An important international conference will take place this week in South Korea, focused on the peninsula’s security concerns. The UK will not be participating. The reason? A lack of female ‘representation’, apparently. It seems that all the 18 of the initially invited speakers to the Global Korea Forum were men, though since the UK pullout three more speakers have been included, one of whom is female.
A spokesperson from the British Embassy told the Korea Times that ‘the ambassador (Colin Crooks) is unable to take part in the Global Korea Forum next week. The British Embassy is committed to gender equality. We believe that events are enriched by the diversity of perspectives of those participating.’
The Global Korea Forum has been held, under the auspices of South Korea’s Ministry of Unification, since 2010. This year’s iteration has the theme ‘Unified Korean Peninsula for Freedom, Peace and Prosperity’. It’s a high-profile event, with a premium location, a budget of half a million dollars, and some distinguished speakers (Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is attending this year). It has added relevance, given the recent launch by the South Korean government (under President Yoon Suk Yeol) of a new unification policy.
This isn’t the first time that all-male panels (‘manels’) have sparked controversy in South Korea, but the UK government snub, likely to be taken as an insult in an etiquette-based culture, marks an escalation. The implication is either that the organisers (effectively the South Korean government) are prejudiced, and/or that they should be looking for gender balanced, rather than wholly merit based panels, and have failed to do so.
The UK’s response could be a reaction to a build-up of criticism over the last few days from South and North Korean academics and journalists. In response to the announcement of the Global Forum line-up for example Michelle Lee, the Seoul Bureau Chief for the Washington Post, wrote: ‘Surely they could have found ONE female expert who’s available to go to the Lotte Hotel on September 3’. Ji Hyun Park, a North Korean escapee and senior fellow at the Centre for Asia Pacific Strategy, posted on LinkedIn that she felt ‘gender equality is not being considered at all in the unification dialogue’.
This may be unfair. The organisers of the event have hit back at the accusations by saying that ‘many female experts informed us of their inability to attend… due to attendance at academic conferences, teaching commitments and personal circumstances’, suggesting that effort was made to enlist female academics but in vain. Assuming this is true, it is hard to see what more could have been done to satisfy the equity zealots, short of cancelling the forum altogether. And in response to the row, the Unification Ministry has pledged to do more to find speakers in future events.
It is certainly true that South Korea has traditionally been and to a great extent remains a male dominated society. But it is equally undeniable that strenuous efforts have been made to increase the number of women in top positions in recent years. So strenuous in fact that it even provoked a male backlash, with young men forming groups to campaign against what they saw as feminist overreach.
Despite its reputation as a patriarchy, men in South Korea are subject to various disadvantages, most notably the requirement to complete up to two years of military service (women are exempt). This puts young men at a significant disadvantage in their careers when they leave the armed forces and find their female colleagues several years ahead (the British Embassy in Seoul’s views on the lack of female representation in the conscripted ranks is unknown).
Former president Moon Jae-in ran a self-declared ‘feminist’ administration. The initiatives of the Gender Equality Ministry included incentives to businesses to promote a gender balance on their boards, loans for female entrepreneurs, and a 30 per cent female quota for cabinet posts. Given this focus, which has not been significantly relaxed under the supposedly conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, if a government forum ended up with an all-male panel it is far more likely to have been by accident (as the organizers claim), than by design.
Is this a first taste of Sir Keir Starmer’s (or David Lammy’s) idea of progressive diplomacy? If so, it is hard to see what good will come of it. This swipe at an important ally feels like the opposite of diplomacy, a pointless signalling of supposed virtue that will only damage relations while not advancing the cause of women in society one inch. It sets a troubling precedent.
It also leaves the Foreign Office open to charges of hypocrisy. It is notable that while South Korea had a female ambassador to the UK as recently as 2021, the UK has never had a female ambassador in Seoul, or the equivalents posts of charge d’affaires, envoy extraordinaire, Consul General or Minister to Korea, in the 140 years of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Perhaps the South Koreans should boycott British embassy functions until this inequality is rectified.
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