Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 Student Conference Program

Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID)

8:00 to 8:30 AM: DROP-OFF

• Arrive and check in at Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID)
• Students presenting at poster sessions set up at WID, then go to Union South
• Students presenting at the plenary session, proceed directly to Union South
• Breakfast available in Union South in front of Varsity Hall

Union South (Varsity Hall, Second Floor)

8:45 to 9:00 AM: WELCOME | Danielle Weindling, Assistant Director, UW-Madison Center for the Humanities

9:00 to 10:15 AM: PLENARY SESSION

10:15 to 10:30 AM: BREAK

• Please stay in the near vicinity of Varsity Hall
• Student ambassadors should meet at the stage immediately following the plenary session

10:30 to 11:15 AM: KEYNOTE | Cho Nam-joo, Author of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

11:15 AM to 12:00 PM: LUNCH

• You may eat in Varsity Hall or one of the four designated break-out rooms on the third floor: Agriculture, Industry, Landmark, or Northwoods.
• Sort your lunch trash, recycling, and compost near the welcome desk outside Varsity Hall. Volunteers from UW-Madison’s Office of Sustainability Green Events Team will be on hand to assist you.
• Students who ordered lunches with dietary restrictions will find their lunches listed with their name, school, and dietary restriction on a separate table.

12:00 to 12:15 PM: PASSING PERIOD

Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID)

12:15 to 1:00 PM: POSTER SESSION 1

• Group 1 schools: Present your projects
• Group 2 schools: Tour project sessions

1:00 to 1:45 PM: POSTER SESSION 2

• Group 2 schools: Present your projects
• Group 1 schools: Tour project sessions

1:45 to 2:00 PM: PROJECT PRIZES

• For those of you disposing your project before leaving for home, volunteers from UW-Madison will be on hand to assist you to sort and recycle your project materials.

Union South

Varsity Hall is located on the second floor of Union South. Bathrooms are located on all floors of the facility and you may find the gender-neutral bathroom on the third floor by the elevators. Please eat lunch in Varsity Hall or one of the four break-out rooms on the third floor. Please bring all your rubbish to the station by the welcome table on the second floor outside Varsity Hall to sort into trash, recycling, and composting.

Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery

The announcement of prizes at the end of the conference will take place in the digital projects area (DeLuca Forum). If you are disposing of your project before leaving the conference, please see the UW-Madison volunteers on your way to the pickup area to sort your cardboard and recycling.

COVID-19: We encourage all conference attendees to practice healthy habits to protect against the spread of COVID-19 and other illness: wash hands thoroughly with soap throughout the conference, use hand sanitizer, and wear a mask in crowded spaces. Hand sanitizer is available throughout the conference. For the most updated information from UW-Madison on COVID-19, please visit this dedicated resource from University Health Services (UHS).

Additional resources:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Wisconsin Department of Health
Public Health Madison Dane County

Personal belongings: The Center for the Humanities is not responsible for the care or maintenance of any personal belongings of participating students, teachers, volunteers, or other attendees. Please remember that both Union South and the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery are campus facilities that are open to the public.

Aquinas High School, Timothy Barrett
Bay Port High School, Allie Mommaerts
Étude High School, Oliver Schaetzer and Corbin Ross
Lake Mills High School,  Cezar Platon, Chet Klawitter, Max Kressner, Clovis Cormier-Tardif
Milwaukee High School of the Arts, Belle Marks
Milwaukee School of Languages, Andrew Domena, Martir Slade, and Bodie Weeks
Necedah High School, Ava Kiesling, Hannah Hunkins, & Liza Kovalev
New Horizons for Learning Charter School, Penelope Butler
Oconomowoc High School, Sam LePage
Oshkosh West High School, Isaac Considine-Buelow
Osseo-Fairchild High School, Lydia Popple
Rock University High School, Marelly Romero Martinez
School of Options and Applied Research (SOAR), Benjamin Letsinger
Sun Prairie West High School, Jojo Knauss, Asha Sundaram, and Katy Garcia
Wautoma High School, Valeria Barcenas
Whitehall Memorial High School, Cira Davis, Macenzie Smith, and Summer Wooden
Whitnall High School, Mila Petricevic
Wisconsin Connections Academy, Victoria Gillett

Aquinas High School, Brody Sherrill
Chippewa Falls High School, Brett Schaefer
Whitnall High School, Sarah Freek
Bay Port High School, Jade Allen
Milwaukee School of Languages, Savannah Wheeler
Sun Prairie West High School, Jasper Muniz
New Horizons for Learning Charter School, Penelope Butler
Oshkosh West High School, Uzma Mizra
School of Options and Applied Research (SOAR), Mason Brewer
Osseo-Fairchild High School, Mackenzie Scheller

Timothy Barrett
crowd
Linoleum Print
Faceless expressions in a crowd are meant to portray the loss of identity found in the book. To convey loneliness, no one is conversing with each other. There is no emphasis on one person to suggest that Kim Jiyoung is just one of many people with this experience.

Rachel Gagermeier
Am I Who I Am
Poetry
My poem looks at identity and the struggles of living as a human person. Using Kim Jiyoung’s experience of imitating women around her, I explored aspects of the struggle for someone to be themselves, and the desire to copy someone who appears more easily successful. The poem falls into a rhyme scheme at certain points to reflect the way Kim Jiyoung fell into the imitation of other people when the stress on her life became too much to handle.

Grace Levere
Genetic Liberty
Poem
One of the major themes in the novel is that women are trapped in a singular identity and expected by society to follow the path of motherhood and domestic entrapment. I wanted to find the origin of this oppression and truly it starts as early as the moment a woman’s genetic structure is built. Using a poem, I wanted to express the internal battle that many women could have of desiring to live life through a man’s body to escape their own.

Tennysen Makepeace
A Woman’s Frame
Creative writing/fictional short story
My project is a fictional creative writing, which utilizes motifs and a realistic plot to emphasize the “everywoman” theme of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. The events experienced by the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the piece, reflect many common experiences shared by women in their day-to-day lives. Various themes are expressed throughout the work, such as inequality in typical gender roles, standard societal expectations for women versus men, and modern patriarchal values in society, all of which are also viewed in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Brody Sherrill
The Fight To Thrive
Board game
The Fight to Thrive is a board game, inspired by the novel “Kim Jiyoung Born 1982” it is meant to give players an insight into the challenges people with Mental health conditions suffer on a daily basis while trying to live in society. Players roll a dice to advance on the board containing 22 spaces most of which have an associated event, these events are common situations people with different mental health conditions experience, along with additional movement instructions to either advance forward or regress back. The game is designed to work against the player to simulate how society tends to work against individuals making it difficult to progress and thrive. It emphasizes the theme in many works of literature in which the main conflict stems from misunderstandings surrounding mental health conditions and the people/characters who possess them.

Evelyn Smith
Trapped
Acrylic painting with quote from Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
The painting is inspired by this quote from the novel: “Jiyoung, don’t make a fuss about these little things. It’s just the way things are.” It shows that Kim Jiyoung feels alone and that her feelings are not important, causing her to feel worse. My painting reveals how Kim Jiyoung feels trapped into the lifestyle of a woman in South Korea. She is missing out on the world around her due to her infinite duties as a mother, wife, and caretaker.

Jade Allen
Jiyoung’s Story
Scrapbook and Musical Relational Analysis to Text
This scrapbook project conveys an in-depth understanding of the theme of gender inequality in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. It is paired with a video showcase that highlights the key elements of the scrapbook that provides a detailed analysis pertaining to the theme of gender inequality and its roots in the male ego. The project addressed the parallels between the book and the song “Voodoo” by Frank Ocean which addresses Jiyoung’s relationship with herself within a society that is constructed to actively work against her. This analysis underlines her eventual breakdown due to her experience of restless discrimination and oppression against her. Each element of the scrapbook has been carefully chosen to exemplify Jiyoung’s struggles, shedding light on the systematic oppression that comes with being a woman and losing tolerance for hate, as well as identity.

Abby Buchinger
Loss of Respect in Kim Jiyoung born 1982
Hexagonal Panel Visual
In Kim Jiyoung born 1982, This hexagonal panel wall will convey the major events that go on over the course of Kim Jiyoungs life and open up the big issue at the end of the panel wall. This will reveal imagery throughout the panel wall and you will be able to visualize what is going on in the book through the writing and image portions of the wall. This 11 panel wall will reveal Kim Jiyoung’s true characterization and how she changed and how her lifestyle changed from beginning to end. Each panel will talk about a different section of her life that played a significant role in the theme of the memoir, and how it had a reflective impact back on society.

Cyrissa Curtis
The Woman’s Reflection
Art Sculpture
This project represents how women are depicted in the book Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. It digs into the themes of feminism that the book analyses. The mirror shows that any woman can picture themself in that position, and it is not just limited to the characters in the book, as well as showing how the book is made up of women’s experiences. The mirror also reflects the person viewing the sculpture, symbolizing that misogyny is inside of everyone, whether they know it or not, because of how systematic it is. The fact that the mirror is cracked shows how as a woman, your sense of self is corrupt. There are chains that hold the sculpture down depicting how women are held back by the men in their lives. The chains are rusty, representing how this discrimination has been going on for many years. This also creates the atmosphere of the project. The cracks around the woman show how the amount of pressure that is placed on women slowly breaks them. There is not much, if any color at all on the sculpture to show the melancholy of the experiences women face. This project shows my deep understanding of the messages that the work provides, including the understanding of systematic oppression of women.

Lou Dunn
Kim Jiyoung GX Pack Pokemon
Digital
In Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Cho Nam-Joo tells of Kim Jiyoung’s early to adult life. Throughout the novel, many characters leave an impact on Jiyoung’s life. These original Pokémon cards reflect how Jiyoung was able to develop in relation to the trials she has been through. Each aspect of the cards are carefully chosen to display characterization through strengths and weaknesses, as well as how they have evolved over the course of the novel. I chose Kim Jiyoung to be a fighting Pokémon because of her relentless effort to be seen as more than just a woman, but also a good worker and student. As a basic Pokémon, or her childhood, Jiyoung’s attack of “Fear” uses her fear of men at a young age to develop Jiyoung’s defense strategies that follow her throughout the novel. One of the defense strategies the reader becomes privy to is “Silence”, seen in the Pokémon Kim Jiyoung GX, or her adulthood. Jiyoung uses silence as a way to be seen as a complicit and mature woman, despite her mother’s words of “Jiyoung, don’t stay out of trouble… Run wild, you hear me?” (Nam-Joo 93). Jiyoung uses “Determination” to work far harder than any of her male colleagues and be seen as comparable. Even so, her determination fails her as her womanhood disregards any semblance of competence in her employer’s eyes. Kim Jiyoung’s weakness is darkness, the energy type that I chose Daehyun to be. Despite their undeniable bond, Daehyun still treats Jiyoung as though her work is less important and could be given up easily at the implication of a family, showing “Negligence” in the face of Jiyoung’s struggles. He mentions being able to “help out” (Nam-Joo 131) Jiyoung, disregarding the obligations that fatherhood brings and instead placing all responsibility on Jiyoung. This commentary addresses how the oppression of women is used to fight back against inequality.

Elizabeth Falkenberg
The Unwritten Addendum
Multimedia analysis
This project is a character analysis of Kim Jiyoung’s daughter, Jung Jiwon, using information found within Chao Nam-Joo’s novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. This analysis is based on my understanding of the novel and its characters with the information given in the novel. Using details from each chapter, I have created my analysis using a variety of visual mediums to show my interpretation of Jiwon’s life under Jiyoung’s care.

Addison Fenlon
Food Analyzation through Kim Jiyoung born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo
Photographs of Food
This Food project will show an in-depth understanding of the character Kim Ji-young’s growth throughout the book Kim Ji-young Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. This will be shown by the different types of foods that will be created. I chose this project as food is discussed often throughout the book, one example is when she was getting her first job “Jiyoung wanted to work at a food company” (Nam-Joo 86). The appetizer that will be brought will be pizza rolls, to represent Kim Ji-young’s childhood being somewhat a childish meal will represent back when she was in elementary school “Jiyoung’s school was a pilot for the school meal program, the first in the area to prepare on-site and serve food in the dining hall” (Nam-Joo 32). The main dishes that will be made are a wrap and soup. The wrap will represent her time through college, it can relate to her hiking club and her growth throughout her college years as wraps are seen as a grown-up meal and a food that active people may eat, and the soup would represent her father’s soup shop and how their economic growth through Kim’s time away at college when they started to be able to afford better foods after the financial crises. Finally, for dessert, a rice crispy bar represents her Life after childbirth, and how she struggles after giving birth is seen through how rice crispy often falls apart with the sprinkles representing her children. The difference between how Kim Jiyoung feels about her childbirth vs how society thinks a woman should feel after childbirth is represented through the juxtaposition of the whiteness of the marshmallow and the colorfulness of the sprinkles.

Alexis Gaffney
Someone Has to Pay
Multimedia Poetry
Utilizing direct quotes from Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, as well as meticulous word choice with layered meaning, the poem offers commentary on the casual misogyny Jiyoung experienced in Korea, particularly in classroom and workplace settings. The flowers inked around the poem each have traditional symbolism, all connected to aspects of femininity such as birth, strength, and beauty.

Brynn Gillespie
Social Trends in Kim Jiyoung
Canvas Magazine Digital
In Kim Jiyoung born 1982 Cho Nam-Joo demonstrates the unequal rights between men and women. The protagonist, Kim goes through many challenges related to her gender throughout the novella. The social trends magazine concept will show how stereotypes between men and women are overlooked and unnoticed in our everyday life. In the novel Kim symbolizes women across Korea no matter their age, as the reader follows her throughout the stages of her life. The main idea of the Social trends magazine is to show the unfairness between men and women. “Am I supposed to thank the man in duty for graciously letting me pay him for his services” (Nam-Joo 88). The magazine shows this unfairness in an interpretive fashion, and trend style. The interviewers in Kim Jiyoung have a very intense tone and manner, making them memorable antagonists “the person in charge said the answer to one question does not determine whether a candidate passes or fails, it has more to do with the compatibility with the interviewers” (Nam-Joo 90). Social trends magazine shows this scene in particular with the “office siren” a recent trend that can be bashful against women, this is ironic because of how far the world has come and these trends seem to resurface from women.

Andrea Martinez
Reflections and Relations in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Cho Nam-Joo
Photography
For this photography-based project, I utilized a symbol of mirrors and windows from the novel to showcase reflections and opening from the novel to the real-world. Through images, a melancholy tone is depicted and amplification of women’s rights, manipulation, and overpowerment are displayed. These ideas will convey a connection to realities and further share the decline of mental health in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. In the novel, the author uses statistics thoroughly to show that the situations shown in the story can apply to stereotypical women in South Korea. Cho also uses the protagonist, Jiyoung to characterize her as being one of many women facing these never-ending challenges. In the end, I will display my work on a board and add in printed out MLA citations to share more of my understanding. On the board, six quotations are shared that all identify the window symbolism. They are also placed in the shape of a window frame. I will briefly highlight how images or words may be related to key aspects in the novel such as reflection, misogyny, or new awakenings. Over a few images and text excerpts, viewers will be able to resonate with not only the book, but also the work shown.

Najah Mohamed, Lucky Ali, Muliftu Mama, and Amaal Hashi
Aging Through Color: A Woman’s Journey from Childhood to Old Age
Recreation of the book cover
Our project utilizes multimedia to explore the transition from childhood to old age and how women’s lives evolve. It focuses on societal expectations, personal identity, and changing roles. The multimedia illustrates a narrative, shifting from vibrant and colorful to a black-and-white palette, demonstrating the gradual fading of vitality and individuality under oppression. Through our analysis, we showcase how societal norms shape women’s experiences and how these experiences shift over time. The visual representation aims to highlight oppressive societal standards while sparking reflection.

Allie Mommaerts
The Sacrifice of Women in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Painting – Acrylic on Canvas
I created a painting of a woman. A woman being cut open and stripped of her organs and flesh, sacrificing herself and being robbed of her ambition and identity. In the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, Jiyoung struggles to balance ambition and identity, while being the sole caretaker of her infant daughter. Throughout the novel Cho uses time sequencing in memories of Jiyoung’s childhood and young-adulthood to describe societal pressures and oppressive behaviors that are placed on women and girls. This Painting conveys the depth and understanding of the mistreatment women face as a result of systemic misogyny that is illustrated by Cho in the novel. While gruesome, I hope that my painting correctly translates the violent nature of the culture surrounding women and what it continues to take from them and forces them to endure. The Painting also has elements of beauty that represent the silent suffering of women, while miserable they are still seen as objects of beauty and desire, offering the viewer a pensive understanding of Cho’s novel.

Payton Nickels
A Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation of Patient Kim Jiyoung
Psychiatric Evaluation Table
This project represents a psychiatric evaluation of Kim Jiyoung through a detailed interview transcript, therapist’s notes, and Psychological tests. I conducted these interviews by using a psychiatric lens while reading the piece. I also chose to insert myself in the place of both the therapist and Kim Jiyoung to produce the most accurate representation while also including specific quotes throughout it when creating my project.

Laila Sarka
Tell Me Who I Am
Visual Collage
In my piece I showed parallels between modern headlines and excerpts from Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, these excerpts and headlines were intricately picked to not only represent misogyny as a whole, but to point out how we treat women as well as the specific language that is used. Take for example, when a male classmate calls Jiyoung and another women “Cunts” (Nam-Joo 55) for denying his advances, I used a headline titled “Donald Trump Called Kamala Harris “Bitch” Multiple Times: NYT” to provide a parallel.This piece is meant to show the ways in which our society has normalized the degradation of women. I used a bloody red to paint the title of the piece as well as underline examples of degrading language; the use of this bloody red symbolizes the violence, pain, and injustice that has come as a product of this hateful language. In Kim Jiyoung, born 1984, the author, Cho Nam-Joo, uses cited studies as well as relatable experiences to show how women face adversity personally as well as on a smaller scale. “The percentage of female managers has also increased steadily but slowly from 10.22 percent in 2006 to 18.37 percent in 2014, but it’s not even two out of ten yet.”(Nam-Joo 85) statistics like these make the book feel like a personal retelling of her story rather than a fictional account.. The experiences and the statistics the author uses tie the story into reality, creating a story that the audience can easily resonate with.

Kaitlin Sheldon
Mindmap in Kim Jiyoung born 1982
Mindmap
This Jiyoung mind map will convey an in depth understanding of Kim JiYoung’s story and her journey from different perspectives in Cho Nam-Joo’s novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Doing a mind map for my project enhances not only mine but others’ visual learning and interpretation on this novel. Many stand points can come from within this book. Many of the main issues expressed within this book are gender inequality, discrimination, depression, family struggles, financial problems, etc. In this mind map, I put many global issues together to create an overall understanding about how different places enforce different living styles based on their own culture. For the connections each one is a new global issues that ties with the novel.

Aarna Vaishnav
Food in Kim Jiyoung, Born in 1982
Cookbook
To convey the message that the work of Kim Jiyoung wrote in Kim Jiyoung Born in 1982, I have made a cookbook from Kim Jiyoung’s point of view. To make this cookbook I used ox-bone soup because it is an elaborate recipe that shows the depth of Jiyoung’s personality. Next I used a delivered meal to show the domestic laziness of Dheahyun’s. Finally I used Mandu, a superfluous and full of questions recipe to represent the grandmother. To embed quotations that showcased these personalities, I found most of them in the childhood or marriage sections. To do this I used traditional Korean recipes to show the true culture of Jiyoung and her family. To do this project I used critical thinking about the different attributes of the characters and went above and beyond to make the cookbook show who these people were at their core. I was also a self-starter and responsible to get this project done on time.

Jenna Vincent
Passive Sexism
Visual Art Project
My project is a visual display using quotes from the book about sexism and how men can speak cruelly about women, but women get frowned upon for defending themselves, so they are almost forced to keep defenses or questions in their thoughts. I also use visuals (symbols in the book regarding women) to create a woman a little off center in the visual, meaning that the women’s thoughts on one side take up less space than the men’s words on the other side. This represents that men get paid more than women and are allowed to take up more space.

Lukas Weyenberg
Recorded Commentary of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Digital / Audio
I prepared a recorded commentary that responded to random prompts and used terminology to express interpretation and analysis of nuanced moments, authorial choices, and global issues of the novel. My commentary offers explanation and interpretation with supportive references.

Madison Zank
Expectations in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Painting
Throughout the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, author Cho Nam-Joo uses juxtaposition and symbolism to explore the suppression of femininity that many women experience throughout their lives. This mixture of mediums, using a printed image and paint, visualizes the expectations, stereotypes, and traits that are pushed upon women. The cracking illustration represents an identity which has been broken down, and turned into many little pieces rather than a whole. The red handprints represent the many accounts of women being taken advantage of, such as when Jiyoung is being followed off the bus. The white over the face represents the expectancy of marriage, and the blood represents the many sacrifices women are just expected to make. There is also the heather flower, which was painted to symbolize resilience, and the unbelievable ability to thrive even when faced with society’s hatred and expectations, as well as a butterfly in order to represent starting anew and a reminder to let go of burdens and weights. This art piece connects back to the book by visualizing experiences which many women consider to be universal.

Lucy Christenson & Brett Schaefer
Women in the Classroom
Poster and diorama
Would you still receive an education if it weren’t for the women before you advocating for it? Well the women we have highlighted fought for educational, voting, medical rights and so much more. We thought of this because no matter how much work has been done, globally, there is still so much more to do. To start more progress of true equality, it all starts with equality in the classroom.

Chloe Johnson & Lundin Karnes
Vanity
Sculpture
Who do you think you are? In this interactive sculpture, we explore themes of self-concept and perception, key elements of the female condition in day-to-day life. Inspired by Kim Jiyoung’s struggle against societal pressures to conform, we chose to portray a reflection of one’s true self, versus what a woman is “meant to be”. Discover a hand-crafted sculpture, representative of a young woman navigating her identity through a web of mirrors.

Alivia Miller & Bella Worthington
Magnetic Poetry Workshop
Poetry Board
We decided to give people a space to create found poetry based on a passage from the book that speaks to the struggles of women. We were inspired to add an artistic element to the topics touched on in Kim Jiyoung Born 1982, and we found through discussion about the book that many women had very similar experiences when it comes to work, school, and marriage. People can construct their own found poetry through magnets that we made with a multitude of vocabulary words from the chosen passage. This literally uses Cho Nam-Joo’s words as a vehicle to allow people to express their own experiences or feelings about how women have been and still are treated.

