Culture : South Korean Women Stride Toward Equality : In the last few years, the nation’s staunchly conservative Confucian society has begun to bend to the demands of a modern world.

Just five years ago, a South Korean woman struggling against a determined rapist bit off part of her assailant’s tongue. She was convicted of assault for using “excessive force.”

Back then, a Korean widow was not entitled to her husband’s estate. Under family law, it went to the eldest son because only men could be heads of households.

South Korea is arguably the most Confucian of all Asian nations, where “men are heaven; women are earth.” Traditional teachings admonish women to obey their fathers, husbands and sons throughout life.

So when a Seoul National University professor repeatedly embraced his office assistant and fired her when she resisted, the woman did not think to complain. It took Choi Eun Soon, a young attorney representing the new breed of South Korean women, to view it as something that had never before been brought before the courts here: sexual harassment.

And in an April decision that stunned the nation, a Seoul judge ruled against the professor.

Judge Park Chang Wu awarded Choi’s 26-year-old client, identified only as Wu, $34,000 in compensation, a remarkable judgment.

The decision has provoked furious debate--as well as angry phone calls to Choi and Park--over an offense most Koreans regard as “common practice.”

Surveys show nearly 90% of Korean women say they have been sexually harassed, compared to about one-third of American women.

“It is a historic moment for Korean women,” Choi said. “Before, women thought that as long as they didn’t lose their chastity over the harassment, it was OK. But now they consider it a violation of their human dignity, and that’s a big change.”

Choi and other women here avidly followed sexual harassment cases in the United States and Japan.

“When even President Clinton has problems,” Seoul professor Kim Ok Ryol said with a laugh, “it raises the awareness of sexual harassment here.”

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Korean men also seem to be taking the ruling seriously--from trepidation if nothing else.

“The ruling has helped create a new phrase on everybody’s lips: ‘Be careful, gentlemen. Do you have ($34,000)?’ ” said Park Moo Jong, a journalist who recently wrote a piece headlined “Male-Oriented Culture Disintegrating.”

Park’s prognosis may be premature. But in the last few years, even this staunchly conservative Confucian society has begun to bend to the demands of a modern world.

Women are building the legal foundation with laws in such significant areas as family inheritance, a battleground for nearly 40 years.

In 1990, women became eligible to become household heads and win a share of inheritances based on how much they contributed to caring for parents and building the family’s assets.

This April, a new national law on sexual violence was enacted that toughens provisions on rape and incest and criminalizes obscene phone calls and fondling in crowded places. The law also provides funding for a sexual violence counseling center.

The successful drive for the law was fueled in part by embarrassing Interpol statistics showing South Korea had one of the highest rape rates in the world, said Noh Joo Hi of the Sexual Violence Counseling Center. In addition, South Korea’s newly democratic politics, which succeeded three decades of military authoritarianism, suddenly made the women’s vote count.

In the working world, Korean women are following the pattern of advanced nations by increasing their education levels, delaying marriage and taking white-collar jobs instead of traditional farm work.

Across the board, they are beginning to successfully challenge discrimination in job recruitment, duties and promotion.

An equal employment law was adopted several years ago but had little enforcement teeth.

But in recent years, women have persuaded courts to strike down requirements not germane to the job, such as having a military record, or such rules as mandatory retirement at age 35 for female telephone operators. A six-year struggle recently resulted in the abolition of a banking code that restricted women to low-paying teller and clerical jobs.

The pay gap between women and men, long the widest among all nations surveyed by the International Labor Organization, is slowly closing--the women’s share grew from 52.7% of men’s wages in 1991 to 57% in 1993, according to Kim, a women’s studies professor at Sookmyung Women’s University. College graduates earned 73% the level of their male counterparts.

“Now we have the legal basis on which to fight, and women are beginning to awaken to pursue their own rights,” said Park Young Sook, a longtime women’s activist and former Democratic Party legislator.

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The changing social environment is also felling entrenched taboos, such as public debate on the prevalent practice of wife-beating. Spousal abuse was long ignored as a private family matter--a traditional Korean saying advises men to beat their wives like dried fish to soften them.

Now, the problem is dissected on talk shows, publicized in photo exhibits and protested at rallies.

New images of Korean women are turning up on television and in textbooks. The single and savvy designer in the popular drama “Missing You” offers an alternative role model to the “good wife, wise mother” image that has dominated the media, women activists say.

“In the past, all melodramas were love themes with domineering men and crying women,” said Kim, a Sookmyung women’s studies professor. “Textbooks depicted men as courageous leaders and women as obedient followers.”

Kim Ae Young and Chung Seung Eun reflect the changing mentality of Korean women. Young is a 21-year-old political science student who grew up serving meals to her brothers and father. Throughout her life, she was told: “If you don’t marry, you will be regarded as a defective product.”

But, explaining her goals as she sold red peppers on campus to support the nation’s farmers, the feisty senior said she intends to pursue not a mate but a journalism career.

“I don’t think marriage is a must, and more and more girls are thinking my way,” she said. “I want to make journalism a lifetime job.”

Chung, a 33-year-old hotel employee, has also seen her own attitudes change over time.

Ten years ago, she said, she assumed she would quit her job when she married. Not any more.

“If I just stayed at home, I feel I would go backward,” she explained. “Self-accomplishment and financial independence are most important to me.”

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While the workplace is the most powerful shaper of new attitudes among women, giving them a taste for independence and self-fulfillment, it is still far from equitable, women here say.

When Chung, for instance, was hired by an airline for her first job, she was paid $40 a month less than her male counterparts. It took her five years to become eligible for a promotion, compared to three years for men. And some jobs were off-limits to women. They could not become pilots, for instance.

She faces no discrimination in her current job--one reason she loves it, Chung said.

Namju Cho, a journalist, said she was struck by the paucity of powerful female role models in South Korea after dealing with women Cabinet members, politicians and news editors while living in Venezuela and the United States. “I could really see how far behind Korea was,” she said.

Park, the former legislator, said women are the furthest behind in the political arena. Although President Kim Young Sam appointed three women Cabinet members--now down to two--only three of 299 National Assembly members are women. In the 1991 local elections, 40 women won--a success rate of 0.9%.

Women used to do better, but their performance worsened after South Korea shifted from multi-seat districts, where several candidates are elected, to single-seat districts. Lacking a political base and the ability to raise money, the women invariably run second.

The Democratic Party recently pledged to run a slate of 20% women candidates for its multi-seat districts, a move that could improve their showing.

“We still have a long way to go,” Park said. “But under the social atmosphere now, no man can discriminate against women and get away with it. They should be prepared for retaliation.”