The Island of Sea Women

The female divers of Jeju Island represent a cultural anomaly. They are assertive, strong women who follow shamanic goddess-centered religious practices, yet they live in a culture dominated by men. Korea is traditionally patriarchal, but the haenyeo have found a way to maintain their independence from male rule. In their communities, the men do the cooking and raise the children. Jeju’s geographic isolation as an island is part of the reason that they are so successful in resisting outside influences.

At the same time that the haenyeo maintain their lifestyle, they have also made a strange sort of accommodation to the patriarchal norms of the country as a whole. For example, only men are allowed to conduct ancestor worship rituals. This is the sole reason that any haenyeo would rejoice at the birth of a son, since daughters are far more valuable as future sources of family income.

Although the haenyeo have managed to create a matrifocal, and to some extent, matriarchal social order on Jeju Island, outside forces begin to exert a pressure that may render the female divers and their way of life extinct. While the haenyeo continue to support shamanistic religion, they must do so in secret. The combined influences of Confucianism and Christianity throughout Korea make it dangerous to worship goddesses. After the end of World War II, the government intrudes into the practices of the diving collectives. It creates Village Fishery Associations that tell the women where they can dive and for how long. Worse still, the head of this association is always a male.

As tourism becomes a bigger source of income for the island, many young women are lured away to start businesses supporting the tourist trade. In addition, better educational opportunities on the mainland draw other prospective haenyeo into lucrative professions. See uses Young-sook and Joon-lee to illustrate these changing conditions. Rather than follow in her mother’s footsteps as a diver, Joon-lee chooses to leave Jeju and follow an academic path by attending university in Seoul. The reader sees how diving practices change from the time Young-sook is a baby diver until she becomes the head of a collective. An interviewer asks Young-sook, “The government labels the haenyeo a cultural heritage treasure—something dying out that must be preserved, if only in memory. How does it feel to be the last of the last?” (4). She never answers the question.