Adelyn Shaurette
Perspectives
Poster/collage
How often do you consider your own perception of the world? Applying how texts affect the real world is a very important part of understanding literature, and this book is a perfect display of contemporary feminism. How concepts of this book are seen in the real world, the United States and in Korea. The book really made me think about my own roles in society, and that’s why I wanted to do a project like this, to make the people who had read this book see the world a bit differently. This includes the different perspectives and concepts within Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Aubree Truscott & Aria Stoner
Your Voice, Too
Scrapbook
What sparked our project idea, from the empowered novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, was the sexism Jiyoung experiences in her workplace over a series of time. We looked towards creating a spin-off of the “Me Too” Movement with anonymous stories from women across multiple generations; in that movement, when women transcripted their stories and experiences of sexism throughout their lives it overall increased awareness of sexual harassment and assault worldwide. So our project is assembled into a scrapbook that we encourage others to add to with stories of their own, or sticky notes with commentary. Hopefully we can continue to shed light on the issue at hand and encourage the use of communication with quiet stories, or simply find comfort in each other.

Matilde Guevara
Visual Art
I loved the book Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam Joo; and it made creating something around it harder. Not specifically due to my love of the book but because of what caused that love. Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 describes the experience of a woman so well, and I desperately wanted to share it as well as Cho Nam Joo did. Normally I work with realism, but I didn’t think the subject called for that, at least not an image entirely made of realistic things. The experience is too universal to be put in one context. Which leads to the final piece: a man, a woman, and balloons. The man is quick to see because of his size and colour, which contrasts against the orange and yellow background faster than a light pink ever could. He also has a briefcase which is another prop to show his power of the woman; he can work a job without something getting in the way. He makes the income. The woman is smaller and only noticeable because of the purple clothing on the yellow and orange backgrounds. The man was done in oil paints. Oil paints to me are the most “professional” paint. It’s the medium associated with the Renaissance, it’s bound to be recognized as regal; but oil paint also takes a long time to dry. As the oil paint does with drying a boy does with learning. He takes longer to learn than a girl does, but because he is seen as better he is treated with more respect and given more leeway that is okay. I first did a layer of acrylic paint with the man, because scientifically it takes longer for boys to learn, it is society that treats them as better. The woman is done in acrylic and pastel. Acrylic is quick drying, and for me; easier to use. A woman will gain her intelligence faster, once again, scientifically, but also because she is taught to not make mistakes as she will be punished. She is in charge of the cooking, cleaning, and taking care of kids, so if she does not solidify quickly she will be seen as useless. Pastel was added to show she is at a breaking point. Everyday she is driven to the brink and easily messed up. Pastel isn’t known for its cleanliness, it’s quick to get everything dirty if smudged. Not only did I choose the colours because of what’ll stand out but also because of the norms these colours promote; pink for girls, blue for boys, yellow for neutral. Pink and blue are rather direct, but yellow is more complex; because when is anything ever neutral. I added specs of orange because I knew this “neutrality” still caters towards men. People will normally hope for a boy; yellow and orange are standing in for when blue can finally pop. Blue and orange are complementary colours, and are bound to allow each other to stand out. The woman’s dress is purple, which is the complementary colour towards yellow. She is only seen and appreciated if she looks her best. Positive attention towards women is normally just objectification. She is pregnant with a girl as seen by the smaller pink balloon. While the man holds heart balloons they are not sincere as he still holds a balloon stating there’s always next time; and it is a statement. He will not be satisfied until he has a boy.

Charlie Hamm and Harrison Brunette
Scales of Justice: Patriarchy in Korea
Installation Piece
In our piece, the scales of justice illustrate the immense misogyny and social hierarchy embedded within Korean society. “MEN” and “WOMEN” are depicted on each side of the scale representing the distinct gender roles and differences within Korean society. The side representing the role of women in Korean society sinks down, forcing the side depicting the role of men to rise. This representation of gender roles in Korean society represents the social hierarchy that perpetuates gender discrimination in Korean society and the limited opportunities available for women. This representation closely connects to the depiction of opportunity in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. The novel reflects on the limited opportunity and sacrifices forced on women in this system of social hierarchy, specifically portraying the limited opportunity in education and the workforce. At the foundation of discrimination and misogyny throughout Korean history was the eradication of Korean culture and the exploitation of women’s substandard positions within Korean society.

Sammantha Lewis
Essay
In Kim Jiyoung, born in 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo,“traditional ways” become harder and harder to break even when the government values them. As the world progresses we see how the way world views and governments views affect how we raise our families. There might be things we disagree with and as we continue as individuals we are able to decide how to raise our children when it comes to our next generation. What if that isn’t the case for us? What if our government structure was built around these negative views and ways? This is what it’s like for women in South Korea: the government is still controlling the way women are seen and heard. This novel shows different generations of women and girls being affected by the “norms” and laws and how different family members are affected.

Julian Panzer
Visual Art
The canvas shows two different art materials used to understand Kim Jiyoung’s mind. Kim Jiyoung is in the center of the art piece. She is drawn in just pencil where you can see the smudges of the led. This is to view how flexible the human mind is and how big of a change Kim Jiyoung is going through because of her mental break. Her mind is flexible and weak, easily changeable and no matter how little or small something is can make a big impact. The painted memories are the most important things Kim Jiyoung has remembered. The words she and many other women have heard, to the memories of being a teenager and having to understand that the world does not take women’s issues seriously. The paint shows how much these things have stuck with Kim Jiyoung, how it is burned in her brain. Kim Jiyoung’s head is half cut, the top part of her head opening. The dark clouds coming from Kim Jiyoung’s head that surround her, these are her memories, drawn in colored pencil and outlined in paint. It symbolizes how permanently these good and bad memories are in her brain, and even if you tried to erase them it would just smear but not disappear. The things that she has remembered since childhood and how these things still affect her today. While Kim Jiyoung was taking care of her baby, her mental health was at an all time low. This piece shows how all of these memories and events have bubbled up over time, spilling out of her.

Juno Pasterski
Essay

Ariana Ramirez
Visual Art
This was created using 8.5 in. x 11in paper, mechanical pencil, gel ink ballpoint pen, graphite pencils, and colored pencils. I started off differently where it was a jumbled mess of symbols and other miscellaneous things 2 times, until I took inspiration from one of my sister’s work she did for two books for the same class. Creating what was inspired off from her works, mine appeared much more clearer and more thoughtful than the previous. Using what I was thinking of creating, I drew a person in the middle holding their belly as blood flowed beneath their feet with babies crawling up, the picture representing the birth rates.

Oliver Schaetzer and Corbin Ross
Visual Art
We wanted to portray the mental and physical struggles of women throughout different generations and time periods, by illustrating multiple women on different pages and writing on the back of the pages the similarities and differences of different women and their struggles. We also drew the family from the book explaining who the different members of the family were and how they influenced each of the members of the family, as well as how it affected their dynamics in their family. We also want to show the different women we researched throughout the time we were reading the book and the similarities they all have to the struggles the women in the book we read to connect them even further. We connected the pages with red string to resemble the pain they felt, possible anger they feel, and even possible resentment we see in the book from Kim JiYoung when she has her child. Corbin’s main role in the project will be to do the writing on the back of the paper connecting the characters to one another and writing what the image depicts, and I will be mainly drawing the images.

Angel Shrewsberry
Essay
In the book Kim Jiyoung, born in 1982, the author, Cho Nam-Joo uses her South Korean background to create the fictional character of Kim Jiyoung whose story helps readers understand sexism, sexual harassment, and gender inequality from the perspective of a South Korean woman. Nam-ju divides the story of Kim Jiyoung into chapters named after the year that critical events of Jiyoung’s life took place.

Koda Siebert
Essay

Willow Steudel
Visual Art
For my project, I chose to go with the concept of misogyny, and that it’s a huge theme within the novel. For the final project, I created a graph to show how in South Korea, men have more rights than women, and women’s rights are almost entirely nonexistent there. The rights that women have there are extremely limited, and often find themselves in stressful situations, and will feel pressured by even their own families. If women do even a slight thing incorrectly, their entire society will look down on them as if they committed a crime. Women, specifically mothers, will find themselves not being able to find a job that fits their schedule, as this was very much the case with Jiyoung. I used the color blue to represent men, while I used pink to represent women in South Korea, as those colors are used for those genders. The graph itself shows that men’s rights are going up, while women’s rights are going down, and an image of a woman being bound by chains, while there is a man smiling behind her. This is supposed to represent the idea that women in South Korea can’t fight against discrimination, but also can’t speak up against sexual assault, which is why the woman has her mouth taped shut.

I chose to do a graph because I was inspired by an assignment that we as a class did, called the Happiness Graph. In that assignment we had to use 3 different perspectives of women from the novel by showing how happy that they feel in their society. And I chose to go along with that idea, because I think that the concept of a graph goes well with the concept of misogyny, because there is always a higher up, due to certain societal norms and overall opinions, but also because it is an important part of the novel. The meaning of the novel overall is that misogyny is not only a sexist act, but it also can heavily impact a woman’s daily life.

How this shows what I know about human nature and societal norms is that it shows how in a lot of societies it is often the case where women are viewed as inferior, and as a result don’t have very equal rights compared to men, and are often subject to things like sexual assault, and hate crimes at very young ages. Humans also tend to look at things that are different, and think negatively about it, even when it is about a topic that cannot be solved. The meaning of my project is that there is always going to be a moment where people discriminate against others, and that there won’t always be a direct, immediate solution to it.

Ashley Ayala Vital and Katie Winter
The Ins and Outs: Jobs in Korea 1900s-2020s
Tri-fold Presentation
This tri-fold presentation compares the workplace inequality between Korean men and women in South Korea. Some of these things might include things like pay, how they’re treated, the discrimination women encounter in the workplace and how the work has changed over the years.

Beth Bade & Nadia Raupp
The Past Has Passed
Collage
For our project, we created a collage of womanhood, comparing the past to now, and what we hope the future will look like. On the left side of the collage, we have the past. The pictures have been tainted with black watercolor, graphite, and chalk pastel. This encapsulates the idea that they are old, and worn out. Women were defined by the amount of children they had, and of those how many were boys. They were defined by their beauty, submissiveness, and bodies. Then, there is a bracket of a family tree in the center, leading to Kim Ji-young. Although her character is fictional, she represents every step feminists and women have taken to achieve where we are today. The images on the right are bright and colorful. They show women in strong leadership positions, and capture the brightness of our future. There is some white space remaining on the right edge to show there is more to come. In comparison, the images touching the edge on the left side show that the past goes even further back and that women have been dispirited and pushed down for much longer than we have knowledge of.

Romzy Barketallah, Tanner Wendorf, Ty Schafer
Fractured Identity
Symbolism Paper/Puzzle
For our project we chose to create a puzzle that symbolizes Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. The puzzle represents the fragmented identity of Kim Jiyoung under the social expectations in Korea. We redesigned the cover of the book with a new meaning of two paths where Jiyoung is standing before them deciding which road to take. With the new cover image, we have written a paper on the symbolism behind the cover design along with how the puzzle represents the life of Kim Jiyoung.

Kim Castellanos
Flowers for Women
Crochet Flowers
I made a flower bouquet that represents the different issues that women are struggling with in South Korea. My goal was to show that the beauty of flowers has underlying issues, just as women in society are forced to look beautiful but no one cares to see the issues that are within them. Another reason I made flowers was because of the idea that women love flowers.

Yosiel Cisneros Hernandez
Perspectives: A Timeline of Women’s Treatment in Society
Poster
I made a timeline that visually represents how women’s roles and societal perceptions have changed over time, with a specific focus on Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. The project follows historical moments, cultural shifts, and changes that have influenced women’s rights and expectations, linking them to themes from the novel. By comparing historical events with Kim Jiyoung’s experiences, the project illustrates how systemic sexism persists despite progress. It also interprets the novel by showcasing how societal expectations shape women’s lives across generations. The timeline shows how Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 mirrors the lived realities of women in the past and present.

Natalie Czerniak
Women: The words of the past shape the future
Essay and Poster
This project puts sexism and the lives of women living in South Korea into words. This project covers the lives and stories of women compared to the life of Kim Jiyoung. The paper talks about historical events and statistics that are mentioned throughout the book Kim Jiyoung, Born in 1982. I wanted to cover themes and ideas that are taught to girls at a young age, and talk about how those lessons were also taught to Kim Jiyoung. I also wanted to show how these lessons shaped her future. I carefully chose the words on the poster to show the struggles of everyday women. All of the words of the past work to shape everyone’s future.

Olivia Dolph
The Decision
Painting
For my project, I have created a painting of two paths with the main character, Kim Jiyoung, in the middle. On the right path, there are symbols of a family/parenthood. Some of these symbols are a baby carriage and a rattle, a mobile, and the gender symbols, which hint at gender roles in a household. The right path also has a wedding ring, as in society it is seen only acceptable to have children after marriage. On the left path are images of a career, such as business attire, a graduation cap, money, and books. These two paths depict the reality of how women are only seen in society to have two paths in life, a mother or a career. Both of these choices are unfair because either choice you make will be criticized by society. Women cannot win in this situation due to these unattainable expectations.The woman in the center is depicted as a white simple shaped figure because it shows how society views women as an object, not as a person. I wanted my project to encapsulate the reality of how judgmental the world is against women and how society pressures women. What if women don’t want either of these choices? What if a woman wants both? A woman should be able to decide what she wants with her life, no matter what the world thinks, no matter these untrue two paths the world seems to think are her only options.

Claudia FitzGibon
Listening for a Lifetime
Playlist
I have created what I imagine Kim Jiyoung’s playlist would look like. I made the playlist in chronological order based on what happened in her life. Listening to music is a coping mechanism for many, so I wanted my project to explore Jiyoung’s life and how she might cope with her struggles.

Annalyse Fuglestad
Silenced
Pencil Drawing
For my project I have decided to create a pencil drawing depicting the main character Kim Jiyoung. I want this drawing to represent gender inequality along with the loss of identity because of the society pressures that Kim Jiyoung faces.

Milan Fullerton
The Future is Now
Essay
My project is about what I want to become when I am older. How I will achieve my dream career, while explaining the schooling I will go through and how long it will take to become my dream job. What qualities I have to obtain and are commonly found in the people of my dream job. An interview with someone who works in the same field as my dream job and the interview describes how the workplace is and the difference in genders. My project explains how my dream job is dominated by males and how females are stereotyped with not being able to achieve my dream job because I am a female. So my project explains that women are equally equipped to do the same jobs as men and how women are starting to break this stereotype. In addition I use charts and graphs to visually show how men dominate this field of work.

Emilia Garcia Mercado
The Sacrifices of Motherhood
Box Structure
For my project, I took a cardboard box and created a visual image of what being a woman is like once they become a mother. Three generations of women look off a ledge, where several images representing different aspects of everyday life hang off the top of the box. I included meditation, communication, education, nutrition, and progress in the workplace. These women are being held back by the arms of society, which are reaching out from one end of the box. My goal was to demonstrate that motherhood shouldn’t indicate an end to personal goals, but society often makes it out to be that way.

Annalis Goeschko
Through Their Eyes
Tri-fold Poster
For my project I conducted a survey of people from a variety of ages, male and female. I asked questions regarding situations that occurred in the book Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo that people may have also experienced. I was really looking for people’s current views on experiences everyday people go through, like Kim Jiyoung. To be brief, the experiences asked in this survey are related to harassment in day-to-day life, job inequities, and parenthood.

Gretchen Gross
Gender Inequality Shown Through Clay
Clay Sculpture
For my project I have created a sculpture that represents gender inequality. Throughout Jiyoung’s life, she deals with gender inequality. To show this in my sculpture I made a masculine figure on a pedestal with a crown on his head to show how men are put in better positions in society just for being male. I made a feminine figure on the base of the sculpture, and she is holding a broom in patched up clothes showing how women are expected to do the domestic work and they don’t get new clothes.

Morgan Haight
The Feminist Movements of Korea: Told Through Songs
Website
For my project, I created a Google Site with each of my three sections being a different Korean feminist song. I explained the important feminist movements in Korea, such as the 4B movement and #MeToo movement through popular Korean song lyrics. I interpreted and closely studied the lyrics of each song in order to connect them to different feminist ideas and imagery. Along with that, I also added historical context for the importance of feminism in Korean pop culture. I made sure to give examples of moments in Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982 that connect to each of the songs that I picked.

Michael Harkins and Jacob Cone
Kim Jiyoung Diorama
Diorama
We made a diorama showing different events of the book in one big thing. We used cardboard and hot glue to craft a project that shows some of the events in the book such as the bus and school years and her later life – in general just showing some of her life. I made a paper online to describe the project that will be printed out.

Amanda Hockett, Kaeden Zehms, Blake Frohmader, Nolan Williams
Undecided
Video episode
Our project is a short episode of someone who goes through and faces the same issues of shifting through multiple identities and showing the struggles of other people not understanding why or what they are doing. We wanted to put that issue into perspective so people know that this is really something that people struggle with and have to go through. We also wanted to include how other people see it and their opinions and how they can struggle with someone close to them having this problem.

Mira Janny
Kim Jiyoung, Gender Inequality
Drawing
For my project I drew a drawing of Jiyoung incorporating various images that I think help demonstrate my understanding of some of the themes that are grasped throughout the book, a significant one being gender inequality towards women. Some of them being a woman on a bike with square wheels, representing the struggles women faced with equality at the time. Hands in handcuffs to symbolize how caged-in Jiyoung felt in society. Another image is a standard blue staircase next to a pink one whose steps are unequally sized. This represents how women face the same struggles as men and have to work harder to get past them. The last image is inside the eye, and it depicts pregnant Jiyoung looking into a mirror, and her reflection shows her with a child, which helps exemplify her anxieties with pregnancy and the future. To embody the inner turmoil and some of the psychological aspects of the story that Jiyoung experiences I decided to use an array of spirals and swirls.

Emma Kitsembel
Patriarchy in Today’s Society
Poster Board
For my project I created a poster board connecting gender inequalities seen in today’s society to inequalities that Kim Jiyoung faced. To create this, I picked different events from the book to highlight and compared it to events I researched that happened in the United States. I then included quotes from the novel and connected it to picture representations of patriarchy in the United States. I included a booklet to go along with the images of quotes and statistics with examples of patriarchy in today’s society. My goal was to convey the message that patriarchy still exists in the United States today and inspire and educate young adults to stand up against patriarchy.

Eli Kruschek
Split Personality
3D Printed Model
For my project I created a model of her house with her looking through a mirror to see not herself but her grandmother. This is to show how she had a mental breakdown and began to act like her grandmother. I wanted to highlight this in a way that was unique to my interests so I chose to use 3D printing to accurately depict what is going through her eyes while also at a third person point of view.

Isaac Kruschek
Three Griefs
Digital Artwork
For my project I will be presenting three different digital drawings, one in yellow, one in blue, and one in red. They focus on different emotions/attitudes expressed throughout the book. The blue piece is focused around career stability with the “glass ceiling,” the red is focused around gender discrimination, and the yellow is focused around motherhood. In unison, this shows the different struggles that not only Kim Jiyoung goes through, but the struggles that most women deal with at some point.

Blair Lilly, Carsyn Peterson, and Amaya Untz
Women at Work
Tri-fold
For our project we created a tri-fold comparing and contrasting the life experiences of women in the workforce in Korea and the U.S. Our findings show how women are treated at work in both countries, focusing on the challenges and discrimination they face in day-to-day life. Our main goal is to show how Korean women often deal with more harsh forms of misogyny, while also informing others on the struggles American women face in the workplace, by exploring themes such as gender roles and discrimination.

Ramneet Mann
Kim Jiyoung
Magazine
For my project I made a magazine that embodies the insecurities that a multitude of magazines capitalize on. Instead of the text emphasizing the insecurities that women face every day I decided to empower women by using examples from the novel.

Valerie Masker
2nd Place
Oil painting
For my project, I did a painting depicting a couple of items and events from the book that were important to the meaning of the book. I really wanted to create a kind of collage between different events in the book to give an idea of the theme and how harmful the culture is in Korea against women.

Sam McIntyre
How People are Affected by Stress in South Korea and in The United States
Tri-fold Poster
For my project, I have created a tri-fold showing the similarities of the stress suffered in the United States and in South Korea. My project includes what stresses people out in both countries, the services readily available and effects of stress. I wanted to show people how stress is having a negative effect on people in both the United States and South Korea.

John Meshak and Ian Slager
Shattering Expectations
Mixed media art/ceramic and drawing
Our project is a piece utilizing both clay carvings and ink drawings to illustrate the struggles of characters throughout the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Our project takes the idea of what people want for their life versus what their lives actually turn out to be. Throughout the entire book, we see characters who for one reason or another are not able to pursue their dreams and have to find a different, less ideal path through life. Our project shows this through a layer of clay with depictions of the characters living the life they have always wanted. The clay layer is cracked and is in many pieces that can all be removed to reveal beneath the clay a drawn picture of the characters and the life they are actually living. This shows that through the story, characters generally have their expectations for what their life was meant to be shattered and torn away from them.

Lynx Moll
What it Means to be a Woman
Digital Drawing
I have created a drawing that portrays the feelings that come with sexual assault and/or harassment via the cloudiness in the female figure’s head. I related it to Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 through various symbolic items. I related part of it to the scene happening on pages 104-105 through beer cans. I also related it to the scenes happening on pages 52-56 through dark red handprints, as well as eyes focused on the figure of a woman.

Marli Murphy
Abort from the Past
Brochure
For my project, I have created a brochure that walks you through the history and major events involving abortion. The brochure follows the historical context and characterization of Kim Jiyoung Born 1982. I created the brochure on Canva, and the pictures and background were made to look of the time period. I wanted my project to bring awareness to the topic of abortion and why young women should care about the dangers that are in the world.

Grace Ninneman
Job resume
For my project, I wrote out what I believe would be on a job resume for Kim Jiyoung. The resume shows her background, efforts, qualifications, and all that she’s worked hard for. I also made a resume for a random man going for the same position. You can tell that they both put work into their resume for the job, but overall Jiyoung is more qualified. However on her resume is a declined red X, and on his is an acceptance check for the job. It fits the time period, because more likely than not men in higher social classes would have received the job over a lower class woman. I wanted my project to depict the injustices that women of that time era faced.

