Medals To Mindset: Notes On Re-Reading Korean Bestseller Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Two things happened recently: The Paris Olympics concluded after much adrenaline-pumping action and for the first time in my life - I read a book in one day. Seemingly two completely unrelated events. But there’s a catch. Obviously!  

Before I elaborate, the play-it-safe disclaimer: There is no judgement here, no generalizations, no airy philosophizing and certainly no feminist overthinking. 

A few thoughts simply resonated and here’s laying them bare for the readers, particularly millennials, more particularly she/her millennials, to vibe with. 

On the one hand, is the extraordinary story of Olympic achievers - Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez and Azerbaijani archer Yaylagul Ramazanova AND on the other, the all too familiar shape-shifting saga of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. 

Reporting on the sporting feat, one popular newspaper wrote about the “remarkable display of determination and athleticism” by the Olympians, “that captured the attention and admiration of the world” for achieving significant milestones. Doctors hailed it as dispelling the myth that pregnant women athletes can’t exercise at a high level if conditions are good and there aren’t any complications. Awesome!

Then there’s Kim Jiyoung! 

• A girl born to a mother whose in-laws wanted a boy

• A sister made to share a room while her brother gets one of his own

• A daughter whose father blames her when she is harassed late at night (very pertinent in the current scenario!)

• A model employee who gets overlooked for promotion

• A wife who gives up her career and independence for a life of domesticity

Depressed, mad, Kim Jiyoung “is every woman.” 

Yet, her daily “display of determination” goes totally unnoticed making no headlines in a world seeped in endemic misogyny, a world where STILL, “checking the sex of the foetus and aborting females is common practise, as if daughter was a medical problem.” 

International agencies regularly decry the continuing cases of illegal female foeticide and unsafe induced abortions of the unborn female child that is leading to a dangerously skewed sex ratio. Moving on, the sad story of the gender pay gap is a blatantly open book.

The parallels that need to be drawn here without in any way belittling any hard work and achievement is the comparison factor. The generalisations. The ‘new, convenient’ stereotype may suddenly emerge, especially when setting “goals of womanhood.” The ever-increasing “expectations” from she/her to kind of “make up for the fact that the identification is she/her.” As is that’s the price you pay for wearing your crown queen! 

Why should that be so???

If we, as a society can hail a Nada Hafez and a Yaylagul Ramazanova, why can’t we also hail every Kim Jiyoung? 

How is her struggle any less? 

How is her achievement anything short of extraordinary?

How is her constant battle against all odds - inequities, oppression, sexual discrimination and harassment not a high-pitch talking point? 

More important than anything else: why do these seemingly unrelated topics have the subliminal potential of pitting one she/her against the other she/her instead of collectively celebrating the very individual, very unique accomplishments of the shes/hers on every side of the spectrum.

Instead of ever triggering any debate whatsoever with the innocuously ‘gaslit” phrase “if she can do it you can too” casually thrust upon women in the name of ‘encouragement’ why can’t we move towards an environment that respects individuality, diversity and simply the fact that each one of us, especially women, are on their own “unique” journey in life at a pace and at a stage that simply needs your “understanding and empathy” that’s all not any of that free, unsolicited off the cuff sermonizing. 

For extra punch, saying it again: No judgement. No comparison. No pravachans. No stereotyping and… No hyper expectations. 

Remember if the sportswoman was admirably throwing her “body around fearlessly and going for the gold” if she was making an informed choice in her life, if she was on a physically taxing and deeply emotional journey, so is Kim Jiyoung – whose “tenth-grade homeroom teacher was a man in his fifties, who carried around a pointer that … he used to poke girls in the breasts.” Acknowledged or not. Making page 1 news or not. Garnering social media spotlight or not. Put up on a podium and felicitated or not!

Extremely interestingly, this realization has to first dawn in every she/her before anyone else. Yup, the awareness that YOU – girl are worthy, valued, strong, immensely validated and capable of anything you put your mind to MUST first resonate in the self, only to radiate into your surroundings and then bounce back million-fold on to you in all its golden glory, cheered on by the tribe you attract that has your back and roots for you – always –she/her, they/them, he/him!  

By doing all of this, can we turn the broken protagonist Kim Jiyoung’s justifiably “roiling rage” into a story of reclaiming power, occupying our space, demanding respect and for once revelling in womanhood, rather than fighting all sorts of limiting beliefs that have come to define the ‘generational curse of femaleness.’

Can we, in our own special way, be extraordinary!  

Still confused?

Let’s hear it then from activist Jody Williams:

What separated an ordinary woman from an extraordinary one? The belief that she is ordinary!

Read that again gurl! 

Views expressed by the author are their own.