Celebrating International Women's Day 2023

Last March, I was invited to the International Women's Day 2023 event organized by UN Women Centre for Excellence for Gender Equality in Seoul, Korea.  It was a great honour to meet and listen to H. E. Mr. Oh Joon, Dr. Yuh Soon Yun, Ms. Jie-ae Son, and Dr. Soonmin Bae. Prof. Il-hwan Bai and his all-cello students played the anthem of Ukraine, which moved everyone deeply. Thank you, Dr. Jeongshim Lee and Ms. A-Jung Lee for organizing such an empowering event.

 

Below is the script for a 10min talk I delivered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGCnrgiOCeM

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Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honour to be invited to this International Women’s Day 2023 event.

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When the organizers first contacted me, I told them a bit about my life as a computer science engineer in Korea and they said I should talk about it in this event.

Most of you are familiar with some numbers about women in STEM areas in Korea, in your country, and in the world.

And also that Korea has been scoring solidly at the very bottom in the Economist’s Glass Ceiling Index since 2016.

Yet things are moving in the right direction, If not fast enough to our satisfaction.

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In 1984 when I entered the college of engineering at Seoul Nat’l University fresh out of girls’ high school, there were only 31 girls out of 1,033.

The college of engineering had only 1 woman professor then, and she retired as the solo woman faculty (1973-1998).

Only in the 21st century, the college had hired multiple women.

I didn’t know that the 3% ratio at the time of college entrance would stay for the rest of my life.

I somehow imagined that once I got out of school, women would spring up around me and I would work in a gender- balanced setting as in the elementary school.

I must have hallucinated. The reality was very different.

Women in those days could not even apply to big firms, got less pay even if hired, and were challenged at every opportunity for promotion.

This was the story of me and my friends.

Systemic discrimination was endemic.

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When I came back to Korea in 2003, after a PhD and a few years of research lab experience in the US, the situation has improved a bit.

The number of women in undergrad STEM programs has increased significantly into double digits and

the ratio of PhDs produced above 10% in many fields.

Not only in the student body, but there was a big bump in the number of female

faculty in the early 2000s at the national universities.

A small group of professors lobbied rigorously and secured 200 positions for women in national universities.

Can you believe that SNU Law School had its first woman faculty only in 2003, 1 out of the newly secured 200 head counts.

Although I am the first full professor as a woman in the college of engineering at KAIST, we already boast 25% women among our new hires.

45% of PhDs from the college of life science are women, and we plan to match that ratio in

the faculty in the next few years.

The government has started monitoring this gap between the PhDs produced and new hires.

It’s a great policy-based enforcement tactic.

This gap monitoring and reduction policy applies to all national universities.

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This change could have been possible only with the vision and tenacity of 1st generation women engineers and scientists. So few in numbers, but yet so forceful.

Founded in 1997, KWSE was the first organization of women in STEM areas and has been the breeding ground for leaders.

Last year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of ACT ON FOSTERING AND SUPPORTING WOMEN SCIENTISTS AND TECHNICIANS.

Thanks to this legislation, organizations such as KOFWST (Korea Federation of Women’s Science and Technology) 여성과총, WiTeck (Women in Science, Engineering and Technology in Korea) 여성공학기술인 협회, and WiSET (Korea Foundation for Women in Science, Engineering, and Technology) 위셋

have been founded and nurture next generation leaders.

With ambitious and powerful role models in college, students will envision a different life from my classmates 40 years ago.

Certain areas in STEM, like pharmacy, dentistry, medicine, life science, et cetera, already have above 30% women in undergrads.

But physics and math about 5% and engineering under 20%.

We have to keep expanding the pipeline.

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Digital technology has changed modern life and empowered young generation with easy access to information and knowledge like never before.

As one of the most wired countries in the world, Korea is leading the digital transformation in k-culture, e-government, banking, manufacturing and many

other fields.

Yet digital divide among the elderly people is a serious social problem.

Considering the long history of unequal access to education and career

opportunities,

We should pay close attention to gender biases in the digital divide.

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Among the metrics included in the Economist’s Glass Ceiling Index, the GMAT score, paid leaves for mothers and that for fathers are improving fast.

The percentage of female GMAT takers jumped by 10% in 2022 alone.

A very very encouraging sign.

No causality study I am aware of but I would like to point at one contributing factor.

In 2020 Capital Markets Act was modified to enforce diversity on the board of directors in large corporations.

The ratio of women in the boardrooms of big companies and in managerial positions has jumped by 8% since 2020.

Let’s push that the ratio continue to rise and one day we will see many more in CEO positions.

 

Thank you very much.