Tyler Patrick and Alex Parys
Kim Jiyoung and Ode to my Father: Differing Perspectives on Post-War South Korean Society
Tri-fold Poster
Our project critically analyzed the film Ode to My Father and the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and compared how Korean society during the time period was portrayed by the two different genders. From Ode to My Father, we obtained an understanding of the struggles that lower class young men had to face to raise and provide for their family. From Kim Jiyoung we discerned an improved understanding of the struggles that many young Korean women and mothers had to face within their life throughout childhood, school and the workplace. After analyzing both pieces of literature, we compared and contrasted the struggles both genders had to face and how the division by gender in Korea causes these problems. We illustrated the paradoxes within Kim Jiyoung about gender inequality, and compared and contrasted how these paradoxes are depicted or hinted at in the movie. Our goal was to elucidate a more complete picture of the patriarchy within post-war South Korea throughout these two unique perspectives.

Adilene Pineda Gallegos
Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 – the spiral of emotions
Painting
This project is showing different quotes of the book with different Quotes from the book itself, the darker quotes are shown in the more dark part of the painting and the most happy quotes are in the more towards the center. This Book was written by Cho Nam-ju who wrote the whole story based off her life. There are some parts of it that are fiction but over all the rest is non-fiction. This book has many different emotions in it, and those show the true feelings. The book showed me the different events that can go on in other people’s lives. She shows the effects of certain things that go on; her life was not only affected by it but they also show that it helped her with it in her life. This book is one of my favorite books because it’s all the truth.

Cezar Platon, Chet Klawitter, Max Kressner, Clovis Cormier-Tardif
Behind the Curtains
Documentary
Our video is made up of multiple scenarios where we observe modern-day misogyny. After every act there is a paused scene in which a narrator explains the misogyny that is depicted, how it is related to Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, and why society should work together to change it.

Arely Quintana-Cruz and Dannia Rodriguez Navarrete
Is It Only a Woman’s Job?
Representative Mannequin
Our project displays the overwhelming responsibilities and expectations placed on women. Kim Jiyoung shares her experiences as a female starting from birth, gradually worsening as she grows into adulthood. Our mannequin will have accessories such as a baby, a broom, a cooking utensil, and a ball and chain symbolizing the heavy responsibilities and pressures to maintain a traditional role. This metaphor goes beyond domestic expectations, but also the societal burdens such as unequal pay, workplace discrimination, sexual violence and more.

Savannah Radtke, Autumn Wollin, and Erin Williams
Spiraling Emotions
Structure/Quote Album
For our project, we have created a styrofoam structure of a faceless Kim Jiyoung. It will show the emotions she goes through in each chapter as the head turns. Along with our structure, our project will also consist of a quote album. This includes important and meaningful quotes from each chapter that correlate with the primary emotion of that phase of life. Our main emotions include sadness, fear, anger, and isolation to represent childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and marriage respectively. The project encapsulates how the roles of women in an Asian society affect women’s emotions.

Max Ruedebusch
Her Life, In My Words
Journal
This journal takes the point of view from Daehyun’s perspective throughout the story, making insightful journal entries about Jiyoung. These entries touch on the sensitive topics throughout their marriage, including Daehyun’s observations of Jiyoung’s transfer into motherhood and how she handles herself and Jiwon. Daehyun also writes about his expectations of their marriage where he asks himself if he is doing enough. Once Jiyoung becomes sick, Daehyun begins to write his thoughts on her health issues where he begins to question if she needs help. He comes to the decision that she should see a psychiatrist and then he finds out what Jiyoung and the psychiatrist said about her results. Daehyun makes a final entry in his journal where he reflects on what the psychiatrist had to say where he addresses his guilt and hopes to be a better husband and father.

Chasitty Sarmiento Ochoa
Resilience
Drawing
For my project I have created a drawing of Gladiolus flower growing through concrete. It’s meant to capture the emotions Kim Jiyoung shows throughout the story. The metaphor of the flower growing through concrete is meant to capture Jiyoung’s feelings while growing through postpartum depression. The concept of the concrete is meant to represent the societal pressures that weigh Jiyoung down while the flower is meant to represent her determination and resilience to push through all of her challenges. I wanted this piece to show her striving to reclaim her sense of self and navigate the hard realities she faces.

Nina Sehmer
The Weight of Identity
Miscellaneous Material Sculpture
My project demonstrates the forces placed on women, including the weight of maintaining one’s identity and the pulling force of historical sexism. It represents an image of a woman holding up a mirror to signify her holding up her identity despite adversity and wearing a dress made of articles describing Korea’s historical view on women. The skirt of the dress is also weighed down by a rock, mimicking the quote, “Jiyoung felt she was a rock, small but heavy and unyielding, holding down her mother’s long skirt train” (Cho 27). This symbol not only resembles the quote but also represents all the hardships that hold back women in Korea like Kim Jiyoung and women around the world.

Barrett Selck
Korean Women, 1982-2020
Google Slides
I made a Google Slides presentation where I describe the differences between Korean women born in 1982 like Kim Ji-Young to the life experiences of a Korean woman who was born in more modern times. I demonstrated the differences by comparing boy to girl ratios, work availability, pay, household tendencies, and more. I show these differences by referencing Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982 for comparisons and quotes. I also reference the movie that was made in 2019, using important information throughout the movie in my project. The movie contains key points of information to display the differences between kids in these older and more modern times. Finally, I researched Korean news sources to explore what was going on in Korea around the 2000-2010s.

Emma Silva
Unseen
Drawing
For my project, I have created a graphite drawing of Kim Jiyoung and her child. This drawing represents the struggles Kim Jiyoung faces throughout motherhood and her loss of identity. The drawing depicts her face being blurred, symbolizing the feeling of being overlooked and not seen as a real person with problems and difficulties. I wanted my project to exhibit the effects that societal and familial pressures have on identity, belonging, and mental health.

Will Silva, Griffin Dolwick, Michael Fuglestad
Voices Between the Lines
Podcast
For our project we chose to do a podcast about the events of the novel and the life of Kim Jiyoung. We discussed her strength and determination to push through living life as a woman in Korea. We talk about Korean standards for women and their negative effects. We address how Kim Jiyoung overcame this discrimination. Our podcast will reflect the feelings we experienced throughout the book and compare our opinions about the life of Kim Jiyoung.

Bella Straseske, Preston Thiede, and Emma Madden
Parallel
Paintings
For our project we created three different paintings representing Kim Jiyoung’s experiences with sexism and gender stereotypes. All three of the paintings show Jiyoung on the bus where she was almost assaulted in the book. The first painting represents Jiyoung as a young girl behind all of the male students at school. The second painting represents women doing all of the work for men like, cleaning, cooking, and other labors. The final painting demonstrates women never being able to have the same opportunities as men, by representing the “glass ceiling” that is mentioned in the book. These all reconnect to the same greater issues from the book, sexism and gender stereotypes, and how each of these scenes from the book display and reflect those issues.

Livy Taylor and Kristina Thomas
The Life Ladder
Board Game
We created a board game to demonstrate the differences in the paths of men and women throughout their lives. We took a board game and made the cards and spaces into choices and/or events that would happen in most women’s and men’s lives in South Korea. We included cards that have historical and/or current facts on the back of the card, in addition to correlating references to scenes from the book. The players play with Game of Life pieces and add on characters as the cards direct them to. The goal of this board game is to demonstrate the events that either gender may experience throughout their life and connect it to real world examples.

Kellyn Thorman
Patriarchy Throughout the Generations
Tri-fold
For my project I interviewed my grandmother, mother, and sister asking them about different stereotypes and patriarchal views they had faced in their lives. I compared their life experiences with the experiences in Kim Jiyoung. With this project I aimed to show the similarities and differences between patriarchal views throughout different generations in the United States and in Korea.

Revan Vesper and Jacqueline Quechol-Mendoza
detective board and case file
Art Piece
Our project we created is a pin board to connect all the events and people to Jiyoung showing how they are connected and affect her in many ways. We also incorporate the main ideas of gender inequality, mental health and motherhood all in a case file with the board.

Elizabeth Voss and Madison Wisley
Pushed Down
Painting
For our project, we created a painting to represent how women in Korea are treated compared to men. We painted most of the canvas blue to represent males and the rest of the canvas pink to represent women. The reason why most of the canvas is blue is because in Korea women don’t have the same rights or the same privileges as men and are commonly seen as below men. We wanted to show the misogyny and gender stereotypes that we saw within the book. Women also don’t get any praise for their accomplishments unlike men. We also included some quotes from the book to help get our point across.

Bennette Walter
Shifting Lenses
Canvas/Colored Pencils
My project shows the different sides of Kim Jiyoung. I used red and blue colored pencils to draw two different overlapping images. When looking through the red side of the 3D glasses you see Jiyoung while she’s at work or in public. This represents her being overworked and catering to her coworkers’ needs. When looking through the blue side of 3D glasses, you see Jiyoung at home. It represents her having to care for the baby, clean the house, cook the meals, and still go to work every day. These two perspectives show how Kim Jiyoung had to live her everyday life.

Braxton Walter
The Korean abortion problem of the 1980s
Poster
For my project I have created a poster that compares the populations of Korea and other countries in the 1980s. This is to show the issue in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 because the only babies aborted were girls. The poster shows the impact this has had on the Korean population rate and how it is affecting the country today because of it.

Haley Walters
Two Different Lives in One of the Same
Poster
I created a poster comparing and contrasting Kim JiYoung and my life and feelings. I had some of the same barriers and feelings as JiYoung did in education. My barriers were also a little different. I talked about JiYoung’s life in the home and education and my life in the home and education. I also shared the feelings I felt from my barriers and the feelings JiYoung felt too.

Lilla Wierl
A Place of Discouragement
Watercolor Painting
For my project, I created a watercolor painting of a cityscape. The painting depicts multiple city buildings, and one central building which is the emphasis of the piece. The idea for this painting was inspired by Kim Jiyoung’s challenges in the workforce, where her job takes place in an office building. My main goal for this project was to symbolize the lack of women in the workforce, as well as how small the women feel due to the misogyny and lack of respect they face. It was important to me to include small details that represent themes and important topics in the book, such as the inequalities between men and women, and male domination in society.

Payton Wisley
The Common Woman
Informative Trifold
For my project, I created a trifold to create an extended world view of how the story is not just of a few women but is a compilation of millions of women’s experiences. I also discuss the connection of a name and the novel and how Jiyoung’s name further pushes the understanding of not only the culture of South Korea but also the overarching theme of the novel. Along with that I wanted to connect the culture and meaning of a name globally so I discussed how women’s rights are reflected by the way women are addressed in a country. I wanted my project to have not only a global element but also a collaborative aspect, which is why you can take a post it note and hang up what your name means to you.

Sam Witt
Three Films, Three Characters: An Exploration of characters in Kim JiYoung, Born 1982
Slideshow
For my project, I created a list of the top 3 favorite movies for Kim Jiyoung, Daehyun, and Oh Misook. I explained the reason why I believe that each character would like the movies and used quotes to support my reasoning. Along with the films, each character was given a theme in order to give an impression of the characters and further explain their taste in films. I wanted this project to be a deep dive into the characteristics of Kim Jiyoung, Daehyun, and Oh Misook because I believe that those characters were the most influential to the plot of the novel.

Katelyn Zimmerman
The Issue of Gender Discrimination
For my project I wanted to create a newspaper report that would highlight some of the different things that Kim Jiyoung had to go through over the course of her life. I chose to write a paragraph about each chapter or phase of Jiyoung’s life. I wanted it to be clear that Jiyoung had to suffer through discrimination in every phase of her life, not just in rare scenarios. I also wanted to explain the differences in how her husband and brother were treated compared to how Jiyoung was treated.

Mailin Banegas Andrade
The Everywoman’s Struggle: From Jane Doe to Kim Jiyoung
Infographic
Inspired by Kim Jiyoung’s traumatic, yet ordinary life in the book Kim-Jiyoung, Born in 1982, I wanted to look into the ordinary trauma that women experience globally. Most students, mostly boys, were shocked and angered by Jiyoung’s experiences in the book, others, mostly girls, were only angered. I want people more people to be angry, and less people to be shocked, to consider not just the Kim Jiyoungs and Jane Does, but the global everywoman. This is why I created this infographic.

Isabella Ayres-Wilhelm
You Versus Wild: Woman Edition
Short film/interactive game
An interactive short film about the effects of patriarchy on an average college girl. I was inspired to tell the story of a single, typical girl while reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Jiyoung is a normal woman, but she is severely impacted by misogyny and microaggressions. Like Jiyoung, the main character experiences loss in her career and her sense of self. Throughout the film, all of the small slights by male characters lead the main character to either give up on her dreams, compromise her ideals, or have her reputation ruined. I am also inspired by the character of Rory Gilmore from Gilmore Girls, who starts out as a hopeful, hardworking student, but eventually quits college because of a man’s criticism. The aim of my movie is to make people, especially men, see that sexism still exists, and that it isn’t easy to “just fight it.” You will try different methods of pushing back against the men who belittle you through Lisa, and experience the world through a woman’s eyes. Unlike real life, the game gives you options to try again, but finding the path to victory is difficult.

Lukas Bardsley
Unnamed
Research Paper
I am analyzing different peer reviewed articles, short stories, and ted talks to synthesize an argument about a woman’s experience at home and in the workforce, as well as how those relate. One of my big takeaways from the book was that a lot of the inequality women face comes from work, but home life also plays a role in the problem. Because of this I look further into experiences in both places, and see how they relate to each other, as well as how they are different.

Lukas Bardsley
Unnamed
Research Paper
I will be learning and playing a piece composed by a woman from the 17th century, potentially with other students. The piece I currently have to play is significant as it is one of the first known sonatas composed and published by a woman. The piece itself represents the equality of women in their capability to write music, and the time period it was published in where men were dominant in the music industry shows how difficult it was for woman to succeed in their talents with the pre-established conditions.

Bailey E Barton
Through her eyes
Painting
A painting of a woman split into two different moods/atmospheres one side will be a bright city with an undertone of warm colors to represent a euphoric feeling and in the foreground the woman is seen with a happy expression. On the other side is a more domestic scene with an undertone of cool colors to represent despair or regret, and also in the foreground will be the other side of the woman’s face portraying those emotions in her expression.

Anya Bosmans
Disparities in mental health research based on gender
Essay
A major theme in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is mental health, specifically women’s. This essay relates to how women’s mental health is often overlooked and historically hasn’t been as prioritized or studied as men’s. The book overall has many themes relating to discrimination against women but ends very impactfully as we see the entire story is told from Kim Jiyoung’s therapist’s perspective. When the therapist talks, we can see that he recognizes some of the struggles Jiyoung has faced, specifically because she’s a woman, and how these may impact her mental health; however, he continues to dismiss these same issues that plague other women in his life. The stigma around women’s mental health is addressed in this ending, as the therapist writes off women as being dramatic rather than actually suffering from poor mental health. This project is meant to shed a light on and contrast how society views, treats, and combats mental health among genders.

Oscar Cambio and Kelvin Hobenu
Untitled
Ceramic sculpture
Our project is about depression, and how it can take over someone’s life. The plan is to make a flat slab of clay with the silhouette of a man leaning over holding his head carved into it. With words that represent reasons why people become depressed. Some examples are money, anxiety, doubt, etc.

Conrad J Campbell
Misogyny and sexism
Google slideshow
Google slideshow about misogyny and sexism in modern society.

Abbott Carlson and Nia Lashley
Untitled
Bulletin Board Collage
A murder mystery style bulletin board centered around women and the societal factors and influences they face. String connecting these expectations to the pin representing the woman shows how society can overwhelm and drive a person into madness.

Quince M Clark
What Women Deserve
Animation with poetry
I have created an animation with poetry centered around women’s experiences in healthcare and women’s bodies. In the animation, the woman depicted does not speak, her thoughts are only shown through the poetry. The individual poems each focus on specific parts of the woman’s body such as their head, heart, uterus, and hands. The poems talk about how that part of women is viewed by other people, viewed by women, and treated in healthcare. There will also be quotes preceding each poem from the sources I collected. These poems will help better understand Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and the hardships the author experienced as a woman.

Nico Conti
Flyer.pdf
Creative writing/visual
A workplace harassment flier created by an unnamed company and displayed in women’s bathrooms as well as an email exchange between higher-ups regarding its creation.

Ben Dutcher
Completely Fine
Song
Song with lyrics about the dismissal/neglect of women’s feelings/needs, put in the context of a postpartum married woman.

Alyne Espinoza Mora
Untitled song
Song
A song about the struggles I’ve gone through being a young woman of color. I want to highlight the strength it took to become as confident as I am now and to empower women. This directly connects to the book and how she had to fight hard to overcome them but eventually faced the consequences of having multiple personality disorder.

Sycamore Felland
untitled
Short film script
A short film about self sacrifice, the triviality of it and how it breeds resentment in a person. Young women especially are encouraged—somewhat unintentionally—to favor this people pleasing behavior that often doesn’t get one far in life, this causes many girls to be perceived as annoying, to have draining and unsuccessful personal and professional lives, and to, over time, grow resentment for the world for not rewarding the behavior that it expects from her.

Max Fraser
How Literature Perpetuates Gender Stereotypes
Research Paper
I discuss how misogyny affects our biases when it comes to judging literature, deeming it good, bad, cringe, lazy, original, etc. I want to bring nuance to the conversation of what it means to be male centered, specifically to have a male-centered media taste.

Sherling Garcia
Beyond the Pay Gaps: The Impact of Gender Inequality on Work and Life
Research Paper
This draft aims to dig deeper into the issue of gender inequality in the workplace as exposed in the book “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982,” by looking into its far-reaching consequences beyond the professional limitations women face. By analyzing gender pay gaps, societal expectations of gender roles, and systematic barriers, this essay explores how these factors contribute to broader societal issues such as domestic violence, high rates of depression, and little to no economic stability for women. With this draft, I aim to raise awareness and advocate for change. Emphasizing that this issue matters not only for fairness but also to improve societal well-being.

Alannah R. Gorman
Why women in Seoul, South Korea are choosing work over motherhood
Poster
The reasons why there is a dramatic decrease in birth rates in the city of Seoul using quotes from an annotated bibliography I developed to show the Women’s responses as to why they choose to not have children. It will go over the initiatives the government tried to implement to encourage people to have children and my new understanding of motherhood and how customs and expectations can make it much harder than it ever has to be.

Moises Guerra
The Shorebeast
Poem
I take the perspective of a man’s idealization of what a woman is, or what the character in this poem believes the woman he is with and I ask the man to deconstruct why it is he feels that way. At first, he takes a defensive stance with some mild name calling.

Lucy Hillebrand
The Duality of [Wo]Man
Violin duet
This violin duet represents the growth and development of girls and boys to women and men, and contrasts their different societal experiences and expectations. The duet is organized into movements that share the same titles as the chapters in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. In the woman’s part, there is a recurring motif that is later found in the men’s part to show the common experience of girls being forced to grow up faster than their male counterparts. During childhood, the men’s part is lively—chaotic, even—while the woman’s part is calmer and more subdued, showing the contrasting expectations of boys and girls. Project includes paper sheet music and audio recording.

Cora Holden
Untitled
Multiple journal entries, drawings, and other pieces of physical evidence arranged as a larger art piece
Multiple journal entries detailing my experience socially detransitioning, how it felt to adjust to life as a woman at 16, and how it felt adjusting to being perceived in an entirely different way when I lack 5 years of experience.

Tatum Inda
Anxiety amongst student-athletes
Poster
My poster uses quotes, images, and personal experiences to further produce a greater understanding of how anxiety affects student-athletes. My goal in creating this poster was for people to not only see student-athletes as high achievers and role models, celebrated for their dedication and skill but to see and understand the reality they face. The immense pressure to perform, manage academic responsibilities, and cope with stress and anxiety. To hear and see the disconnect between societal perception and their actual experiences can lead to mental health challenges that are frequently overlooked.

Ameleah Jackson
Postpartum Depression and Psychosis; The Effects, The Neglect, The Struggle Of Women
Zine
Inspired by the book Kim-Jiyoung, Born in 1982, I decided to create a zine with information about Postpartum Depression and Psychosis. My project consists of research and information from multiple different resources to get a better understanding of the struggles and horrors of these disorders. They go overlooked not only because they aren’t as common as other disorders or diseases, but also because they are stigmatized, demonized even. The affected are ignored because, since they are more commonly women, they are expected to push forward and care for the child as a mother. That is what society expects of them. These disorders have such an influence on the families that they affect, and I believe it’s important to share this information with as many people as possible so that we can find better ways to address it. I want to bring attention to the people, the women, that struggle with this disorder, and help encourage people to find ways to prevent it.

Naomi Jovaag
Jane Doe
Song
My project is a song written about the idea that men have trouble understanding a woman’s perspective and experiences until something in a similar vein happens to them or someone they care about. The song argues that this is unfair and frustrating for women, although there isn’t much of a conclusion made on how to fix it. The song is titled Jane Doe, a reference to how many people feel comfortable distancing themselves from tragic incidents by dehumanizing the victim in their mind. The lyrics tell the story of a nameless ignorant man who is used to ignoring sexist/violent situations that he hears about, until he is faced with a loved one encountering one of those incidents and is forced to confront the feelings it brings up.

Kalea Joy
The Sexism of American Law: Created and Sustained
Photo collage
An image created from other photos (over two dozen), collaged and edited together to create a visual. The image is of Lady Liberty, holding the scales of justice and a man easily drinking out of one of the scales, whereas because he tipped the scales to bring the cup to his lips, the water on the woman’s side falls out and she’s trying to catch what she can. This created image is a visual representing the way our legal system was built with embedded sexism, and how the laws are written and practiced to perpetuate sexism. In my research, I found that US law, and the UK law that American law was based on, has always been written to afford men rights and protections, ones that were not intended for women at the time, and not extended the same to women now. The practice of law is also partial to men in how it’s practiced and applied to them, how the verdict of an appeal is made, and what defenses work.

Sonya Larson
The Difference
Collage/poster
This project is a collage depicting the difference between the experiences of mothers and fathers. It shows how others perceive them and the unequal treatment that they receive despite participating in the same tasks.

Theia Lilja
My Mother’s Dress
Short story
This short story addresses themes of gender norms, childhood innocence, and heteronormativity by narrating the relationship between a boy and girl at two different ages in their lives. The first part describes their fascination with a dress when they’re both seven years old, and showcases how, at such a young age, gender norms don’t yet influence their actions nor their close platonic relationship. The second part takes place ten years later and details their experience after going on a date together, with the girl wearing the dress they had both admired when they were younger. It explores how gender norms, sexualization of women, and heteronormativity have warped their relationship from a friendship into a failed and disappointing romantic relationship. The entire story is narrated by the girl, with an emphasis on her experience of the effects of gender norms. But it is also meant to show the humanity in both of them and how the many different aspects of a relationship can spur many different conflicting emotions.

