This paper aims to unfold the contending discourses of the political representation by the first elected female president in South Korea, Park Geun-hye, focusing on the significance of her gendered symbolic representation. The catchphrase of her election campaign, “Prepared Female President”, was founded on the discourse of women’s political empowerment and vastly supported by those women in the generation who played a great role in rebuilding the nation-state, particularly through Saemaul Undong in the modernization process. (It has been argued that the strong support of women in their 50’s and 60’s enabled her to win the election.) While their support for Park Geun-hye can be seen as the struggle for recognition of their contribution to the national development as well as their sacrifice to play their gender roles, the rhetoric of gender equality they use has been embedded in the existing power structure and political system. In contrast, most feminists have denied Park Geun-hye’s political subjectivity, positioning her presidency merely as the strongman’s daughter, and therefore neglecting the significance of the symbolic representation embodied by her presidency. In this paper, lights will be shed on the contested meanings over women’s presence in the political cleavage, particularly in the nation-states undergoing democratization. And it will argue that the lack of understanding of the significance of gendered symbolic representation by female politicians tends to reinforce feminist taboo in the political arena, not to engage in such women’s presence, and so is likely to increase the cost for women to pay for political representation.
