Read a Girl #24: "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982", Cho Nam-Joo

I’d like to start this newsletter asking you a question: how do you think your gender influenced your upbringing? Did you get any special treatment by being born a boy or a girl? Were you treated differently from your siblings and cousins because of your gender? And what were the consequences of this in your life?

This discussion is at the centre of “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982”, by South Korean author Cho Nam-Joo, and it spoke volumes to me. Even though I have no siblings, I do have a lot of cousins, most of them male, who were privileged from a young age by the sole factor of their gender. They never had to help at home, with all house chores being trusted upon their sisters and female cousins. They could go out and stay as late as they pleased, they could bring their girlfriends home for “sleepovers”, and could get away with pretty much everything, always sheltered by their mothers, aunts and grandmas. While boys had all this freedom, we girls had to “preserve” ourselves from all the things they were praised for doing with other people’s daughters.

South Korea and Brazil might be thousands of miles apart, but Cho’s account of gender inequality and growing up in a sexist society was very relatable to mine and hundreds of stories I’ve heard from women everywhere. If the level of maturity that’s expected from women is impossible to bear when you’re already an adult, it’s just cruel to expect girls young as 10 to “know better”.

And this is only one issue brought to light in this book, as we accompany Kim Jiyoung from childhood, through adolescence, until early adulthood. The feeling of guilt that comes when a man harasses you in public and you’re blamed for it because of the clothes you were wearing is too real. As it is the feeling of powerlessness when confronting bosses who are abusive and will never acknowledge your true worth because you are a woman.

Yeah. This novel. If you read one book this year, let it be this one.

My first book, “a spectacularly sad ending”, is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, loss and survival. It chronicles experiences of love, loss, abuse and grief, and is for anyone who is or ever had to mend a broken heart. It's available as a paperback and also on Kindle. You can get it here.

🎵 This newsletter was written to the sounds of “Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space”, by Spiritualized.

We have a playlist with all of the music featured on our newsletters. You can listen to it on Spotify.

My name is Renata and I am the Founder and Editor of Read a Girl, a platform aimed at promoting the work of women writers. My background is in journalism and I spent most of my career covering foreign affairs and travelling around looking for good stories to tell. Reading is a very big passion of mine and my favourite authors are Elena Ferrante, J.D. Salinger, Julian Barnes and Sylvia Plath.

You can learn more about me here and on my website.

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