Erin Maloney
Stigma
Poem
Within my poem I look at the stigma around mental health and see where that is rooted. I’m wondering why people are so critical of mental health struggles. Could that be rooted in self insecurity? Why is there such a lack of empathy around mental health and where does that stem from? How can mental health be destigmatized and is it considered “too woke”?

Alex Morrow and Eric Obi
Born 1982
Ceramic sculpture
Our project attempts to explore certain themes present in Kim Jiyoung’s Born 1982. The woman in our sculpture represents how women were supposed to look in the 1950s. The briefcase at her side represents how women have been treated poorly in the workforce, and her hand on top of her head stands for how women’s mental health is affected by sexism. Also, the kitchen set stands for the negative ways we stereotype women, and how a lot of women are still depicted as just housewives today.

Chidinma Oguejiofor and Cymbeline Xiong
Untitled
Music and Sculpture
The music composition will follow the slow descent of Kim Jiyoung’s mental state as she realizes that the world had set her at a disadvantage for being born a woman. It will convey themes of normalcy and confusion transitioning into anxiety. Finally, it will dissolve into a frightened, scattered mania that carries motifs from earlier in the music, replicating how Kim Jiyoung transformed into different women from her past. The sculpture may portray how some women often feel in the face of an unfair society.

Amelia Potter
Untitled
Painting
Painting of three wolves attacking men. One of the men aims a gun at the wolves. Women are frequently depicted as crazy, irrational and unfair when they push back against misogynistic mores. In this painting the women are as described: beasts!

Leander Pottinger
An Overlooked Plea
Contemporary Art
A small artifact with a message written on it, discarded, as well as a short background story on the object.

Cynthia Propsom
To Do List
Fake to do list
It is an imaginary to do list of a mother and husband with every of the many tasks checked off except for the one item she asked her husband to do. The amount and diversity of tasks as well as a drawing done by her kid represents the multitude of expectations placed upon a woman as she goes through life. The specific tasks and notes allude to these different expectations.

Bethany Provost
Underrepresented women in overrepresented fields
Poem
A poem in my perspective as a female cashier whose coworker cashiers are almost all female, and when they move up they move to customer service. I want to move on to the floor (Stocking and or price correcting). I am not a social person and I would rather do a job where I can move around on my feet a lot. I even considered maintenance where I would have to load things into people’s cars. It is a seemingly insignificant issue that is often overlooked as not an issue. 99% of my coworkers on the register are women and I rarely see female coworkers working in other fields at my job. It’s also evidently clear that minimum wage jobs usually go to youth (Teenagers) and to women. The “better” and “more desired” fields in minimum wage jobs will normally go to men.

Jason Reyes-Antonio
Learned generational consequences
Video
This short video will explore how actions or policies that seemed beneficial at the time have led to lasting harm across generations. This video will analyze a case where well-intended efforts resulted in unintended negative consequences. Or just interview people for a seeming good that did bad for them throughout their lives.

Eli Ruiz-Martinez
In my skin
Drawing
My personal art piece portrays some events correlated to what happened in the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and also some heavy topics/things women specifically have to go through in their everyday lives. In the piece, you are able to see a young woman looking at herself through a broken mirror with personalities she has tried to portray throughout her years (BPD) sort of like how Kim Jiyoung does in the book. There will also be heavy steam/fog in the background which means all the misogyny, double standards, and the privilege men had over women.

Genevieve Somor
How Do Misogyny and Fashion intertwine Throughout History?
Poster
I made this poster to show how fashion has historically connected to misogyny. The poster discusses how fashion has played a significant role in the feminist movement throughout history and touches on the fashion industry’s misogynistic background and undertones. This topic relates to the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 because it talks about the sexism women face for trying to express themselves, specifically through fashion. This is seen in the school uniform experience that is told in the book. My goal is to shed light on the importance of self-expression and fashion. I would also like to highlight the discrimination women face when trying to accomplish this. I was inspired to create this poster after reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, and realizing how the patriarchy affects women’s everyday lives even when it comes down to something as little as the clothes they wear.

Caleb Spangler and Scarlet Wellens
Untitled female experience
Short Film
A compilation of short skits in film that display the different sexist experiences women face in the workplace and how it affects them. It is related to born 1982 because this project intends to discuss specific but common experiences which is also an intention in Kim Jiyoung, born 1982. The argument of this project is that workplace discrimination is common but also damaging.

Julia West, Bailey Wirth, Izabella Stringer, Sophie Ipsen and Josephine Mueller
What inspirations can the 4B movement draw from other feminist movements to be more impactful regarding women’s rights?
Argumentative slideshow presentation
In this team slideshow presentation, we compare the 4B movement in South Korea with other feminist movements. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 illustrates the problems that the 4B movement wants to solve. We go into the history of 4B and how it spread to America, and then we look at the #MeToo and #Time’sUp movements to see how 4B could be more effective. We conclude that to be more impactful, the 4B movement should be more inclusive of Queer people and raise money for victims.

Iris Luckey Winters
Efficiency of the 4B movement
Poster
Poster about the efficiency of the 4B movement in fighting against patriarchy. Is the 4B movement effective in pushing back against the South Korean patriarchal systems? Will it be consistent over the course of the coming years?

Liliyana Zuniga
Gender Roles Instilled in Kids
Creative writing
This is a short story on how gender roles affect kids at a young age and how they are instilled in kids even if it is unintentional.

Zev Goldman, Pacey Gevers, and Jayden Chiu
Choose-your-own-adventure Project
Computer Simulation
This Choose-your-own-adventure project displays the systemic misogyny and obstacles many women face in South Korean society, inspired by the story of Kim Jiyoung, born 1982. As your character goes through life, you will see that it is very difficult to achieve what they are fully capable of. They all experience many stereotypes and societal expectations throughout the story. As your character goes throughout life and into their career, they often have to make great sacrifices in their personal lives, having to face the difficult decision of family and career, just like how Kim Jiyoung found herself trapped in this problem. In the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Kim Jiyoung experiences these challenges firsthand. Our project aims to expose the issues of social inequality. No matter which decision you make, you will likely end up facing a lot of obstacles when it comes to living your life to the fullest as a woman in South Korean society.

Sasha Mickevicius, Scarlett Brown, and Claire Allen
Recorded Skit
Video Recording
This skit is set in the larger context of a system of misogyny taking place in Louisiana, one of the most profound places to experience the discrimination against women, since the 1700’s. In recent years, the state itself has passed some of the harshest abortion bans towards women, even before the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade. Louisiana is still considered one of the worst states for women in the United States, due to its large gender pay gap, high domestic violence, and low political representation. Even today, prejudice towards women is still highly demonstrated, embedded with misogynistic themes. This skit was written not only as a disapproval of misogyny, but to prove that patterns in a patriarchal system are difficult to break. Each action a family member takes, whether physical or psychological, can change the future, from one generation, to the next. One phrase, one word, can change everything. This Skit is inspired by the progression of Kim Jiyoung, and based off of the book: Kim Jiyoung: Born in 1982, Written by Cho Nam-ju. The play is set out to show Charlotte progressing throughout her childhood, developing misogynistic views of women because of what her own mother taught her. This is similar to Jiyoung, who also grew up with misogynistic views of women, but did not adopt them as heavily as Charlotte does.

Nathan Schwoerer and Kieran Collins
Original Composition
Sound Recording
This composition parallels Kim Jiyoung’s life from early childhood to marriage. Jiyoung is represented as the violin desperately trying to succeed. Society is represented as the bassoon having control of the tempo and the flow of the music, just like how it has control of the lives of people in this world. The theme that is largely represented in our music is the fight against society for women at this time in South Korea. Many times in the composition the basson’s chords are intentionally dissident with the violin’s melodies. The dissonance represents the way women are forced to change to “fit in” to society and that society will change for no one. The different sections of this piece represent the phases of Jiyoung’s life highlighting her key memories and experiences.

Seth Barnes
Silence is strength
Audio essay
My project uses a mix of a song and a script to display the disparities between men and women in society, specifically in Kim Ji-young, Born 1982. I describe the feelings of the main character in the novel, which helps the audience understand how difficult it is to be a woman in our society. Although this book is fiction, it can be applied to daily life through music as well as my own voice. I also took the most important quotes from my audio recording and related them to quotes within the book. I found that most of the ideas I thought were important came from disparities between the treatment of men and women.

Joey Cardenas and Mikail Schlegel
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1984: The Game
Board Game
Our project uses a board game reference to put together a timeline of events of Jiyoung’s life. The main thing to notice in this timeline is that it is not a straight line. It goes up, down, and spirals. This is in reference to how Jiyoung’s life is portrayed in the book with all the struggles she has had to endure for her whole life. The project also uses cards that the player selects based on which tile they land on. The player must read out the card which describes the scene on the tile. This description is intended to leave a feeling of discomfort and awareness.

Nicholas Ertl
Korean Blues
Red and Blue Gel Pen Drawing/Watercolor painting
This drawing represents Jiyoung’s situation as being both a person with aspirations, and her societal position as a woman in South Korea. Within this piece, the color red symbolizes femininity and her future plans. I chose this because red, and other warm colors, are often stereotyped towards women. The moon in the top right corner represents femininity and is connected to the Korean symbol Yin. The flower and the two butterflies are also symbolically connected to femininity, freedom, and family. In contrast, the blue represents masculinity and the suppression of Jiyoung’s ambitions, blue often being associated with males. The moon is filled and shines like the sun, a symbol of male principle vitality connected to the Yang symbol in Korean culture. The butterflies are locked inside blue cages and the woman’s mouth is covered by a blue hand. All of these symbols embody the way women are treated throughout the novel. Additionally, in the top left corner of the drawing, there is a woman walking with a blue streetlight behind her, a reference to the bus-stop scene in the novel’s chapter, “Adolescence: 1995-2000.” Similarly, in the bottom right corner, there is a woman walking a blue baby stroller. This is connected back to Jiyoung’s life as a mother, and the culture of having children in Korea. Overall, this piece encapsulates the contrasting worlds of male and female depicted in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Mitchell Henry and Mack Langerman
Shifting a Male’s Perspective on Women’s Social Justice
Statistical Analysis Project
While reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, we were exposed to a few social justice issues that women face globally. Kim Jiyoung’s experience growing up in a society that undervalued the roles of women inspired us to look into institutions in which gender roles take precedence; whether it be in school systems, the workplace, or even motherhood. Because we were moved by the concrete examples of injustice that Kim Jiyoung offers, we wanted to test how reading the novel made an impact on other male students’ awareness of these issues. By creating a survey in which male students were asked to indicate whether or not they believed an injustice was prevalent globally, we were able to run a statistical analysis of the results which led us to a conclusion with 99.9% certainty, that reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 correlates to male students being more conscious of the injustices that women face globally.

David Horning and Marco Brand
Through A Mother’s Eyes
Poster Presentation
Our project utilizes a colorful poster presentation to explore the complex and often difficult experiences of womanhood as depicted in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. By combining key quotes from the novel with real testimonies from mothers, we aim to highlight the universal struggles women face in a patriarchal society. We chose this approach because we wanted to gather experiences from first-hand sources to better understand women’s challenges due to our intrinsic lack of knowledge as men. Through the voices of both fictional and real women, we examine themes of identity, societal expectations, gender roles, and the emotional/physical labor inherent in motherhood.

Luke Josetti and Luka Boban
Unequal Paths
Website and Playable Simulation
This project seeks to study the effect of gender bias in the workforce. Kim Jiyoung struggled to find a suitable job due to a bias against her as she applied to jobs she wanted. Utilizing Java programming, we gathered data on the effect that different levels of bias have on a worker’s ability to succeed, specifically the ability to make money, in the workforce. Using this data gives us a good understanding of how even small levels of bias have major impacts. The interactive simulation is available to play at our station.

Mikael Martensson
Two Judges, One Woman
Graphic-Designed Poster
My project uses a poster to convey society’s judgment of mothers. The work is inspired by a scene in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 in which young men judge Jiyoung, sitting in a park with her children and coffee, for being a stay-at-home mother. Others, however, would judge her for working while she has children at home. This conflict is an example of how women are constantly judged, no matter the decisions they make. Traditional Korean art is defined by simplicity, mild lines and colors, and a focus on nature. This piece has been designed in that style. Two men look at Jiyoung, silently judging her. The poster shows how many women in Korean culture may feel pulled in both directions, a theme also discussed in the novel.

Cormac Moloney
The Cyclical Nature of Laws, Traditions, and Values
Literary Analysis Essay
My project used the medium of a literary analysis paper to dissect the gender inequities that Kim Jiyoung experiences. The project is rooted in a question Kim Jiyoung posed to herself: “Do laws and institutions change values or do values drive laws and institutions?” (Cho 120). This question puzzled me for a long period of time, but through using the experiences of Kim Jiyoung and relating them to past events and feminist movements in South Korean society, I concluded that these past events and movements were related through a cycle of laws, traditions, and values surrounding gender norms. This cycle has changed and continues to change the way that South Korean society is shaped, especially pertaining to the increasing push for gender equity in the past ten to twenty years.

Vidal Ojeda and Angel Herrera-Briones
Dialogues of Motherhood
Personal Interview Podcast
Our project includes personal interviews to collect a deep experience on motherhood for two women. These audio recordings are edited and made into a podcast. We conducted interviews because many people are unaware of the struggles that pregnant women or mothers face on a daily basis. An important part of the podcast is the maternity leave situation in the United States. Mrs. Katy Gutierrez speaks on the issue and we see in the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, how maternity leave is nonexistent. In the novel, Kim Jiyoung states that “She spotted a pregnant woman in the company dining hall and asked the people at her table how long the company’s maternity leave was, and none of the five, including one of the department head, knew the answer because none of them had ever seen an employee go on maternity leave” (Cho 85). Trying to convey the reality that Angel’s mother could potentially live, this podcast is used to raise awareness. Due to Angel having a pregnant mother, his perspective and conscience has expanded. Throughout reading this novel, Angel’s mother transitioned from her first trimester of the pregnancy to her second. Angel is witnessing the struggles of a pregnant mother locally. He chose to express his concern to his partner, Vidal. In Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, we see how a pregnant mother is constantly struggling and lacks help. We see her become a mother and suffer even more. We focus on the mental health of women and not be limited to the struggles but the upsides as well.

Nickolas Orton
Murder Mystery: Parallels between Maternal Life in USA and Korea
Digital Murder Board
This project critically analyzes the life of women in both the United States, according to statistics, and South Korea, according to the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. This project highlights ostracism and prejudice against women as pervasive problems. Recognizing this reality, men around the world are called to resolve this systemic issue by practicing solidarity and unity with all, especially in the areas of workplace relations and boundaries, prejudice against mothers, and sexual relations and boundaries. Although challenging due to contemporary male behavior norms such as disrespect and pride, universal solidarity can be achieved through the realization of human dignity, forming loving, fruitful relationships, which foster respect for strangers and the vulnerable, and the promotion of justice for victims of assault and prejudice.

Andy Sanchez, Dawson Mueller, Sebastian Munoz
Jiyoung’s Journey
Marker and colored pencil drawings
Our project highlights each chapter’s important aspect with a drawing and description of an important event. We also included a Post-it with a question to prompt responses from our viewers. We brainstormed this idea before we started and thought it was the best option for us. Throughout each scene we chose, we thought of something meaningful to discuss, especially topics like sexism and gender roles. We decided to add the questions for the viewers to leave their thoughts on the topics we spoke about. We believed that everyone’s thoughts should be heard, and this could lead to something greater. This project was made to highlight the life of Kim Jiyoung. We feel like this project exposes the struggles an average woman living in Korea can go through. Our project, Jiyoung’s Journey, is a way of displaying what a woman can go through in different stages of life, and the questions are a way of seeing what others think of her situation.

Nathan Sanders and Daniel Astorga
The Burden
Sculpture
Our project depicts the universal struggles that women face every day. The quotes leading up to the main focus of our project are meant to represent the reality women face as they live in patriarchal societies and deal with discrimination and prejudice. The novel is based on the harsh reality that Kim Jiyoung and other women in South Korea and around the world face every day. These harsh realities include many of these women being burdened with unrealistic standards, discrimination in the workplace, and treatment as second-class citizens. Women like Kim Jiyoung need to fight twice as hard as anyone else to even be given the same opportunities as their male counterparts, and even that is not enough sometimes. However, amidst these struggles, women are still able to persevere and fight their way through. A major way they do this is by lifting each other up. Kim Jiyoung’s relationship with her sister is an important aspect throughout the entirety of the novel. We used clay sculptures to represent how women pick each other up amidst the discriminatory system and practices that seek to keep them down. The platform these clay sculptures sit on is uneven and bumpy, symbolizing the unjust and unfair society that Korean women and women across the world are forced into. We surrounded the main focus of our piece with the quote we felt best represented the good that can be found in an unjust society. Through our piece, we aim to spark conversations about the ongoing fight for equality and the importance of standing together amidst conflict.

Alexander Santana-Cruz
Two in a Bus
Paper, Pencil Drawing
The main source of inspiration for this piece is the bus scene when Jiyoung found refuge in an older woman as the school boy followed Jiyoung. In the events leading up to the bus scene, Jiyoung fears being alone with the boy. The willingness to help and console Jiyoung, despite her lack of complete clarity from the older woman, exemplifies the hope Jiyoung felt when simply being with the older woman. My intent with the work is to entirely focus on Jiyoung and the older woman most proactively with the implied light surrounding them, and a gradient centered around Jiyoung and the older woman of light and clarity, which changes to the outer edges of the piece being darker and blurry.

Diego Serrano, Ryan Wisniewski, Michael Nolan, Liam Merz
The Dangers of Male Assumptions
Film Skit with reflection
Our project is a reenactment of the bus scene in Cho Nam-Joo’s novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. The video’s purpose is to highlight how male assumptions can make women uncomfortable. The bus scene in particular connects very well to social media apps today such as Snapchat and Instagram: too often men assume what a female wants, needs, or believes. Our group chose to reenact this individual scene with an all-male cast specifically to shed light to other males that this issue isn’t known only by women, pushing the idea that men can be more conscious about their assumptions. Assumptions today have become increasingly common through the ease of social media such as harassing women on Instagram or messaging them in an uncomfortable way on Snapchat, so our hope is to promote more conscientiousness in all men.

Leo Sparks
Problems with Society
Essay
In my essay on Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982, I describe the parallels between my mother and Kim Jiyoung. While doing this, I uncover problems within our society and I discuss how we can fix those problems effectively. The two large problems that I focus on are double standards women face and unfair gender roles. I parallel these issues to when my mom had to become a stay-at-home mom as well as when the psychiatric specialist says that he should hire someone who is not married. Most importantly I describe an effective way that we can tackle these problems. I talked about how we should target our youth and get rid of the problem before it even becomes one. I related this to Kim Jiyoung’s stories of when she was a child as proof for this solution.

Robert Wilson
The Weight On Her Shoulders
Sculpture, Stone, Acrylic paint, fabric
This project uses runes carved into stones to represent Kim Jiyoung’s different struggles throughout the novel. In addition, the stones being placed on the shoulders of a woman’s suit jacket physically represent the weight of these burdens on her shoulders. Each stone has two different runes inscribed on their side which were selected to symbolically represent many of the core struggles of her life in all of her roles.

Alyssa Anderson
Why She Won’t She Speak?
Painting
A 16”x20” canvas of a woman with hands covering around her whole body. The woman in the painting is supposed to represent women who have experience sexual harassment and the hands represents response they get when women open up about it.

Storm Astor Findley
Please don’t hurt me
Collage/painting
A collage and painting representing psychosis, how scary and uncertain it is to be in an episode of psychosis where you can’t trust your own senses or mind, and how “normal” people don’t understand psychosis and dehumanize those who struggle with it.

Mohamed Adi Bin Abdul Gaffur
The loss of the firstborn daughter
Southeast-Asia, and especially Korea had issues with first born daughters being aborted far more than boys, I wanted to show the angst of the mother more in this so I used a pinkish-red color, as red is a very angsty color. I also drew an ultrasound with the shaky hand of the mother reaching out. I also tried to show what others would say to the mother through text, using blue for the husband then red for the mother’s response, and then the purple being others/family while the black was the inner thought. A blueish fog is sort of rising too but it is also dyed the reddish hue as well to show thoughts being clouded by the hyper focus of the Ultrasound machine.

Dot Hamelin Garcia
unspoken struggles
I wanted to target issues through abstract art meshed with unabract art there are multiple issues that I point out within this art piece such as self harm, eating disorders, and suicide. Trauma is a shared experience that I want people to say me too in silence and understand that they aren’t alone and that someone in that very room might have a similar experience this project goes to the people with unspoken struggles in Korea that are often overlooked or demonized.

Analysse Krueger
Man is a Dog
Collage
The collage represents the discomfort and victimization women and girls encounter from men daily. It depicts the depravity of how men justify the treatment of women, the labels that determine what makes them worthy of love, and the predatory behavior that is often dismissed. It symbolizes purity.

Ash Lawton
Women in the Home
Women tend to do a lot of housework and cooking because of gender norms in our society. Men often overlook this work as easy or simply “a woman’s job,” without helping out or even appreciating the work that women do. My piece aims to demonstrate what the common gender norm for a woman is, and how it impacts a household.

Belle Marks
Violence against women
Dance
This project focuses on the pain and struggles women have to endure in their everyday lives, especially at the hands of men. For this project, I chose to create a contemporary dance to the song “Labor” by Paris Paloma. This song speaks of how women are treated within a society, and how women have to be everything all at once whether that’s being a mom or being a caretaker for their husbands. With this dance, I used a lot of emotion to complement the music. Using very powerful movements like exploding jumps, but then having contrast by using smaller gestures to have moments of slowness and thought.

Melody Marks
Violence Doesn’t Discriminate
While creating this curation, I researched 2 different pieces that show violence against women is not just a women’s issue but a societal one. No matter who you are, you can be impacted by domestic violence. The poem I chose depicts what it is like to be a woman in this society, scared to walk home alone at night , a crushing fear that women don’t deserve. Through this curation I want to convey that it is on us all to fight this horrible cycle of abuse for the young women growing up in our world. It is up to us to teach and make young boys understand that women are not less than them or just objects but that they are just as human as they are.

Joy Petty
Great Grandma’s Wisdom
Interview
I directed an interview with my great-grandmother, Helen Guyotn. While reading Kim Jiyoung, it reminded me of my great-grandmother’s story. I believe that her story should be shared amongst you all.

