lawyer, said in a 2021 discussion.
It is far too soon to say when North Korea will transition to a new illegitimate leader or who that leader will be. But there are questions.
Why has Kim’s daughter been publicly-revealed now, at a significant political event? Was Kim’s other daughter inadvertently revealed on a music video in September? Why hasn’t his eldest son been revealed? Is there something preventing him from being installed as leader down the line?
Enjoy this article? Consider giving a tip to help support the production of the US-Korea Policy Project! — Tip Me at Ko-Fi.com