Superwoman Schema: Overworking at Home and the Workplace

In 2017, a Korean woman died at work on a Sunday morning, leaving three young children. Her death from overwork fueled a heated debate in Korea, resulting in the proposal of an Anti-Superwoman Bill by a candidate in the 2017 presidential election, Shim Sang-jung. In an interview, Sang-jung argued that the “[superwoman ideology] misrepresents the tasks that society must address together, glorifying them as [something endurable through the] superhuman ability of individual women.”
 
In this Superwoman Schema project, I argue that due to excessive demands at work and at home, employed Korean mothers are faced with an unrealistic role expectation to do everything well. I first use 100 in-depth interviews with married mothers of young children to illustrate the process through which women internalize and develop a superwoman ideal at the micro level. Secondly, I develop a theory of superwoman schema that speaks to cultural sociology and to the literature on motherhood. Lastly, I discuss how my conceptual framework can be applied to groups and societies outside Korea.