Madeline Elizabeth Schafer
Chained Tiger
Painting
This is a Minhwa style painting, which is Korean folk painting. I chose to draw a tiger which is the national animal of Korea, chained down. This represents that in Korea’s current state, without uplifting all citizens, they are stuck. It mixes traditional culture and current topics to show that if they want to thrive and uplift their traditional values as a country, they still must adhere to modern ideals.

Cecilia Schulte
30 Line 11:34 P.M
Collage
My project is a photo collage of a female model, with messy and ugly makeup on her face, and rustled hair. It is late at night, she is all alone at a bus stop in the city, and she is very distorted and stressed. These photos are meant to visually represent the hardships and horrors that many women are forced to face in day to day situations, such as waiting at a bus stop, which most likely would be a regular or relatively safe thing for a man. but to a women this can be very dangerous and scary. Such as stalking, abduction, or sexual or physical assault can all occur at any bus stops, especially when a woman is unoccupied late at night.

Mbacké Seck
The Two Koreas
Collage
A collage of drawings depicting elements and objects that represent the culture of North and South Korea. The original founder, Dangun, in the middle with a taegeuk to show unity. Right side shows the North Korean side near the DMZ, a soldier present to the side.

Paphatsorn Tiffany Senethavisouk
First Baby
Sculpture
My project is of clay figures representing the ideals of mothers favoring sons. With a heavily pregnant woman kneeling and cradling her stomach, she is ignoring her needy daughter who tugs at her for attention. The wooden box they are in is supposed to add in to this like a memory of something important. The paper flowers decorated are yellow carnation flowers meaning rejection and disappointment–thus hinting the mothers feelings towards her daughter. There is a paper attachment in Korean and translated in English of a small writing connecting with the project.

Mae Ger Yaw Soe
Fragments Reunited
This project is a piece I compose to address the issues of losing yourself. More specifically, the journey of losing your personality or who you truly are. We probably all have experience the feeling of hopelessness, and that emotion most likely is cause by not know what to do anymore, or how to continue from somewhere. This piece also encompass the journey to rediscovering yourself again. Reaching peace and unity with yourself.

Brooklyn Thompson
The Woman’s Plight
Painting
This piece, an acrylic painting on an 8” by 12” canvas, was created in order to depict the suffering and injustice that the female population face daily, specifically focused on sexual violence, harassment, and abuse.

Angel Tomow
My Identity (written by a man)
Painting
My project is a painting that represents the male gaze on women’s life and how it often overshadows the actual experience of women’s lives. I chose to create a painting of the psychiatrist who was treating Jiyoung and who ended up being the story’s narrator writing in her file about her. In the background of the painting you can see the psychiatrist’s wife in the background working on her son’s math books, which the psychiatrist put her down for. The painting shows how Jiyoung’s life being written by a man, especially a man who has such negative views on women, takes away from her perspective and her identity.

Larianna Ward
To Give Means to Lose
I created this piece in order to represent how the women of Korea are expected to give. As a woman, you give your body, as a mother you give your time, as a sister you give your best, as a daughter you give your all. No matter the conditions, you give what you have even if it means you’ll have nothing. It’s been written in history and engraved into our minds. No matter the cracks, no matter the holes, as a woman you’re made to give. But maybe we can learn to fill our own cup every once in a while.

Leila Bilty and Bryce Vogt
Expectations
Stop Motion Video
The content of our project will be a short video depicting the different gender roles and expectations portrayed in the text. We will be using Legos to help portray the different examples to have a better and more clever understanding for some images and portrayals we have in mind.

Quame Borges, Athren Thao, Jowell Negron
Fragmented mind
Large paper mache head fractured with puzzle pieces in Seoul Korea
Our project is a resemblance of the main character Kim Jiyoung in which her head is covered in disconnected puzzle pieces. The head is meant to represent Kim Jiyoung’s mind which relates to themes of identity fragmentation, psychological strain, and dissociation evident in the novel. The fragmented puzzle pieces on her head shows Jiyoung’s struggle with identity and the sadness she experiences.

Aryanna Boyd, Malia Prentice
Fractured Reflection
Mirror Mosaic
Our project is a mosaic made of mirrors of Kim Jiyoung’s face. We have assembled Kim Jiyoung’s face in broken mirror fragments to symbolize the struggles in her life. Kim Jiyoung has no authority over her own life, nor can she voice her own opinions. She begins to have episodes in which she mimics the personalities of the people around her. They speak for her, because she hardly possesses a voice of her own. These episodes demonstrate that Kim Jiyoung has lost her sense of identity. The broken mirror shards illustrate her fractured sense of self.

Alyza Cruickshank, Mckenleigh King, Miya Valdez
Kimopoly
Monopoly board game
The board game is based on Kim Jiyoung’s life and the events that happened throughout the book. There are fate and penalty cards included that represent the jailbreak for the game. The bottom base is the front cover of the Kim Jiyoung book to give it that imagery. There will be money involved that will be played throughout the game representing the win or lose statements, for example, the chest and community chest card will determine whether you get money or money taken away. There will be properties based on the situations kim jiyoung was put through where you can also use money to buy. With the properties, you will have the chance to upgrade them (putting a book on those properties) depending on how many of the properties you have. There will be community chest, and chance cards to make the game more fun and interesting. There will be pieces for each player that represents a person or object that was named in the book.

Andrew Domena, Martir Slade, and Bodie Weeks
Variations on a Korean Folk Song
Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, and Trombone trio musical performance
The Korean folk song “Arirang” was written referring to the tragedy of one woman and her unrequited lover and her rejection from society. The performance is a transcription of the original tune, in which each passage in the piece symbolizes a fragment of Kim Jiyoung’s mental state and emotions throughout the text. Each quote represents a section of the piece.

Malik Fall
The question
Video questionnaire game
In the job interview simulation, you will be asked a series of questions that you will be pushing a button to respond to. However, your responses will not matter and you will be declined for the job no matter what you say. During Kim Jiyoung’s adult life she interviewed for many jobs but was declined for being a woman—let’s see how you do?

Rebekah Geier, Spencer Hensersky
Untitled
Shadow Box Diorama
Our project is meant to examine the way that gender norms are different in various societies. The first box on top is painted blue to represent the “man’s world.” They have less of the stairs to climb and easier things to do. The bottom box is pink to represent the “woman’s world.” The pink box has all of the norms for women and all of the norms for men. The staircase for the women’s world is longer and less nice than the man’s world. This is to show it is harder to come up to the men’s world as a woman.

Kaliel Godinez, London Holman, Trinity White, Miguel Quiroz
TAL (Through All Longing)
Diorama
Our project is TAL (Through All Longing). The name has two meanings, one being the acronym, and the other being the name of traditional masks worn in South Korea. It will be a diagram in which you open up masks on top of a foam head that represent the people she impersonated throughout the story. Behind the masks we will write a comparison between what those people had and what Jiyoung longed for. This represents the theme of women longing for a better, more independent life that is seen throughout the book.

Dayana Griggs
Makeup
A human statue (of the neck up) and a photo collage
My project, “Makeup,” is a human statue of Kim Jiyoung from the neck up and with the use of quotes and images within her statue, I am conveying the everlasting impact of various events throughout Jiyoung’s life that shaped her as a person, especially with her mental illness. This includes scenes from her elementary years at school, her bus ride home from cram school, and her experiences as an adult in college and after college.

Desiree Griggs
Anything but Human
Clay model of (shoulders up of Kim Jiyoung)
My project illustrates a woman, Kim Jiyoung, surrounded by derogatory terms that were directed at her, such as “momroach,” among others. The clay model depicts a woman with bright red lipstick, symbolizing how the men who engage with her do not see her as an equal. Instead, they perceive her as a woman, lesser than, which leads to a predetermined set of roles and standards she is expected to fulfill, because they do not view women in the same light they view men. I chose this theme for my project because, while reading the book, I felt that the men viewed her as an object with a specific purpose rather than as a human being capable of making her own choices and pursuing her desires.

Elsa Hendricks
Untitled
Snow globe
I created a snow globe depicting the park in which Kim Jiyoung walks through after she had to quit her job. I aimed to show a contrast between the office buildings and her role as a mother. This symbolizes the societal pressure for women to be home makers and sacrifice their professional aspirations.

Sarah Kuglitsch
Impossible weight of expectation
Balance Scale
The project is a depiction of the many contradicting expectations that Kim Jiyoung faces, represented by a balance scale that is impossible to center. Ideally, this scale will represent the mental toll that others’ endless opinions have on women in situations like Kim Jiyoung, where it’s impossible to please everyone.

Shayth Masri and Chase Nickel
A Mother’s Sacrifice
Three Piece Agamograph
Our piece is a comparative literary analysis of the sacrifices mothers must make for their children, which often go unmatched by the father. We make use of scenes from: Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982; 1984; and Their Eyes Were Watching God. As you walk by, the image will shift, illustrating their separate but similar struggles.

Aisling Meksyphet, Johanna Mondragon-Guzman
Fragments of Memories
Stained glass/diorama
Our project shows how the misogyny that Kim Jiyoung experienced throughout her life affected her later on through stained glass depictions of critical moments in her life. The posterboard the stained glass is displayed on is decorated to look like important locations in Jiyoung’s life.

Isabella Padilla
One way mirror
Diorama
For my project I want to incorporate the mental state that Kim Jiyoung found herself in. Kim Jiyoung is standing in a room of mirrors, and in every mirror there would be a reflection of the personalities that she took on, and there would be reflections of her younger self and some events that altered her life. Then on the outside of the mirrors it is decorated like a brain to represent her; this is all overwhelming her brain. Not only that, but outside her brain are visible spots representing the sickness she was showing. By those spots, there is her husband and herself again, not trying to heal the spots, but she is trying to cover them up.

Mikayla Patterson, Nahvi Williams, Kalyssa Decleence
One Way Mirror
Diorama
Our project is showing the reality of Kim Jiyoung’s mental illness and the weight that postpartum depression puts on mothers through their daily lives.

Geraldine Pavon-Contreras, Yazmin Calles, Elian Villanueva, Annaliah Espinosa
Masks of Society
Personalized wooden nesting dolls
Our project is aimed to represent the many characters KJY has to be in order to simply find a place in society compared to her husband and the liberty he has.

Reid Possing, Owen Karpinsky, Daniel Hackbarth
Kim Jiyoung: Choose Your Own Adventure
Short film, video game style
Our project is a video game style short film that analyzes the different paths that the story of Kim Jiyoung could have taken. The specific scene we have chosen is the scene where a schoolboy throws Jiyoung’s shoe up to the front of the room. The viewer will have the option to choose their own path (eg. Stand up for yourself, remain quiet). This will analyze the effects of different choices that Jiyoung could have made, with each new viewing having the possibility of being different than the last one.

Mason Prentice and Marcia Olson
Untitled
Scrapbook of parental relationships with their kids
We are creating a scrapbook to depict the differences between fatherly and motherly relationships with their children and how they affect the child. We will find pictures online to fill the book to depict the stereotypical fatherly and motherly relationships with their children based off gender that is present in the book. We will also use images from the film adaptation.

Pamela Roman
Kim Jiyoung Mind Box
Mixed-media sculpture
I made an open box that silhouettes Kim Jiyoung’s face, and inside are all the key moments that shaped/impacted Kim Jiyoung. I found this to be the best way to represent her thoughts and life circumstances because you can open the box and see everything she hides behind. This project is kind of meant to reflect Jiyoung’s life, from when she was a child to her life now as an adult.

Izabelle Stasiewicz, Mackenzie Ekstein
Untitled
Paper Mache sculpture
We have created a sculpture that depicts Kim Jiyoung in “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” showing the challenges she faces while being a new mother and having many titles that are applied to her in daily life. We have a sculpture of her bodice and stuff coming out of the head, words and titles that have been given to her that revolve and spin around her as a woman, daughter, and mom. We have mirror tiles that create a feeling of being trapped and having no way to escape.

Mayouel Viviano and Jeylian Vazquez
Untitled
Watercolor and oil pastel painting
In the painting, a woman (unidentified) is naked, attempting to cover herself up. She is hiding from the multiple eyes staring down right at her. Our goal is to show everyone the feeling of vulnerability and objectification which women feel within our society, just like how Kim Jiyoung was within the book.

Jaydon Weber, Haven Branderhorst, Arturius Perry, Dwight Ward
Untitled
Painted money in picture frames
Our project is about giving a visual representation to the wage gap between men and women shown in Kim Jiyoung born 1982.

Corinna White, Timothy Clinton, Tornell Thomas
Oran-ge
Shadow box with hand puppeteering the marionette inside
The focus of our project is to show that Kim Jiyoung was not able to be her own person. It shows how her life is constantly being controlled by other people and elements in her life.

Caitlyn Witczak and Marlee Mindt
Multiples of her
Sculpture/diorama project
We are making a small diorama with mini figures to represent the various responsibilities of Kim Jiyoung. We also have three statues that have misogynistic and derogatory terms and phrases written on them, which represents how women are treated in society. Lastly, we have masks with quotes from the book written on them. They can be worn and individuals may use a mirror to see themselves with the masks and phrases on them. This represents the different masks and personas Kim Jiyoung must put on in order to keep the peace in her family.

Zeena Yang and Danilyn Neddle
Untitled
Clay piece – noodle bowl
Our project is a visual about the inequality between men and women in KJY.

Emily Zambrano M, Melanie Perez, Vina Yang
The View
Agamograph Art
Our project is about how society views females and males and how they should expect from the opposite gender should behave/act.

Bryce Berg
Kim JiYoung essay
Literary essay
I wrote an essay that describes the certain acts of misogyny in Kim Jiyoung born in 1982. Some of these include dismissing the actions of women and ignoring the harm against them. These affect Kim Jiyoung and her peers and lead to several problems, including Kim Jiyoung’s declining mental state. Lastly I explained that this story is about more than Kim Jiyoung and was about women’s problems in South Korea and in the world.

Isabella Cayo
The Existence Between
Wheel Pottery
My project is a play on the pattern of life predominantly in South Korea, shown contrasted between the two genders. Throughout the book it seems that Kim Jiyoung faces an overwhelming amount of obstacles especially in her adult life, while Daeyung faces little to no large ‘bumps.’ The asymmetrical shape expresses the difference between the two purely based on gender. Based on the book this simplified piece acts as a common experience, and the overall structure of the piece is a teacup set, showing the overall expectation – no matter the culture – to be proper. Starting at the bottom, it’s smooth then bumpy to illustrate the growth everyone goes through starting from childhood to adulthood. My piece has profuse symbolism, and can be interpreted in various ways.

Norah Crossen and Kalia Klein
Kim Jiyoung Born 1982: Analysis of gender, patriarchal system, and identity
Document analysis slideshow with visual representation
This project represents the social struggles of women in South Korea, showing the hardships through a slideshow and representation visually.

Adrianah Duell and Natalie Kuranz
Cracking Under Pressure
Acrylic painting
Our project is an acrylic painting that represents the struggles women go through in their own families and how gender roles are reflected in families. We made the boys side of the family photo put together and calm, while the girls side is messy and chaotic. The crack in the glass symbolizes how women are meant to always be put together and be strong mothers, when in reality, they often crack under pressure.

Kaitlyn Geib
What lies within
Canvas Painting
On this canvas is Kim Jiyoung, tired and overworked, with some pressures such as taking care of the house and her child, being treated unfairly when it comes to maternity leave, economic issues, in-laws pressuring for a baby boy and being judged when in public. These pressures are in a dark cloud only she can see. Kim Jiyoung is underappreciated in her life and has been taken for granted with all she does. She can’t escape these pressures from her past and present, it’s affecting her everyday and no one else can see them.

Gianna Hamel
Times are different
A photo art project with silhouettes of the families
My project shows Kim Jiyoung as a child with her family and then as an adult with her husband and daughter, it shows the pressure on Kim Jiyoung as she got older by having her younger side be bright with happy pictures and her adult side be dark with sadder pictures.

Brielle Herritz
A Woman’s View: 5 Poems (“To be a Woman” “Guilt” “The Beginning” “The Figure” “Over-Mama-Bearingly Alone”)
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is an extremely emotional book. I utilized poetry to explore the intricate feelings displayed throughout the text. Pursuing this exploration, I wrote 5 poems from Jiyoung’s point of view on womanhood and the difficulties that come with motherhood.

Owen Hinthorn
Cooking and Baking of Bulgogi and Red Bean Buns
Korean Culinary Video
I decided to cook Korean food because in the book and movie almost all the important conversations happen during a meal. I used two recipes found online from traditional Korean chefs. I found most of my ingredients at a local Asian supermarket and cooked at home with the help of another classmate. The food was delicious and opened my eyes to a new world.

MJ Hurlburt
Pressure
Musical Composition
My project is a musical composition that blends together themes of identity and social class expectations that are present throughout the book. Using legato, smooth rhythms to interpret identity and using fast accelerando rhythms to represent social class expectations and pressure, defining the mood of the piece that may resonate differently with everyone who hears it. Additionally, there are many changes of mood in different sections of the piece that reflect on how Kim Jiyoung is feeling until a climactic moment in the piece where all of the expectations and Kim Jiyoung ‘burst.’ While the song reflects the book, the end of my musical composition is more optimistic than the book reflecting how things can be better for Kim Jiyoung and women everywhere. Thank you for listening to my project! I hope you like it!

Gisele Huschka-Castro
Birthday Boy
Acrylic Painting
This project is acrylic on poster board. It features a boy looking down at a slice of birthday cake with a candle illuminating the piece. The original sketch of this painting had rows of famous Korean women behind the boy but while painting, the artist decided they were too tedious and would take attention away from the birthday boy so they were painted over.

Alexa Jaeb
The voices used to voice feelings
Painting
My project uses painting to show the different emotions and different voices Kim Jiyoung voices. I thought of the idea of how she uses different people to voice her opinion. The different colors for the backgrounds are portraying the emotions she feels when using the different voices. In the middle is young Kim Jiyoung, I chose to pick younger her over adult her because she had a lot of traumatic experiences when she was younger that impacted her future and that’s the start of her mental issues.

Eliott Kutz
Untitled
Pencil Drawing
My drawing focuses on injustices Korean women face throughout their lives within society generally, and school, work, and home, specifically. I wanted to juxtapose the Taegeuk – this symbolic idea of equality – with Kim Jiyoung’s experiences, suggesting that the Taegeuk doesn’t seem to accurately represent what it claims to be.

Bindiya Larson
The Face of An Imposter
Quilling Project
My project uses the art of quilling to express how Kim Jiyoung felt while dealing with postpartum depression in the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. My project also uses colors and shapes to showcase the kind of person Kim Jiyoung’s family expected her to be during her childhood and into adulthood.

Aly Mortensen
Crossroads
Acrylic Painting
This painting shows a woman dressed in business clothing standing at a crossroads. However all of the paths but one have been blocked off. The blocked off paths are meant to symbolize the limited options South Korean women face when it comes to their life and how the culture pushes them into motherhood and starting a family. The paths that are blocked off are supposed to look overgrown but are still there to represent how women still do take different paths in life. Another idea behind the painting is it symbolizes how many choices are made for women throughout the book.

Julia Neitzel
Inequality of Octaves
Flute Solo
This composition comprises sections discussing the themes Kim Ji Young experiences in the novel Kim Ji Young born 1982. Gender inequality and social pressures are prominent in Soul South Korea and Kim Jiyoung’s life. This song follows Ji-young’s life starting with a feeling of optimism, which turns to a darker life growing up enduring the hardships of gender inequality. The implementation of octaves throughout the piece represents the pressures and reactions Jiyoung faces, turning into a battle between gender inequality and fulfillment within her life.

Jack Oliver
Male Power in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Literary Analysis Essay
My essay analyses many of the ways that men hold power and how the patriarchy is ingrained in South Korea’s culture. Using quotes from throughout the book, I explored the ways that men have taken power away from women and how women have been taught to submit to the patriarchy and any abuse that they encounter.

Hallie Osman
The Troubles of Motherhood
Watercolor painting
In Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, we talk about the mother, but we don’t take a deep dive on what she needs to do and what she wants to do. My painting shows that she is chained between what she needs to do, which is being a mother, and what she wants to do, which is going back to work. Motherhood has chained her down because she is never herself, and instead of feeling whole, she feels trapped. This happens because women are expected to do everything, to do it all with no help. And she can’t say anything because others will make her feel like a bad mom for feeling trapped in motherhood. I chose to create this painting because it shows how Kim Jiyoung has changed in motherhood and how she wants to pick between what she wants to do and what she needs to do.

Jay Phelan
The Impact Of Sexism On Mental Health in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Literary Analysis Essay
My essay gives the point of view of 3 female characters and dives into their perspectives and experiences with sexism, showing where sexism impacts people, the workplace, school, and at home. I use multiple quotes to give readers examples of how women’s mental health declines when they experience sexism for long periods of time. I use Kim Ji Young’s life and analyze her experiences with sexism and how her health has slowly gotten worse and worse with the things she loses from being forced into societal standards for women.

Dillon Reynolds and Brannock Stewart
The Gender Inequalities Women Face in South Korea
Research Essay
Our project is an essay researching how the inequalities women face in South Korea affect different aspects of life and how they have changed since the release of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. We found many pieces of evidence that supported our idea that gender inequalities not only affect women but also the entire country in many different ways, such as the economy and education.

Ilyas Said and Rocket Ramig
Unseen struggles
Interactive board game experience
Our project is a board game set in South Korea. It focuses mainly on the discrimination and unfair treatment of women in the workplace.

Maddie Simonis
Themes of Kim Ji-young’s story
Literary Analysis Presentation
My project identifies the themes of the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, and how they connect back to Kim Jiyoung specifically. It includes a summary, quotes from the book, and my analysis and interpretation.

Rory Steffens
Start Here
Four poems/multi-genre project
The poems in my project guide everyone through four main stages of Jiyoung’s life: childhood, education, career, and motherhood. Through black out, free verse, two-voice, and cinquain poems, we can see the ways social pressure, though different in the progressing stages, negatively affects Jiyoung in the same way as she grows up, and how it shapes her as a person.

Ellie Stodola
Gender Inequalities
Painting
My project uses art to illustrate the gap between genders and the sexist gender norms that we see throughout the book Kim Jiyoung, Born in 1982. Throughout the book, Kim Jiyoung experiences discrimination because of her gender. In their culture, women are viewed as “less” than men, and they have certain responsibilities, such as being a mother, cooking, cleaning, etc. In my painting, I show how a woman’s path is so much more difficult than a man’s, especially in South Korea.

