What do South Korean women really want?

"In terms of the urban environment, there is still a lack of respect and consideration for women," says Park Hyun-kyung, president of the Seoul Foundation of Women and Family. "Women have always been at the forefront and center of urban collaboration, but society has failed to consider them accordingly."

Consider the restroom, long a sore point for women around the world. Seoul's guidelines: "Provide enough numbers and area for practical use of toilet and improve inconvenience to wait longer than necessary," begins the official English translation. "Avoid odd situations to face each other in front of the bathroom between different gender by placing the entrance in different direction."

Then it's on to "women-friendly parking area," with plans, among other things, for "women-privileged parking lot [with reserved spots for women], "security and alarm system," "comfortable underground parking area" – and, of course, "women-friendly restroom in parking lots."

Women complain, however, that the "women-friendly" program exists largely in the imagination of city planners – and in showcase parks and neighborhoods. Somewhat defensively, city officials plead for more time to carry out reforms.

Regardless of superficial changes, for Korean women who have grown up overseas, immersion in the culture and society of their parents and grandparents can be a shock.

"When I got here, certain parts of life here were not so friendly," says Linda Behk, raised and educated through college and graduate school in New York. The problem, she says, goes far beyond the reach of elaborate "solutions" from Seoul City Hall.

"People are more self-conscious about how people see them," she says. "And there is some bias in work. There are certain age limits. Some places feel a little down on women, and women feel self-conscious about them."

Younger generations have changed

For all such sensitivities, however, attitudes are shifting.

"In my generation, women were always intimidated by aggressive men," says Won Hyeon-suk, showing a group of foreign women around the Kyongbuk Palace complex on a tour that emphasizes the historic role of women. "Now, my son says he's intimidated by aggressive females."

As evidence of the change, she notes that 36 percent of those who passed the rigorous Korean bar examination this year were women in comparison with less than 1 percent when she was in college 30 years ago.

She spends extra time on the tour visiting the palace of a king whose wife, Queen Min, died tragically in a vicious 19th-century power struggle. Suspecting her of plotting with Russians, Japanese assassins murdered her in one of the royal palaces in 1895 – a precursor to Japanese defeat of the Russians and takeover of the country a decade later.

At City Hall, Cho Eun-hee, assistant mayor responsible for women and family policy, is confident that "Korean men are changing." President Lee Myung-bak, a former mayor, "gives more meaning to the empowerment of women," she says. "Old men cannot change their minds, but men under 60 have changed already. Korea is changing rapidly."

The goal is "to make Seoul the happiest place in the world," says Lee Jong-suk, former president of Sookmyung Women's University, another major women's institution here. "If women do not feel happy in the city, the city is not viable."

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