What every man should know about gender discrimination

Richard M. Cho recommends another "Good Read for Sheltering in Place"

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
by Cho Nam-Joo

This reviewer wants to encourage every MAN to read Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982, to have men see viscerally the effect of gender discrimination on women. Any men who took pride in their identity as a feminist, for purporting to acknowledge the suffering of women, will be disillusioned. This powerful novel whose translation in English was published here just last month begins when the eponymous protagonist, a 33-year old stay-at-home mother, begins to develop a multi-personality disorder. The narrative then goes back to Jiyoung's childhood as the subsequent chapters are arrayed by the stages of her life. We learn that, especially in Asian countries, gender discrimination begins when a fetus is conceived in a mother's womb, as elders prefer a son over a daughter. So deeply affecting the portrayals of how ingrained and insidious gender discrimination is in our society, the novel started the #Withyou movement (similar to #Metoo movement in western societies) in Korea.

Narrated in a third person voice conspicuously detached, the novel even uses several footnotes to enlighten us with the state of gender discrimination in Korea, a highly unusual strategy in fiction yet effective in imparting its core message. The readers learn of Jiyoung's childhood (in addition to the story of Jiyoung's mother who spent her youth toiling in a factory to help with her brother's tuition,) her school years, her early career, and her ultimate decision to become a house-wife. Kim Jiyoung is one of the most common names in Korea (In fact, the footnote tells us that it was the most common, newborn girl name in 1982), and the fact that the protagonist shares this name is the novel's emphatic point that what Jiyoung goes through is not a particular but a common experience for women. Translated into numerous languages since its publication in 2016, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a heartrending, heart-breaking novel that should be on every man's reading list.

Richard M. Cho, research librarian for Humanities and Literature at UC Irvine and contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books

Link to the Langson Library Catalog (ebook)