Sophia Surdyk
Ambition
Painting
My painting uses the character Kim Jiyoung to represent women in South Korea. I painted her in business attire to show how women across South Korea often give up their ambitions regarding their careers to raise families. I used a specific quote from the novel to illustrate the thoughts that went through Kim Jiyoung’s mind as she weighs the pros and cons of having a child.

Jack Toycen
Inside Outside
Pencil Drawing
My drawing showcases what Kim Jiyoung dealt with throughout her life and the struggles she endured, as well as the struggles any woman can experience throughout her life. Through this book, I also learned how much all of that can affect a person’s mental state.

Michael Wahe
Photo Representations in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Photo Essay
I decided to do a photo essay because I thought that it would be the best way to represent my interpretation of the story. I love to do photography and thought that it would fit my strengths by selecting to do a photo essay. I tried to specifically use symbolism to represent the gender imbalance and JiYoung’s feeling of isolation.

Josephine Wilson
Gendered Expectations and Women in Korea
Research Essay
My project is an essay that details the world South Korean women live in because of the established gender roles in their country. It’s a deep dive on the world Kim Jiyoung lives in and has a more detailed view on what and why she had to go through what she did. Each paragraph focuses on a different aspect of their lives – work, home, and advocacy – that is affected by the gendered expectations of their country.

Annie Wolf
Gender Inequality Stairs
3D Sculpture
For my expression of the message I took from the novel, I chose to make a 3D sculpture. The sculpture is made out of cardboard, paper, and paint. It depicts a set of stairs that lead up to a “final” point that symbolizes fulfillment, happiness, or achievement. The man’s side looks like a normal set of stairs, even, and easily climbed. However, the women’s side is steep and hard to climb. This symbolizes how women face many more obstacles than men when trying to get to “the top.” In the book, Daehyun gets a supportive job right away, is never asked to leave it, and has no problem making his way “up the stairs.” Jiyoung on the other hand struggles to find jobs, is expected to leave her job to have a family and raise the child, and faces sexism in her workplace. Another aspect of the sculpture is the fact that the man starts climbing the stairs before the women. As seen in the book, companies choose to hire men before women because women are expected to leave for maternity leave, and that causes disruption and inconveniences for the workplace. Overall the sculpture is meant to convey that women in South Korea struggle to achieve the same things as men because of the biases and connotations being a woman carries.

Aedan Ard
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: A Psychological Analysis
Essay
I intend to research and analyze the experiences of Kim Jiyoung and how it is depicted that she is affected by these experiences. I will do research on my own and explain directly how these experiences may have affected her psychologically.

Shawn Ard
Born In Misogyny
Essay
In my essay, I used the examples in the book to show how men are raised as the superior gender. Not only that, the women are raised to believe this is the case as well. If boys are raised first and girls second, why would anyone question the normalized misogyny in society?

Isabella Brandt
How Do People’s Genders Affect Their Opinion on Certain Scenarios?
Display Board
I asked 3 boys and 3 girls a series of the same questions about 3 scenes, each one having misogynistic tones. I asked each person how they felt about each scene.

Logan Callaway
How has sexism changed over time?
Display Board
This project explores how sexism has changed over time. It highlights the struggles faced by women in South Korea during the 1980s and compares them to issues women face today. Through a timeline, comparisons, and real quotes from the book, the project shows that while progress has been made, many forms of gender inequality still exist. The goal is to raise awareness and encourage continued change.

Spencer Cernicka
The Walls That Hide Between Us
Essay
The multi-page essay focuses on the recurring themes of isolation in the book. Even when people are together they can still be far apart with walls in between them due to cultural beliefs.

Abby Christensen
The Effects of Psychological and Emotional Abuse on Decision-Making Skills
Display Board
This project uses evidence from the text to show the long-term effects that psychological and emotional abuse has on a person’s decision-making skills. Using a list of incidents compiled from the book, this project compares Kim Jiyoung’s actions and decisions to the symptoms of a person who has been a victim of one of these forms of abuse. This project uses the results of this comparison to evaluate how many of Jiyoung’s decisions can be related in some way to the psychological and emotional abuse she has experienced throughout her life.

Taylor Freitag
Workplace Equality: Comparing the United States to South Korea
Essay
Comparing statistics about workplaces between the US and South Korea. I use the information from the book and go into more detail of similarities and differences here and there.

Marcus Good
Challenges Korean Women Face
Song and Slideshow
My project is a song that is a summary of the book, but I had pulled away from the book slightly to also be more inclusive to all Korean women and the issues they deal with. The slideshow explains what the music is expressing.

Daniella Haynes
Aren’t We All Kim Jiyoung
Artwork
This project is an interpretation of the book because it dives into who Kim Jiyoung was, who she was supposed to be, and who she wanted to be. We hear a lot about who she was, or what she did, but we never hear from her of who she is. The project relates the readers to the main character. I think we can all relate to Kim Jiyoung and get lost in who we are supposed to be and what we want to be. At the end of the day, aren’t we all Kim Jiyoung?

Delilah Hedden
Gender Inequality Worldwide
Display Board
How does Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, show the mistreatment of women, and how are these issues similar to those faced by women all around the world? My project compares how the gender inequality faced in the book is similar to problems women feel around the world, discussing how it’s not just a problem in the book, but in real life—everywhere.

Ava Kiesling, Hannah Hunkins, & Liza Kovalev
Who is Kim Jiyoung To Us
Display Board
It shows who Kim Jiyoung is to us and people around the world.

Dayton Oens
Why is misogyny considered okay in Korea?
Essay
I wanted to know why Jiyoung experienced so much sexism and why people were just letting it happen. Since it is a societal problem, I wrote about the things that led to Korea’s views on men and women. I went this route because the sexism stood out and really surprised me. To me, she was treated terribly and everyone was letting it happen. There are many parts in the book where men do something to her that they would probably end up going to court for here.

Halee Schultz
Women vs. Men in Korea
Essay
My essay is about what it is like, in both current times and during Jiyoung’s life in the book, to be a woman in Korea. It uses both statistics and quotes from the book.

Leen Alnejaimi, Yazan Alnejaimi
Cultural Patriarchy
Acrylic Painting
Our project compares different cultural interpretations of the patriarchy. Looking at the patriarchy through a South Korean lens, we began to question how gender discrimination looks different in different cultures. Our painting depicts the gratuitous freedom of a man as he overpowers his wife in the streets of Saudi Arabia. We then move to a school in South Korea as described in our text, where preference is given to males in the lunch line at the school and finally, to the United States as a man and a woman on separate elevators race to the top, only for the woman to hit the “glass ceiling.” Our project asks: “Is the whole world unjust?”

Eli Burns
Societal Inequalities for Women in Korea
Typed Paper
My project focuses on inequalities women face within Korean culture, which hold back their talents, aspirations, and societal status. These themes are brought out in Cho Nam-Joo’s book, Born 1982. I reference these inequities by using various quotes designed to provide evidence of inequality for women. I chose to write a paper, which allows me to reconnect with portions of the book that struck me as wrong and unjust. It is my belief that we all need to speak up when we see people mistreated and held down. My aim is to raise the level of understanding and not take our lives for granted. Hopefully, whoever reads my paper will carry this sensitivity with them and make positive changes for themselves and others.

Penelope Butler, Donyea Beamon, Selena Gonzales
Uneven
Scales of Justice Game
Our group has created a replication of the Scales of Justice. The intention is to replicate the constant injustice in the patriarchal society. The male side of the scale is heavier than the female side to indicate the oppression women face in the patriarchy. Additionally, our group has created a simulation game for people to try, with a set of headphones, a moving track and weights. The player will place the headphones on their head and the weights on their wrists. From there, participants are instructed to follow a set list of instructions. Completing tasks such as folding clothes, changing a diaper, putting ‘away’ dishes, doing business work, etc. The headphones play a copious amount of noise, children talking, babies crying, bosses giving orders, etc. At first all while trying to finish the given tasks, the track moves slowly, but the longer you do the tasks, the faster the track moves, increasing expectations and stress levels are the result.

Zigana Gagliardi
Postpartum Downward Spiral
Acrylic Painting on Canvas
My painting is based off of the first chapter, which takes place during the current time of her postpartum depression. However, I have incorporated factors and events throughout her life through symbolism. I am using cool toned colors and darker themes, giving the feel of the weight Jiyoung carries with her.

Thomas Ganther
Inequality Revelation
Video
My video editing project is about how I relate and identify toward the book. For example, a quote I found in the book, “Jiyoung explained to the best of her ability how she felt. She was anxious as to whether she’d be able to keep her career after having a baby… Daehyun listened attentively and nodded at appropriate moments.” (p.123) This quote shows how the actions of Daehyun, JiYoung’s husband, shows the possible disintegration of patriarchal beliefs as generations progress. Lots of men are sexist, and show discrimination against women. From the side of a woman, it can be very traumatic and scary. I explore whether the patriarchy is caused by personalities, or societal influences.

Caroline Garvin & Mae van den Kieboom
Memories of Imbalance
Collage
Our project on Cho Nam-Yoo’s Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 is based on multiple elements from the book. Our goal was to tie together shaping moments from the characters’ lives into one collage. This collage represents three categories. The background represents the area she lived in, the silhouette represents Kim Ji Young’s character, and the inside of the silhouette represents key moments in her life. One thing we noticed while reading was how many events happened that led to Kim Jiyoung’s state of mind. From her early childhood, to her adulthood, Kim had experienced many struggles both internally and externally. While there was not one certain event that caused her to have such internal struggles, and conflicts with her identity, we found that there were instead many contributing factors. We will give background on two events that are included, but leave the rest up to the people seeing our project. The first piece we included was the first time we saw Kim Jiyoung starting to impersonate others. She started to act as her dead friend, Seungyeon. Kim spoke to her husband, mentioning when she (acting as Seungyeon) confessed her feelings to him in their university’s athletics field. The athletics field was one thing we chose to include in our project, as a representation to the first glimpse readers get of her struggles. Another very significant piece from our project is the background, a map of where Kim Jiyoung was raised. This map was first introduced to the story by Kim’s mother. As the story progressed, it kept evolving, with Kim’s mother using it as a way to encourage her daughters that they can get out of the environment they were raised in. This is very important to the development of the story, and helps to provide a sense of hope, in what seemed to be a hopeless situation for Kim. While there are many other elements from the story in our project, we thought that it would be important for anyone who views our project to be able to pick out what stood out to them. Since we chose to do a connecting piece for our project by tying in significant details from the book, we also wanted it to be a way for people seeing our project to connect those elements to their own lives.

Aeron Guy
Everywoman
Art Project/Multimedia on Canvas
Kim Jiyoung is described by the author as a millennial ‘everywoman’; I decided to take that idea and use it to fuel my project. What does it mean to be an ‘everywoman’ in a misogynistic society? I used an array of mediums to portray the chaos that can come with being a woman in this society. A controlled chaos, to portray the need for women to be calm, collected, never break down, step out of line, or show any signs of mental instability. I used scraps of images from fashion and beauty magazines as the background, to show what society thinks a woman should be, while the main focus of the piece is a woman that isn’t any of these things. A broken mirror for a face, a shattered sense of self. Eyes that arent her own, watching her, staring at her, ogling her. Her hands are covered in blood, showing the pain she goes through that most don’t see. Is this what it takes to be an ‘everywoman’?

James Harris
Just Beyond Reach
Multimedia/Sculpture
My project uses a three dimensional model, which includes a wooden figure representing women in Korean society, who are faced with gender limitations through the representation of a ‘glass ceiling’. Plexiglass is used as an impenetrable barrier for women in Korean society. Rested, just beyond reach are notes of possible aspirations, which rarely materialize for Kim Jiyoung. This is further expanded when one comes to realize that this ‘glass ceiling’ is not limited to Korea or even just women but many parts of society face this. My project offers viewers the opportunity to reflect on the damage caused by ‘glass ceilings’ in hopes they will pair understanding with agency. We, in our own society, should aspire to understand and act to empower everyone.

James Hudy, Billy Meir
DIH
Clay Sculpture
Our project connects to the societal inequities for Korean women in Cho Nam-Yoo’s book, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. It shows how societal pressures prevent women from advancing in society while they face “glass ceilings” imposed by societal norms. Our project is a sculpture made of clay, which depicts a woman breaking through the glass ceiling towards equality, societal advancement, and pursuit of their dreams.

Maya Loshak, Zofia Mrozinski, Gray Hruska, Adrian Esposito
Boxed
Mixed Media Piece
Our project uses the elements of mixed media to portray emotions and challenges that are expressed in the book “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.” Using quotes, words, and ideas from the book, we have created an art piece to help the readers visualize the “box” women are put into by society. The words and phrases scattered on the outside of the piece help to visualize how the weight of misogyny confines women and that it surrounds you everywhere you go. These are things that women deal with on a day to day basis whether they’re younger or older, or like some of us, students.

Walter Richard, Alijah Newton
Kim Jiyoung Doomed
Poster Board/Story Board
We used the game Minecraft to explain our thoughts about Cho Nam-Yoo’s novel, Kim Jiyoung Born 1982. The visuals we chose from the book take place in Chapter 2. We made statues of the characters in the book that we think are very important to take a closer look at. The statues we built are Kim Jiyoung, her sister Kim Eunyoung, and her mother Oh Misook. We chose to highlight the scene about how her mom aborted a baby girl. We based the look of the statues and what the statues are doing based on what we think the book symbolizes. It symbolizes the inequality between men and women in a lot of countries in Asia.

Henry Tissot
Depression Through Misogyny
A Written Piece
My project is an essay focusing on depression that sprouts from misogyny and oppression. I explore themes of inequality and influence on mental health through direct examples and quotes from Cho Nam-Yoo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Trauma spans multiple generations and it affects the sense of Kim Jiyoung’s self-worth and aspirations. Removing opportunities for a large group of people, namely women, puts a strain on society by blocking generations of talent and perpetuates inequality. I encourage readers to gain insight into emotional struggles, which destroy lives and mental health. Speaking about it may be adequate, but acting against it is even more powerful to rid society of future emotional scarring.

Alexis Ames
Windows into Womanhood: Scenes from Kim Jiyoung Born 1982
Oil and Acrylic on Canvas
This series of 7 oil and acrylic paintings tries to encapsulate some of the key experiences Kim shares with her therapist. Through color, detail, and statistics the artist tried to mirror some of the emotions which the original piece drew out for her. In these blank faced paintings the importance of seeing yourself reflected in these works is similar to the reflections the artist found within the book. The “every woman” that Kim represents is captured within each of these pieces.

Will Cavezza
Standing Alone
Creative Writing
After reading the novel Kim Jiyoung, I was filled with fear. But around me, I didn’t feel that buzz, that silence that washes over a group when they experience the initial shock of something terrifying. I realized that in their eyes, this was still fiction, not something that happens to people they know, something that happens, or will happen, to them. As such, I wrote two poems to put the reader into the mindset of textual interpretation, and then wrote a first person horror story. My intention with the story was to make the fear of losing yourself tangible, to show that bending to society’s will and becoming a perfect wife and mother is like that of drowning and losing the fundamental aspect of yourself. I also Americanized it to a certain extent, because I fear some of the lack of understanding came from cultural differences—I felt they needed to know that this can and will happen to them.

Laurel Fox
Escapism
Multimedia Sculpture
I have created a multimedia sculpture that includes symbols representing how the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam Joo is a breakthrough in exposing the unseen struggles of womanhood. She is reaching out, like how the author, Cho Nam Joo, is by writing Jiyoung’s story. She is trying to escape the literal part of the text, and show this story exists outside of fictional literature. She purposely doesn’t have hands, because hands often represent control, which Jiyoung doesn’t have in her life. The man on the side is holding the book closed, showing how the book is narrated by and therefore, filtered through a man. He is trying to keep her in, not letting the world see the emotion behind her story. There is a ring on the side, signifying the binding effect marriage can have, and how marriage can sometimes hold a woman back and keep her confined. The baby and the lock show that in many women’s lives, the child is the final constraint to hold a woman back from becoming more than just a mother, and more than society expects her to be.

Nya Furlong
Just Another Empty Face
Sculpture
This piece is heavily inspired by the empty face on the book cover of Kim Jiyoung Born in 1982. Kim Jiyoung represents every South Korean woman of her time, and even now people continue to experience the stereotypes and other struggles she went through as they grow up. That is why this sculpture’s features are blurred into her face, representing every overlooked woman who isn’t allowed to have thoughts, feelings, or a personality of her own. Swirled into her face are these hidden emotions of red anger and blue sadness she feels towards this position she is stuck in. This anger and sadness that she holds because women like her are forced to hide these feelings. That’s when she becomes just another empty face.

Sam Lepage
Kim Jiyoung – Character and Musicality
Musical Composition
My project utilizes musical motifs to connect different common traits (power, sexuality, womanhood, etc) to the characters throughout the text. Using specific orderings of the aforementioned traits, each character is displayed by the importance of each motif to their lives, expressions, and experiences in the era of compressed modernity in South Korea. I used Fruity Loops Studio 21 and Flat.io to compose eleven short works, one for each person, highlighting two to four aspects of their character and how they interact with each other.

Brooke Naylor, Rylee Luedtke, Rachel Luedtke
Threads of Traditions
Game
We created this game because throughout the book, we noticed Kim Jiyoung’s relationship with her mom and how it affected her decisions and feelings. Instead of just focusing on how mom and daughter interact with each other, we wanted to dig deeper and discover how society affects mothers’ relationships with their daughters.

Annabelle Omrick and Gabby Cohen
A Woman’s Life
Game
The objective of this game is to demonstrate the many obstacles females must face in their life due to gender stereotypes and patriarchal norms. The female pawn is designed to show more of a struggle and longer time to reach the finish line due to the numerous obstacles that only apply to its own pawn in the game. Our overall goal of this game is to give an example of what life may feel like in the shoes of a female, and to allow someone else to feel it as a reality.

Clara Slowinski
Editorial Pieces
Journalistic Writing
This journalistic project used events in the novel to inspire the articles. Using information conveyed to the therapist, the student created articles utilizing many of the themes of Cho Nam-Joo’s work. The editorial pieces embrace the struggle that Jiyoung and many other South Korean women feel.

Eva Spencer and Lila Grubba
Motherhood
Artwork
Motherhood can be painted in multiple aspects depending on who is asked. We wanted to accentuate how mothers are viewed and often treated. Similar to Kim Jiyoung, our art piece applies an anonymity that can have relevance to anyone it relates to. This drawing is specifically based on the quote “My routine, my career, my dreams, my entire life, my self—I gave it all up to raise our child. And I’ve become vermin. What do I do now” (Cho Nam-Joo). This specific quote helped us create our art piece because we wanted to represent the true animosity some mothers are faced with in a system set up for their failure. The roach highlighted in the drawing is surrounded by men holding insecticide, signifying the often harsh reality of women trying to be successful.

Manny Alvarez, Aidan Hartman, Max Friedrich
Slideshow

Kiyah Brunner, Grace Freimark, Samantha Retelle
Poster
We hope people walk away thinking about how women struggle in everyday life. The project connects to the book because we’re going to compare Jiyoung’s experiences to those of other women using online resources and things we’ve experienced in real life.

Marissa Bustillos, Autumn Kislewski
Papier Mache Sculpture

Adri Clark, Ava Botterman, Zoe Fiser, Olivia Shears
Poster

Maxton Collins, Elizabeth Fuqua, Teja Hilson, June McKinnon
Documentary

Baylee Hirte
Art Piece
I made a oil and charcoal painting of a woman reaching for the stars in a night sky. One theme that I noticed while reading this book is the theme of male superiority. Men are the ones expected to do and have everything, while women are forced to give up their dreams in order to appease to men and their children. This artwork demonstrates how women everywhere are stuck, longing for lives that they only have in their dreams.

Sienna Hyde
Photography
My goal is for people to feel the emotion in the story of frustration and the loss of your spark.

Zita Loiacano, Penya Richards, Ellie Paulsen
Interviews
We made a talk show-esque video where we interviewed multiple female students from North High to talk about their experiences as women and discuss scenes from the book. We read scenes from the book that showed examples of misogyny, analyzed what is wrong with them, and asked for our interviewees’ unique perspectives. With this project we hope to shed light on the unrealistic expectations women face with society, as well as how undervalued women are and how they are expected to carry society’s burdens with a smile.

Ya’Nais Mills, Keeley Ulrich
Family Tree

Lilith Molenaar
Painting

Elizabeth Peterson
Collage

Grey Richards, CJ Moll, Tristan Cotts
Skit
In the story Kim Jiyoung and her friend experience sexism in the workplace, being denied job positions simply because of the fact that she was a woman. Employers complain about how “women don’t work as hard as men,” and hire less-qualified men over Kim and her friend. So we want to replicate this in our skit by reenacting this process, but with the roles reversed, to highlight the stupidity of a patriarchal society.

Landon Schulze, Rylan Nicholas
Trivia Game
We made a dice game to represent the oppressing society towards women that is in South Korea. Our intention was to shock people about the statistics that they were not aware of towards women’s societal value. This relates to all of the chapter in Kim JiYoung where she is undervalued and taken granted of. How the game works is you roll the dice and based on what number you get is that question we ask about statistics of women in South Korea. The longing of women wanting more in their lives is what we are making to give them justice and to represent their trouble not just in South Korea but all around the world.

Mackenzie Stevenson, Reena Deng, Elaina O’Donnell
Painting

Serenity Thao
Monologue
My goal is to inform others on sexism in group projects. What I hope people walk away from this is that they think twice on their words, especially if they work with the opposite sex.

Jalina Xiong
Painting
I hope for people to walk away thinking about mental health and to be more aware of themselves and those around them.

Demetri Yang
Drawing
I hope people will either try to check out my favorite text or walk away with some “sadder” feelings, I hope that none are confused and can see connections of mothers who are deeply broken due to the cruel world they had to bare and bring to light more.

Farhana Amin
Strength of Resistance
Presentation/activity
Feel free to take a colored square and answer the written question below! You can put it into the labeled box once you finish. Feel free to decorate it however you’d like: How can you resist sexism? My project shows resistance and the difference in effectiveness between stages of life. Kim Jiyoung’s life starts off as a blank slate, but even then she’s not free from the societal expectations that bind women. In the start of life, resistance is easy, and it makes a meaningful change with a smaller group. But as she grows up, her world expands; and it’s harder for resistance to make an actual change. The next part of the board represents adolescence, and you can see that even more societal pressures and unfairness is put upon her. And unlike in childhood, it is harder for these acts of resistance to stay, and sometimes they fall. This gets even harder as Jiyoung goes into the workplace. The stakes here are the highest they’ve ever been and the issues are even more intense, and many can have life changing consequences if failed. As Jiyoung gets to motherhood, it is the hardest for her to resist. She is actively playing into societal expectations, and there is no way for her to fight against it. She is truly alone.

