The Korean Women Journalists Association said on the 5th that it held the "3rd Korea-Japan Women Journalists Forum" at 10 a.m. that day at the Korea Press Center. With the theme "Gender diversity in the public sector, corporations and media in Korea and Japan," the forum was attended by more than 100 female journalists and experts from both countries, including Lee Hye-hoon, executive representative of Korean Women's Assembly; Kim Hyo-jae, chairman of the Korea Press Foundation (KPF); Kim Byung-min, Seoul deputy mayor for political affairs; and Kawase Kazuhiro, director of the Public Relations and Cultural Center at the Embassy of Japan in Korea.
The first session focused on the public sector, including politics. The Korean presenter pointed out that although the proportion of women lawmakers exceeded 20% for the first time in history in the 2024 22nd general election, it is still 13.7 percentage points lower than the OECD average (34%). Ma Kyung-hee, senior research fellow at the Korea Women's Development Institute (KWDI), said the causes are "sexist stereotypes, a male-centered political culture and passively designed systems," and noted that "institutional improvements such as mandatory nomination of 30% constituency candidates and measures to expand women's substantive representation are needed."
Miyamoto Haruyo, editor-in-chief of Japan's TBS program news23, described structural barriers such as sexual harassment faced by Japanese female politicians. In the discussion, Kim Kyung-sun, distinguished professor at Korea University of Technology and Education and former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, proposed "identifying objective indicators that demonstrate the benefits of strengthening women's representation," and Ogawa Misa, deputy head of the social affairs department at Kyodo News, stressed that "visualizing regional levels of gender equality, like Japan's 'prefectural gender gap index,' is important."
Yoon Jeong-a, deputy chief of the political department at Munhwa Ilbo, said, "We need to change the reality institutionally where female leaders are not recognized by their peers as 'bosses' and are ostracized as being 'too assertive' when they try to build influence."
The second session on gender diversity within corporations presented concrete data. Yoon Hun-sang, executive director at Samjong KPMG, who spoke, released data showing that although Korean women have long outpaced men in college graduation rates, indicators such as gender employment rates and wages lag far behind the OECD average. He introduced cases such as Lotte Group, which secured a share of women on its boards and runs various family-friendly policies, and Unilever, which raised the proportion of female managers to more than half.
Seki Yuko, deputy group editor for Nikkei Asia, reported on a new change blowing through Japan's business world. She cited cases such as Canon, where many institutional investors with voting rights voted against the reappointment of the chairman because the company had no female directors, and Itochu Corporation, which unusually raised its proportion of female executives within a year.
In the following discussion, Kim Hye-ju, CEO of Lotte Members, who rose to lead a corporation after 32 years in the workforce, pointed out the severity of Korea's glass ceiling index, which has been at the bottom for years, and proposed "visualizing the current situation through indicators to reform systems and improve perceptions."
The final session moved to the media field. Kim Su-a, associate professor in the Department of Communication and Information at Seoul National University, said that as of 2023 women made up only 16.8% of news sources, showing an overwhelming difference from men (78.5%), and added, "The reporting community needs to diversify sources and compete in in-depth reporting rather than breaking-news competition." She also emphasized that "although the proportion of female journalists in Korea is increasing, structural reforms are important so that job segregation does not hinder female journalists' ability to demonstrate their capabilities."
Azusa Mishima, metropolitan news center chief at The Asahi Shimbun, introduced her paper's case of setting and regularly publishing goals for the gender ratio in articles and the appointment of female managers based on a "gender equality declaration," and substantially revising an in-house gender guidebook. She said, "Through these efforts, voices like 'How does this expression look from a gender perspective?' are now heard routinely in the newsroom."
In the discussion, Yoon Soo-hee, head of content production at KBS Media, shared the Korea Women Journalists Association's efforts to find female sources, such as the 'Forum S' initiative, and Sanae Okamoto, deputy chief of the reporting department at Kyodo News, stressed that "increasing the internal proportion of women in media is essential to raise the proportion of female sources." Lee Woong-bi, editor at BBC Korea, explained in detail the BBC's "50:50 project," which centers on "increasing the proportion of female contributors" and "developing internal female leadership."