Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

They’d done quite a lot of chores around the house since they were young, but they thought of it as helping out their busy parents and taking care of themselves, not learning how to be good women.

This was a time when people believed it was up to the sons to bring honor and prosperity to the family, and that the family’s wealth and happiness hinged upon male success. The daughters gladly supported the male siblings.

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Jiyoung became different people from time to time. Some of them were living, others were dead, all of them women
she knew. No matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t a joke or a prank. Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.

While offenders were in fear of losing a small part of their privilege, the victims were running the risk of losing everything.

People who pop a painkiller at the smallest hint of a migraine, or who need anaesthetic cream to remove a mole, demand that women giving birth should gladly endure the pain, exhaustion, and mortal fear. As if that’s maternal love. This idea of “maternal love” is spreading like religious dogma. Accept Maternal Love as your Lord and Savior, for the Kingdom is near!

“Help out? What is it with you and ‘helping out?’ You’re going to ‘help out’ with chores. ‘Help out’ with raising our baby. ‘Help out’ with finding me a new job. Isn’t this your house, too? Your home? Your child? And if I work, don’t you spend my pay, too? Why do you keep saying ‘help out’ like you’re volunteering to pitch in on someone else’s work?”

At that, a frail bit of hope inside Jiyoung crumpled. In a few years, that precious daughter of yours will find herself exactly where I am now. Unless people like you stop treating me this way.

Her boss grumbled, “This is why we don’t hire women.” She replied, “Women don’t stay because you make it impossible for us to stay.”

Even the usually reasonable, sane ones verbally degrade women—even the women they have feelings for. That’s what I am: gum someone spat out.