Adam Averbeck, Liam Gorski, Owen Schlichting
Societally Accurate Jenga
Board Game
“Frankly, it’s only natural that men remain unaware unless they encounter special circumstances as I have, because men are not the main players…” (Cho 157)
Our project “Societally Accurate Jenga” is a depiction of the inequalities between genders, in the workforce as well as in school. We took a classic game of Jenga and made the harder pieces to pull ‘Female’ pieces, and the easier pieces to pull ‘Male’ pieces. Women will be only allowed to pull the pink (female) pieces and men will be only allowed to pull the blue (male) pieces. This simulates the differences and imbalances between the genders in the real world. On average, it is easier for males to be paid more, and get employed more often.

Reagan Bandelow, Kaitlyn Haack
Meaningless (adj.) having no meaning or significance
Clothing + Mannequin / Clothing Rack
“Why is your cram school so far away? Why do you talk to strangers? Why is your skirt so short?” (Cho 56)
Our project is based on sexual assault and the victim blaming that tends to come with it, more specifically people saying things like “what were you wearing?” We saw this in the book when Kim Jiyoung was taking the bus home from cram school and one of her classmates was harassing her; then when her dad finally got there he was asking her all of these questions insinuating that it was her fault. Our project is about getting people to understand that it’s never the victim’s fault, and it never has to do with what they’re wearing or their actions. The main focus is showing people outfits that victims have worn and telling their stories.

Angad Behl
Born to Fail
Web-based game utilizing on facial recognition
Society, in general, hinders progress for marginalized groups by creating obstacles for a group and then painting the image that the group is naturally inferior. In the case of gender inequality, women in South Korean society are taught from birth to “do with whatever [is] available,” setting a societal norm (15). Later in life, they are given more difficult tasks than their male counterparts in the workplace. If there’s any resistance, it’s frowned upon and quickly dismissed (136). These issues culminate in gender inequality that becomes ingrained in society. By creating a game that paints itself as a test of reaction speed, facial recognition can be used to make the game faster, and hence more difficult, for female participants. The resulting difference in participant rankings can temporarily, and satirically, be portrayed as a natural difference in ability. This, in turn, stimulates the systemic inequality reiterated upon numerous times in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Breana Bilson, Claira Fronczak
The Global Gender Gap
Podcast
“You mean he’s the son.” (Cho 48)
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 comments on a lot of gender stereotypes dealing with domestic chores. For example, Jiyoung’s older sister, Eunyoung, did not want to help her brother with chores, and preparing meals anymore because he was old enough to know how to take care of himself. However, the elders had different views on this situation and thought since he was the youngest he should have dinner served to him first. This led to unfairness in the household, and the sister spoke up on this matter, which sparked our interest in how gender stereotypes work in different households and inspired our mini podcast in which we discuss how gender influences and stereotypes affect household responsibilities. We interview parents, classmates, and professionals, asking them questions about their experiences relating to gender inequality or if they’ve noticed any in their home or in society. Our project also includes a brief survey asking on a scale of 1-10 how respondents feel about certain stereotypes which connects to the questions we asked on the podcast.

Genevieve Blustin, Uzma Mirza
Build-A-Woman™
Interactive Model
“It’s nobody’s business what I do with the money my husband made. Am I stealing from you? I suffered deathly pain having our child. My routine, my career, my dreams, my entire life, myself—I gave it all up to raise our child. And I’ve become a vermin.” (Cho 154)
Our project interactive model, called “Build-A-Woman,” allows people to create a model of a woman with the traits they deem desirable by constructing her from pre-made options for her appearance, personality, occupation, and lifestyle. We were inspired by the expectations placed on women to prioritize family over personal aspirations. Through “Build-A-Woman,” we emphasize how these pressures force women into predefined roles and strip them of individuality. By turning the audience into active participants, the project will highlight how society greatly influences women into what is considered acceptable by showcasing participants’ biases.

Peyton Bowers
Mapping One’s Identity
Map-based data display
“Kim Jiyoung chose the more familiar countries such as the USA, Japan, and China, while Eunyoung chose northern european countries such as Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. When asked why she picked those places, Eunyoung said that she wanted to go someplace with few Koreans. The mother knew what the stickers meant.” (Cho 60–61)
My project was inspired by the scene in Jiyoung’s family’s house with the map due to how it reflects both Jiyoung and Eunyoung’s characteristics as well as how things such as the media, identity, and family can end up shaping one’s decisions. I started construction on this project by finding data and information about some of the locations mentioned in the book that relate to its key topics (gender inequality issues, cultural expectations, etc), taking into consideration how I would want to contrast them to prove a point about this scene in the book. This specific quote in the book reflects Jiyoung because, despite her acknowledging the gender inequality in her culture in the book, she still doesn’t make much physical action on it-which is represented in her desire to travel, but still stay in places with similar culture to South Korea (Japan, China, etc). With Eunyoung, she strongly desires (or at least, desired) to escape the cultural expectations put on her as a younger person and a woman, hence why she wishes to go to a place with “few Koreans.” I chose to represent this idea by displaying information on a map about some of those locations and how they might connect to the theme of gender within Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and considering what positives and negatives some of these places might have-as well as the irony that, despite Eunyoung’s desire to escape her culture’s issues, she still would end up facing other issues. Finally, I decided to include the viewers of my project in the project itself by inviting you to place a point on the map where you yourself might want to move or travel in the future, considering how your identity or background might have influenced that choice. I hope that, by highlighting the idea that identity and characteristics shape critical choices like the ones displayed on this map, I can help people realize that choices should not just be shaped by numbers or statistics, but by yourself as well.

Samreen Chahal
Invisible Labor
Painting
Invisible Labor is a representation of the ignorance towards women’s domestic labor compared to the glamorizing of men’s labor. The silhouettes create an image of an average family with a father, mother, and two young children. The background is complete with differing colors and quotes for each side, which are separated based on gender. Several subtle symbolisms within the artwork create society’s perception for each group’s work and the inequality this ultimately leads to. Although it can be interpreted many ways, the main conclusion is that women’s efforts within the household are overlooked because men’s work is more visible.

Isaac Considine-Buelow
Run Wild
Sculpture
My project is intended to represent resistance and the different forms of it throughout the novel. I wanted to analyze how systems of oppression change the function and success of resistance. It depicts a sculpture of a golden fist bursting out of the dirt and punching through the glass ceiling. Below is a little girl, standing on the words “run wild” as she witnesses this act of resistance. Each portion of this is representative of a trend I derived from the novel. The little girl is Kim Jiyoung, and other Korean girls, being told to run wild, and being inspired as their mothers and idols break the rules holding them in place. The fist is the act of resistance, not daintily and slowly cracking the glass ceiling but shattering it and continuing to surge into the sky. The sculpture itself is constructed largely of trophies, showing the disproportionate level of qualification needed for women to receive the same treatment as men.

Gabbriella Dimas
Two Sides
A sculpture of two cities
“Mr. Jung, with all due respect, I must say my piece.” (Cho 10)
“This says lots of girls are class monitors these days. Over 40 percent!” (“Girls Can Be School Presidents, Too!”)
“The level of income does not change the fact that in MPS females outperform males.” (Kali Pal et al.)
“Two Sides” represents two city models with a more extreme gendered city versus a less gendered city, which is what it would be like if gender-opposing events continued. Research supports Cho’s novel, separating races in some reports, and showing men are still lower in a lot. It shows how gender roles can be opposed from how they were in the book and are more equal. This connects with my project because I am showing what would happen if those quotes/movements continued to reach equality/equity versus not. The city comparison offers some visible aspects for the non extreme gendered city, showing women employed in the city they commute to, no gendered displays/signs. The gendered side has extreme gender policies that are the opposite of this. Overall, the comparison of cities shows gender roles.

Aubrey Epprecht, Sophia Wallace
5 Expectations for Korean Women
Blog
“The world had changed a great deal, but the little rules, contracts, and customs had not, which meant the world hadn’t actually changed at all.” (Cho 119)
Our project “5 Expectations for Korean Women,” is a satirical blog showing the double standard for men and women in Korea. In our project we decided to show the ugly truth about how Korean women are being treated with prejudice, sexism, and otherness in modern society. To do this effectively we wrote this blog as men to showcase the backwards rules and ideals for Korean women. Although our blog is meant to be humorous, the main goal of our project is to point out the ironic expectations men and society have created that are completely unreachable. Throughout the book these expectations are evident as Kim Jiyoung is walking a tightrope, tasked with being a feminist but also being a traditional woman. She has to be a career woman, but of course has to be her daughter’s soul caretaker. She needs to put her brother first, yet not fall behind. Korean women are shackled with generational baggage, bias, and stereotypes and our blog is aimed at highlighting the utter stupidity of these expectations. Our project is formatted with different sections to illustrate different parts of the book and the expectations Jiyoung faces. Overall, this project is our way of showing the gendered norms in the book and the ramifications of trying to fit the societal mold.

Sophia Geis, Madelyn Jahntz, Cayleigh Tabbert
Women These Days — What Have You Got to Whine about?
Sculpture
“Women these days – what have you got to whine about?” (Cho 136)
Our project was inspired by this quotation, which emphasizes the lack of attention men pay towards women and all the hardships they go through, implying that women have no legitimate reason to complain or voice dissatisfaction. We chose to represent this quote by creating a sculpture depicting a woman trapped inside a box, with a man attempting to close it. This representation captures the central struggle of Kim Jiyoung, who battles against the gendered expectations imposed on her by family, society, and workplace. The man represents the constant societal pressure to conform to the traditional roles women hold. The box both literally and metaphorically represents the confines that women experience in our patriarchal world, the tension between expectation and identity. We invite our guests to consider how societal norms impact women’s lives and to reflect on how these norms often go unquestioned. We hope our visual metaphor will deepen the understanding of gender inequality and cultural expectations, preventing them from reaching their full potential, and trapping them within their everyday lives. Our project emphasizes the critical change that needs to take place and the liberation of women from the boxes they are so often forced into.

Sushruth Gowda
The Split
Board Game
According to the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor the percentage of male hirees in South Korea is close to 20% over that of their female counterparts. In Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, Cho uses the workplace experience of Jiyoung to argue that one’s value and standing is predetermined by the beliefs of others. My project, “The Split” is a two player board game, with the board split into two sections, one for each player who fills one of the two roles within the game. Inspired by how the company head “found it more cost-efficient to invest in employees who would last in this work environment. That was the reasoning behind giving the more high-maintenance clients to Jiyoung and Kang Hyesu. It wasn’t their competence; management didn’t want to tire out the prospective long-term male colleagues from the start.” (Cho 111), the two sections of the board are split equally, with both holding the same number of spaces for the players to cross, adding an illusion of equality between the two roles. The use of color is intentional to make the aforementioned illusion apparent to the players, and additionally the choice of color was inspired by colors on a traffic light. One side of the board belongs to a player that is more favored, this side contains more green to represent their freedom. The other side belongs to a player that is more, with this section featuring more red representing a more controlled and restricted experience.

Mackenzie Gruettner, Riley Lecker
Life, The Way It Goes
Board Game
“You just stay out of trouble and get married.” (Cho 93)
We showcase the different ways of life that the genders have and how they are similar yet different from each other, showing the hard parts and stereotypes of male versus female gender roles in society, specifically in South Korean society by revising the board game Life. We demonstrate this by showing the different paths between men and women and their daily roles in life. Depending on the gender of your game piece there will be different opportunities throughout your “life” for each gender. You will get to experience the life choices as if you were living it yourself. This project demonstrates how different life can be if you were born a male versus a female, introducing a wide range of problems and setbacks. One of the main differences is being treated differently in any ordinary circumstance, even just walking on the side of the road. Women are told to “just stay out of trouble and get married.” (Cho 92). On the other hand, a man gets praised for being single or even being married. Basically the men in society get the ground they walk on worshiped just simply for being a man, while women have to work and work and work, for what little praise or freedom they can receive.

Audrey Hernet, Clara Weber
An Interview with Our Made-up Stereotypes on Korea
Interactive Skit
“Mother did not commute to a job like Father did, but was always doing odd jobs on the side that allowed her to make money while doing chores all on her own and looking after three children and an elderly mother-in-law. This was common among mothers in the neighborhood who were more or less in the same situation.” (Cho 20)
In our project we hope to convey the stereotypes on women living in South Korea versus the reality of what it is like by showing a visual representation of what both look like. We laid out questions on a trifold for the viewers to ask us and we will respond in our respective roles as a stereotypical woman and an average woman in Korea. We did research on what Americans thought about South Korea and over half of all respondents thought of South Korea as being all about k-pop: 67.7 percent of respondents also thought of South Korea as only valuing beauty and makeup, so we believed it was a good idea to show that not all stereotypes are correct. Many foreign perspectives on South Korea think it’s all glamorous and fun, but the reality goes much deeper than that. The quote that inspired our project (above) made us realize that so many women in Korea go through things similar to what we learned of in the book and it is very important to let people know about this. Making assumptions is very dangerous, and spreading the word about issues is something we are passionate about and hope to provide in this project.

Megan Hope
Life of a Woman
Poem
“Life of a Woman” is a poem based on Kim Jiyoung’s life and highlights the type of events that most women go through. It starts with a woman being sexually assaulted. She is too scared to speak up and her assaulter walks free. The woman can’t cope with her trauma because she is too busy caring for her husband, children, and other family members. She has to act like nothing’s wrong because she has to be a machine instead of a human being. The woman then has to go back to work in a male dominated setting. The woman just wants to stop feeling like she has to be somebody else and wants to experience equality, regardless of gender. I wanted this poem to reflect not only Jiyoung’s life, but the life of women who are survivors of sexual assault. I also wanted to show how society can change this system of men getting away with crimes against women and how if we just treat everyone with kindness despite who they are, we can be a society with greater equality.

Shaye Hutto
Pretty in Pink
Dollhouse
“Pretty in Pink” is a dollhouse painted with flat colors to represent femininity. Pink, being highly related to femininity, is the main color of the house. There is also a lot of white to represent innocence and purity. The dollhouse itself was a conscious choice of a feminine, childish toy. The overall design was meant to represent the innocence and perfection of an ideal woman, which are often seen as childish or not taken seriously. The outside is partially decorated with bushes below the window, with minimal parts of red on the roses. The simplicity of the painting is very sophisticated and simple. Although, the tiles on the roof are purposefully painted in a careless way, as a way to subtly show imperfection. On the inside of the dollhouse, it was painted black in full. The outside was painted with small, detail brushes, and the inside was painted with big, and messy brushes; also tying into my theme of self-confliction. The inside of the dollhouse is covered in a red splatter paint to represent blood. With the focus being on color, it is a complete contrast to the outside. Black representing death and the unknown, and red representing violence and anger. The house itself is a reflection of Jiyoung’s character as a young woman in the novel. The outside of the house is seen as perfect, feminine, and graceful, whereas the inside is a complete mess. The chaos on the inside is meant to reflect Jiyoung’s personality also being chaotic, with her outward expression not matching up with her true feelings and true self.

Kendall Irwin, Nataliah Okrah, and Chloé Smith
Unveiling Gender Norms
Photo collage
“You always smile when you pass me handouts. Always flirting with your hi’s and goodbyes and now you treat me like a predator?” (Cho 55)
Our collage’s images represent responses from individuals in our school and individuals from around the world about their views and personal experiences of gender norms. We visually represent the range of answers to survey questions and expand on the ideas in Kim-Jiyoung, Born 1982 of how different people view gender norms differently. For instance, many women have similar experiences when it comes to gender equality and norms, while others have vastly different ones. Likewise, some men acknowledge imbalances in treatment of different genders, while others see no problems with the way society is. With our display, we hope to emphasize how the differences in our lives shape our perspectives as individuals just like how the experiences in the novel shaped Kim Jiyoung.

Arjen Karns
World vs. South Korea: Gender Inequality
Tri-fold collage
“This is why we don’t hire women.” She replied, “Women don’t stay because you make it impossible for us to stay.” (Cho 85)
My project, “World vs. South Korea: Gender Inequality,” represents the world, with examples of some of the top countries on the 2024 Gender Gap index and some of the lowest countries on that list. My tri-fold consists of pictures and quotes from articles from around the world demonstrating gender inequality in different countries and the ways that they have economic differences around gender and how their economy favors one side or the other. My motivation for this project is that I want to dive deeper into the gender inequalities around the world, and learn about how different people live their lives and the ways it differs from the people in the book.

Cypress Kuennen, Lena Kuennen
Shifting Perspectives
Agamograph artwork
“The school dress code was strict, especially for girls… No sneakers allowed, only dress shoes. Walking around in just tights and dress shoes in the middle of winter, Jiyoung’s feet got so cold that she wanted to cry. For boys the trouser legs could not be too tight or too loose, but everything else was overlooked.” (Cho 42-43)
Our agamograph painting showcases the different standards between male and female students. We chose this type of artwork because when viewed from one perspective it shows a different scene than if it is viewed from the other. Our project was inspired by the passage about the school dress code, which shows the different standards by placing them in contrast with each other. The scenes are set in the same location, and the people are in the same general area, which was done in order to highlight the disparities in how society views and treats different genders. Kim Jiyoung focused a lot on the differences of how boys and girls are treated, so we decided to pay homage to that with our artwork.

Sophie Lee Lambert
Where Is My Mind
Painting
My project is a painting of a woman holding her brain in her hands above her head, and in her brain is going to be examples of what a Korean mother/woman went through or had to deal with throughout the book. Not only raising a family, working, and being discriminated against for being a woman. The painting is supposed to make you feel the anger, sadness, exhaustion, and it’s supposed to make you realize the importance of mental health. My last part of my project is a big poster board, and I ask everyone how this painting makes them feel so we all can make a piece of art from a piece of art.

Soren Larson, Genna Williams
Who Are You?
Abstract painting with supplemental elements
“That’s like chewing gum someone spat out.” (Cho 79)
In much of Korean society, women are seen as a commodity and after they have been emotionally and/or sexually used, their value goes down, which demonstrates a heavy disdain towards women being able to get out of relationships and getting into new ones. This can be seen when Kim is compared to a thing that has been used and literally spit out. Our claim is that everyone but especially women and others that are not cis men are systematically objectified and oppressed in society, and we have achieved this through a survey in which we ask as many people as possible, from as diverse a group as possible how they believe their gender has affected how people see them, how society sees them, and how they see themselves. This has shown that even if it is beneath the surface, many women and people of gender minorities feel that they have been oppressed by the patriarchy, but also that even cis men feel that they have been harmed by it.

Chloe Lusvardi
Blame
Poem
This poem is a reflection of the experiences of South Korean women like Kim Jiyoung. This provides a critical interpretation of this text by diving into the guilt women feel, especially after being victims of any form of harassment at the hands of men. It is meant to convey the devastating effects that this guilt has on women. Additionally the poem provides alarming statistics about the victims of crime in the US and South Korea, showing the very real issues at play. The entire poem proves that the victims of marginalization suffer the most guilt.

 Evalynn Luttenberger, Kaelyn Oaks
Imperfections of Propaganda
Propaganda Posters
“Do laws and institutions change values, or do values drive laws and institutions?” (Cho 120)
With the constant influx of political ads and the endless flow of bigotry flooding algorithms on social media, this quotation from Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 reflects how propaganda affects moral principles and society. After researching how propaganda can shape people’s opinions and ethics, we decided to create a brick wall filled with posters, meant to represent the propaganda that floods all of our minds and affects the way we think about the world. Most of these posters are vandalized, symbolizing how the truth can be warped to fit certain people’s biases.

Chloe Mellgren
The Fall From Bliss
Sculpture
This project is showing the feeling of familial expectations that pull women and men alike from their dreams. The inspiration for this came from the feeling of drowning, being too far below the surface to breathe. To incorporate this into the sculpture, I tried making it seem like the doll is being dragged back into a family life that they do not want. Unable to escape the life that is expected of them, they are caught in a limbo between chasing their hopes and dreams, and accepting the life previously planned for them. The box is designed to look like a kitchen, and the doll is meant to look like a housewife reaching up and away from the table covered in dishes. This woman is reaching up towards the ceiling as she hangs between a life of servitude and whichever career she wanted most. I personally connect with the idea of needing to plan for a future that may not come due to the constant pressure and continued comments. People near me share how great of a teacher or mother I am going to be in my future. A common occurrence as what I want for my own life comes second to the life they think would suit me best. They do not stop with the suggestions even when I have consistently shown different and shared opposition to having children at all.

Sarah Mrazek
Weaving Woe
Structure made of miscellaneous materials
“Some demeaned it as ‘bumming around at home,’ while others glorified it as ‘work that sustains life’ but none tried to calculate its monetary value.” (Cho 73)
Weaving Woe presents fallacies surrounding gender as intricate but inherently flimsy. By studying the web, one could make connections and see how each belief, event, and misrepresented fact built into a giant trap for society. Humans have gone through many eras and stages throughout history, and as far back as the neolithic age, gender has been prevalent and a defining distinction of people within society and groups. And while the reasons for gender’s universal allure aren’t quite entirely understood, for it is not known how much of this behavior is nature or nurture, these ideas are firmly rooted within our society. Much like a spider web, some parts of sexism or gender narratives are hard to see until an unfortunate someone is caked in these cobwebs that were left to settle in and collect dust. While society has made progress in women’s rights, there is still a lot of division and confusion on what it means to be a man or a woman and resentment can still be felt on both sides. With the rise in the wish for equality, many claim that only by carving out a place for women in more masculine roles and having a career rather than “bumming around at home” is gender equality being realized (73). At the same time, many want to embrace more historically feminine roles and believe domestic labor is “work that sustains life” but either way there still isn’t a consensus for what gender equality looks like or what gender expression should be (73). The web constructed for this project is made of many miscellaneous parts, much like the modern idea of gender equality. Once again, it is hard to see these clusters of spiderwebs decorating common thought, but sure enough, they are abundant and leave their passerthroughs with an unsettling feeling that is very hard to shake.

