Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang
This book is credited with helping start South Korea’s 4B movement, which is a feminist movement that involves women saying no to heterosexual dating, sex, marriage, and childbirth (in Korean, all these words start with a B sound, hence “4B”). The movement fights back against the heavy pressures—that garner little rewards—South Korean society places on its female population, and has gained a lot of support.
Reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, we see how Korean women arrived at the 4B movement. It follows Kim Jiyoung, a 30-something-year-old Korean woman who lives on the edge of Seoul. Once Kim leaves her job to care for her newborn, something strange happens. She starts impersonating the voices of other women—some alive, some dead—and her husband has her go to a male psychiatrist. Turns out, this psychiatrist is the most recent in a long string of men who have been dictating and guiding Kim’s life. From the time she’s born, she lives a life that so many girls-turned-women live in South Korea: she’s given the most common name for girls in the country, is less wanted compared to her younger brother, policed by male teachers as a girl, blamed for the sexual misconduct men have committed against her, and now has had to quit her job to dedicate herself to her child (something her husband has not had to do). What’s more, she’s having all these experiences while Korea is seemingly passing laws and policies against gender discrimination. It’s easy to see how this book galvanized a movement.