Brady Ott, Owen Weigandt
A Guide to Gender Inequities and How to Fix It
Guidebook
“The guys weren’t bad at their jobs, but they did handle the easier clients.” (Cho 109)
Kim Ji-young: Born 1982 shows how gender biases made Jiyoung’s job more difficult simply because she is a woman. Our project, A Guide to Gender Inequalities and How to Fix It, is a guide book to help fight gender inequalities in various different aspects of life. Each page focuses on a different aspect of life and how gender inequalities affect women in that field, then the very next page gives advice for how to help fight and eliminate these injustices. The pages are filled with statistics that bring to light the issues that women face in their everyday lives from things like representation in government, issues in education and even things like salaries in sports. The main objective of the book is to educate people about the inequalities that women face and how everyone can help to get rid of the unfairness in the world.

Delaney Rinehart
Abortion: There, Here, & Beyond
Presentation
My presentation is about abortion and societal norms for women described in the book Kim Jiyoung Born 1982, and how they affect everyday life in this current generation. Abortion has been a topic discussed for some time now, and has caused many conflicts throughout the world. The countries used for comparison are South Korea and The United States of America. In the book Kim Ji-Young Born 1982, abortion is something brought up only once, but can be circled back to when discussing gender standards for women in the time period. I used multiple quotes such as “Abortion due to medical problems had been legal for ten years…” (19) and “‘I’m sorry for your loss.’ Thanks to the old lady doctor’s words, Oh Misook was able to avoid losing her mind…Oh Misook fell pregnant again…the boy made it safely into this world” (19). These quotes and other provided context can go to show the gender roles and standards forced on women, even in today’s society, are harsh and mind derailing.

Grace Schellinger
Reflection
Mirrors
“Reflection” is a physical representation of how women and men in South Korea view themselves. As seen on the men’s side, there has been very little said about them, and the things that are said are positive, uplifting messages. In contrast, on the woman’s side, there are many, many quotes filling up the mirror, surrounding her. They are very negative criticisms. They are criticisms about every aspect of her life, the way she dresses, acts, her knowledge, and even some are un-asked words of advice. Women feel oppressed and stuck inside the glass ceiling, and cannot figure out how to escape if comments like this keep happening. By viewing this art, my goal is to show others that how people act towards you, will shape how you view yourself.

Jacob Schneider
Right in the Trash
Interactive Trash Can
My project represents the idea that a person’s rights can and may be denied because they would inconvenience a more privileged demographic. At first glance, my project is an incredibly confusing construction, however after explanation, its message comes off strikingly clear. The interactive process consists of participants jotting down an idea or right they feel should be given to every person, no matter their appearance or background. This note will then be dropped into a suggestion box, suspiciously positioned on top of a trash can. The note will then be “thoroughly considered” by more “prestigious” members of society as it conveniently floats into the trash below. The contraption demonstrates how one’s rights can be so quickly denied by others. In the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, many men in Kim Jiyoung’s society prove this point, notably her psychiatrist, who continued their societies misogynistic prevalence even after hearing Jiyoung’s life experiences and claiming to recognize “a world [he] wasn’t aware of” (Cho 157). This stood out to me and I wanted to create a project representing this topic, as I don’t feel as though anyone should have the ability, nor should they lack the heart, to decline others of their rights because those rights inconvenience themself. My project demonstrates how people’s rights go unrecognized because they would inconvenience the “important” members of society.

Clover Stiefvater
The Women’s Theater
Diorama
My project, The Women’s Theater, is a diorama that illustrates how the societal expectations for motherhood robs women of their careers. The front half of my diorama is a stage, with a depiction of the perfect mother on the stage ‘performing’, while the back half depicts a dressing room in which potential hobbies and careers are left. This is a representation of how the ideal future for a woman is nothing more than a performance for others, instead of a chosen future. This also represents how things that are important to girls, like their hobbies, studies, or jobs, are forced to the sidelines and left to rot if they don’t fit the mold of what’s expected.

Irtasam Umar
Bursting Illusions: A Visual Metaphor of Shattered Dreams
Interactive Metaphor + Presentation
My project here uses balloons to be a representative of how one’s dreams can shatter within a blink of an eye when that person eventually realizes how cruel this world truly is and especially for Kim Jiyoung and the women around her. By using specific quotes and involvement from the audience, I want to make a deep connection with this project for not just to me but to all the people around me because for someone to lose their passion because of a societal norm is absurd and it hurts that person down to the core. Using balloons, hearing that big pop is supposed to represent how the pain would be to someone and just how unfair it is to women.

Kasey Bothe
kim_jiyoung82
Social media account (TikTok)
This TikTok account for Kim Jiyoung is based on American and Korean mothers who post on TikTok. These posts romanticize Kim Jiyoung’s life as a stay-at-home mom. This account ignores the stress and issues Jiyoung has in her daily life. This reflects the social media accounts of stay-at-home moms who try to make their lives seem perfect without addressing the hardships of being a mother. The other main message of my project is the negative comments on Jiyoung’s posts. These comments represent the kind of support or hate Jiyoung receives for being a mother.

Nolan Brown
Emphasis
Mixed Media Artwork
For this piece, I wanted to draw attention to two things at the same time, depending on where the viewer looks. Many of the lines are very thick, which indicates importance. Jiyoung has the thinnest outline, creating an almost uncanny feeling, knowing she should be the center of attention relative to the story. Color can be used to show importance as well. I have chosen a complementary color scheme using red and blue to create contrast. Daehyun is colored in red while the rest of the composition is in blues, including Jiyoung. In the direct center is Daehyun, who also has a highlight from the window behind him that draws attention toward him. All the misdirection of emphasis emulates how women feel in South Korea. The book shows how tradition places the most emphasis on men in their culture.

Elizabeth Jacobson
The Hidden Thoughts of Kim Jiyoung
Poetry Collection
There are five different poems I have written, and each connects to a scene in the book. The scenes discussed in the poems consist of Jiyoung being followed on the bus by a young man; Jiyoung’s career being seen as a joke to others; and Jiyoung “becomes” someone else, which leads to a decline in her mental health. Misook, Jiyoung’s mother, lives through traditional Korean roles. Finally, Eunyoung, Jiyoung’s sister, gives up her dreams and ability to leave her culture and the unfairness it holds. All of the poems travel to a deep and hidden side of what the characters are thinking and feeling. The writing explains the underlying questions that many ask themselves when reading this book.

Bryssa Johnson
A Look In Time
Scrapbook
This scrapbook takes viewers through the journey of three lives, two of whom are very important to me. Looking through my scrapbook, you will notice bold questions with answers underneath them. I created these questions and asked them to my mother and grandmother. I wanted to see what their lives were like growing up, and I took pictures from their lives and added those also. I did this to see how different or similar their lives were from Jiyoung’s. They have some of the same experiences as Jiyoung, but not nearly as extravagant.

Tryggve Korger
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Informational Image Collage
This photo collage genially details some of the reasons for Daehyun’s ignorance. The project focuses on why South Korean culture influences men the way it does and the resulting effect it has on women. It also includes examples of how each category is displayed in either the novel or movie. This project provides a counter viewpoint on the reasons for males’ inexcusable behavior in Korean society.

Addison Portell
The Persecution of Being A Woman
Poetry Collection
Kim Jiyoung went through many hardships growing up in South Korea. All of the difficulties in her life have shaped who she is as a person. Although compliant, she knows how she’s being treated is wrong. My presentation represents different stages of Jiyoung’s life, and how she faces gender discrimination in each. From childhood to motherhood, Jiyoung is constantly judged, scolded, and taught how to act. The poems represent Jiyoung’s thoughts and feelings at that moment.

Mackenzie Scheller
Like My Mother’s Mother
Acrylic Painting
This painting displays how Kim Jiyoung felt under the generational pressure that slowly overcame her throughout the book. The woman represents Kim Jiyoung and all women who face generational pressure to marry and have a child. The bookshelf represents things this woman leaves behind due to marriage and motherhood such as her achievements, activities, and time. It also contains a blank spot for what could have been. On the wall lies a faded degree because now her only job is to be a housewife. There’s a table with two plates and only one is full, to show how this woman puts others’ needs before her own. There’s a broom and rug for things swept aside, such as regrets and worries, as her daughter stands above all. The lighting represents how all her work is shown, but not her face, because she is just another mother.

Kara Skoyen
South Korean Women Behind Closed Doors
Picture Collage and Sculpture
This picture collage and sculpture represent the unjust gender roles in South Korean society. Women, like Jiyoung, are faced with the expectation to give up their dreams to become wives and mothers. Jiyoung abandoned her career in journalism to take care of her husband and daughter. By living up to these societal expectations, women face losing their identity and some experience trauma and mental illness. Jiyoung struggled with postpartum depression and psychosis, which changed her as a person. This picture collage includes photos that represent the sexist responsibilities, lifestyles, and harassment that women face throughout their lives. The sculpture also encapsulates the split mindsets and roles between men and women, with half the sculpture painted pink and the other half painted blue. The main message this project represents is the significant gender inequality and struggles women face throughout their lives, just as Jiyoung did.

Jack Steinke
Silent Echoes
Picture Collage
This interactive collage shows many events where Kim Jiyoung faced various struggles and challenges. For the majority of women living in South Korea, life was extremely unfair. These pictures at first glance might seem normal, but given their context, a lot of these images take on a very dark truth of how South Korean women are treated. I included pictures of events that happened to both Kim Jiyoung and many different Korean women. When the images are clicked, a brief description of their significance is shown. Altogether, these images outline the difficult life Korean women silently face and have to overcome daily. Lastly, my collage has a hidden frayed rope, symbolizing how all of these events caused Kim Jiyoung, and the experiences of many others, to struggle mentally and barely hold on.

Madyson Johnson
A Piece of Her Mind
Mixed media art sculpture
This project includes a mannequin head that symbolizes the thoughts and feelings of Kim Jiyoung, the leading character in the book Kim Jiyoung, Born in 1982. This head is made out of styrofoam and has wires coming out of it. The wires resemble a thought bubble or a brain. There are paper strips that are directly quoted or paraphrased from the book hanging inside the structure on suspension wires. These are the sentiments that Kim is said to have matured with as she journeys into her adult life. Besides this, I have a triangular box with all of the quotes on the sides, and the box contains all the quotes in the wire structure so that every person can read every quote that was told to Kim Jiyoung. The project displays how Kim Jiyoung’s positive and negative thoughts blend to form a single continuous whirl template in her mind. As the novel’s readers know, her emotions are a product of the reality of being a woman in a challenging environment. The paper strips show the exact comments and phrases said to Kim Jiyoung and how the comments usually told to a person tend to stay with them.

Jacqueline Marquis
A Glimpse into the Mind of Kim Jiyoung
3D Interactive Display
My project consists of a wooden box, and within is a clay remake of an ‘exploding skull’ often used to present the anatomical makeup of the human skull. Each fragment is suspended by chains and connected by a magnet. This allows the pieces to be removed from the box and shown off. Behind each fragment is a part of Kim Jiyoung painted. Whether it be her mother, her late friend, or a trauma of hers, it can all be found within her. This project is inspired by all that Kim Jiyoung has gone through. Her instances of Dissociative Identity Disorder are just mere components of who she is mentally, as with anyone else with this disorder, and my project visualizes that this disorder doesn’t define them solely.

Briana Perez
Motherhood Unspoken: Postpartum Realities in “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” and “The Push”
Digital poster print
For my project, I created a poster demonstrating the similarities and differences between the books, “Kim Jiyoung Born 1982” by Cho Nam-ju and “The Push” by Ashley Audrain. I chose to do this for my project in order to explore other women’s experiences of motherhood that society doesn’t talk about. While also proving that what Kim Jiyoung was going through with postpartum depression is a true struggle many women go through. I wanted to show that while women often have postpartum depression, it can look different for everyone. I wanted to show that while symptoms of postpartum depression can vary for everyone, they’re equally important. No woman going through postpartum depression and even postpartum psychosis should feel alone since plenty of women throughout the world are going through the same thing. My poster is a physical representation of comparing and contrasting the books.

Daniella Rodriguez
From Fiction to Reality: Exploring Gender Issues Through Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Poster collage
For my project, I created a collage highlighting the main topics in “Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982,” such as gender inequality, misogyny, and patriarchal aspects, by combining different images, pieces of articles, important news reports, quotes, and other similar components that shed light on the main topics of our book. I chose a collage because it can physically represent the many parts of a person. Its foundation is composed of overarching themes that we read in “Kim Jiyoung born 1982,” including certain situations where we see Jiyoung getting treated differently because of her gender, whether that was at home, school, or work. Other important events from the book such as Jiyoung’s experience with Chuseok, Jiyoung feeling unsafe due to a boy at the bus stop, her experience finding a job and having to leave that job to take care of her daughter, and how she is treated by her psychiatrist. Those events helped connect more parts of the collage that stem from these themes but then go farther from the issues we saw in our book to how we also have seen these issues in the real world.

Damaris Romero Martinez
The Pages of Kim Jiyoung
Handmade, physical junk journal
My project is a handmade journal made from recycled cardboard and other supplies. Each page in this journal reflects on the different stages of her life, such as her experiences, her family, harassment, school, marriage, childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Pages in this journal are filled with statistics and real-life numbers about miscarriages, birth control policies, gender ratios, and other real-life experiences families went through at the time. Some pages are also about her mom’s experiences and her father’s experiences. This journal captures her life through pictures, writing, quotes, and real-life data. Throughout the pages as her condition worsens, so do the pages, which get darker with slight rips and tears.

Marelly Romero Martinez
A Reflection Through a Different Lens
Mixed media, three-dimensional art piece
My project is an interpretation of the cover of the book. In the cover Kim Jiyoung’s face looks like a reflection of her surroundings (her face is a mirror). I interpreted this cover as Kim Jiyoung’s thoughts about herself and trying to reflect and be what society wants and sees her as. Instead of a normal, two-dimensional cover art, I re-made the cover in three dimensions with some slight changes. Instead of the desert as her face, it will be a mirror. Around the mirror will be quotes from the book that describe things that have been said to and about Kim Jiyoung, whether they are criticism from men, things people told her, or what society sees and expects from women. The intention of the mirror is to have the viewers reflect on themselves and see if they themselves have seen others, told anybody, or heard those things that have been told to Kim Jiyoung be said to others or themselves. We saw what these words and actions have done to Kim Jiyoung throughout the book and what they made her feel and think about herself. Reflection on the quotes is not to give a reason to apply it to yourself or anyone around you but to feel and think about how it could affect someone on a deeper level which you could not be aware of.

Ava Wawroski
Identity Crisis
Charcoal art piece/drawing
My project is a large 22×30 mixed-media art piece mainly consisting of charcoal and colored pencils. In the center of the piece, Kim Jiyoung, the main character of the novel Kim Jiyoung Born 1982, is looking into a mirror filled with three different women, all from different stages of life, representing each of the voices she embodies throughout the story. There is an older woman, a teenager, and a toddler. The viewer of the piece cannot see Jiyoung’s face, which represents how people in society always overlook her. Around Jiyoung and this mirror, items strewn across the setting represent key points in Jiyoung’s upbringing. We can see things like baby formula, table-setting supplies, chewed gum, and flowers to represent different points in her life throughout the book. Phrases are hidden around the drawing that says the things that Jiyoung was called or internalized about herself. While she may not be explicitly looking at or paying attention to these phrases, they’re still there and making an impact on her perception of herself. The women in the mirror are drawn with charcoal and given a ghostly texture, showing the viewer that they’re not the reflection that Jiyoung is looking for.

Liam Baril
Separate Reflections
Sculpture made posters and glass
Using a picture frame and two separate posters, I represent a woman looking in the mirror yearning for the other’s life. She has been told she had to choose but in reality both women are the same woman. This is representative of Kim Jiyoung and how she is told she has to choose between being a mother and her career. This interpretation allows viewers to imagine a woman’s emotional state as she looks into a mirror and sees what she is, what she can be and what she wants to be. I chose this because identity stands out in traditional roles and my parents were reversed in the typical roles – Dad stayed home while Mom worked. Dad ended up being pressured to work but didn’t want to miss out on our childhood.

Chloe Busha
Sexism, Gender roles
Acrylic painting on canvas
I painted with acrylic paint making a city showing sexism and gender roles. I separated the city by male and female but the city is technically together but one side is different then the other and it is visibly shown. The reason I made the painting I did was because to me the book was about men making women feel less than they are. So in my head they were in one city together but men were always on a different page trying to make things “better” and women were kind of pushed off to the side to pick up the stuff the men didn’t want to. The city represents how men treat the world and how women treat the world, one is dark and hard working, the other is light and accepting. To me this acrylic painting represents the book in many ways with gender roles and sexism.

Nastadia Durski and Jonathan Heiser
Puppeteer
Mixed Media Poster
Our project represents manipulation in a way of putting a woman figured character who is controlled by manly hands. It represents how in Kim Jiyoung 1982 the men and the South Korean culture controlled the South Korean women. Society pushes their values onto the women who are forced to live a life of expectations instead of chasing their own dreams. They get controlled throughout their entire life no matter how tired they are, so are a result we designed the woman to look very exhausted. This represents the part of the poster and the drain society puts on the woman. Kim Jiyoung went through her entire life being pushed around by the men in her life and, no matter how hard it was or will be, she persevered.

Alex Gensch and Kiera Minx
Be Quiet, Sit Pretty, and Follow the Norms
Multi-media display
This display uses various art forms to showcase the sexism that persists in South Korea. We are using this project to highlight that, despite the government’s claims of working toward gender equality, women’s voices continue to be silenced due to deeply rooted social norms from the past that still influence the present. Through a combination of words and visual elements, we have created this display to illustrate how limited women’s voices are in the ongoing fight for equality. The artwork is a powerful reminder that true gender equality cannot be achieved until women are given an equal platform to speak and act freely. This project aims to challenge the viewer to reflect on the progress that still needs to be made.

Benjamin Letsinger
A Woman Painting the Future
Mixed Media
This multimedia project explores the disarray of everyday life in 1980s Korea, focusing on the gender dynamics that shaped the lives of women, The piece is a layered collage on canvas, illustrating a chaotic domestic scene where a woman, portrayed with fragmented elements of other women, paints an image of an idealized, successful man, a well-dressed figure thriving in the big city. This symbolic act represents the cultural expectations placed on women to support and sacrifice for the men in their households, often at the cost of their own ambitions and well-being. The woman depicted in the collage is intentionally nameless, Her attire ripped, stained, and rugged symbolizes the hardships and invisibility that women endured. While the figure hints at Kim Ji-young, it also serves as a universal representation of every woman forced into these societal molds. The collage is pieces of other women, including strong arms and differing clothes. The psychological toll of trying to impersonate female figures in power or family members, reflecting the mental strain that goes undiagnosed, such as Ji-young’s own dissociative behavior. Key quotes from the book punctuate the work, highlighting that the issues of sexism and gender inequality are not confined to Ji-young alone, but are systemic, affecting women across all walks of life. Through this abstract and fragmented representation, the project challenges the viewer to reflect on the pervasive nature of gender inequality and the psychological costs of such societal structures.

Sam Letsinger and Timmy Stoltman
Jiyoung’s Life
Interactive digital story game made with App Lab (Code.org)
Jiyoung’s Life is a story game where the player makes choices for Jiyoung, the main character from Kim Jiyoung, born 1982. It shows the unfair treatment she faces while at school, work, and home, no matter what she does. We chose this project to help people understand her life in a more personal way. Making it helped us see how hard it is for Jiyoung to be heard and how society puts pressure on women.

Chyanne Meacham
Lens of Bias
Mixed media
“Lens of Bias” is an interactive digital art experience that combines visual storytelling, color theory, and sound to engage viewers in a multi-layered exploration of meaning and perception. Using an iPad to create a drawing that evolves depending on the viewer’s perspective, the artwork presents two distinct messages revealed through the use of colored glasses. In addition, a separate drawing is incorporated that can be seen from a different perspective when wearing an additional pair of glasses. This unique experience is further enhanced by an accompanying soundtrack, which changes to match the mood and tone of each visual layer.

Breydon Peterson, Mason Brewer
Perception
Street Sign
This is a wooden street sign that was built with 1×1 wooden boards and 1/8th inch wood paneling that represents males and females and their pathways from birth with arrows lining men up to their path of prosperity,education and money making. And on the flip side women lining up their path to womanhood which means supporting the husband and his decisions and being a full time house wife. Rocks with words can be placed in the “proper” gender side, tipping the scale in favor of males. Overall this is our interpretation of the book and the basics of sexism.

Eli Repenshek and Cadmen Libby
Escaping Society
Mixed Media Foam Board
This 3D foam board project represents Kim Jiyoung’s struggle against South Korea’s societal norms. In Jiyoung’s life she is surrounded by symbols of the roles she is forced to play: wife, mother, worker, while the glue holding her back represents the deep societal expectations that keep her stuck. The foam on the left shows how these norms are unchanging, dangerous and controlling. The project captures her fight to reclaim her life from the pressures of tradition and the limitations placed on her.

Tanner Romaker
The Mask
Interactive Drawing
I used drawing and colored pencils to explore the complex mental health issues that Jiyoung faces, as well as a reflection on mental health in both today’s society and women in Korea. There are two sides to this portrait, a sunny and bright blue background represents the outer image and perspective of Jiyoung. This is how others see her, what she is known for by those around her, and her traits that obtain respect from people like how hardworking she is. When you flip the paper, it shows Jiyoung standing in the rain. This represents her inner struggles and personal perspective of things. This is the part of her that people do not see. This can not only represent Jiyoung’s mental health but also shines light on the idea that you often never see or know about mental health issues that people face and struggle with.

Kibalo Aketa
Exploration of the ideas of book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Slideshow Presentation
A Google Slides presentation that discusses the ideas I thought were important about the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Michelle Amaya Bedoya
Gender Roles in Family and Society
Canva Presentation
A Canva presentation exploring the gender roles in family and society as expressed in the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 but represented in society overall.

Joseph Coello
Differences in Women’s Rights from 1982 to Present
Poster Board
A visual display of the changes in women’s rights from 1982 (the beginning of Kim Jiyoung’s life) to the present day. (Beyond the ending of the story.) A comparison of education, legal rights, activism, and cultural roles are on explained on the poster.

Kendra Eich
Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 Lit. Lantern
Paper 3D model literature lantern
The project centralizes the gender inequalities shown throughout the book in a creative way. It shows that no matter what happened, Kim got back up and kept trying, no matter the circumstance. This project shows her resilience through art and text on multiple pages.

Jack Fischer
Kim Jiyoung’s Game of Life
Board Game
Kim Jiyoung’s Game of Life is a spin on the common board game, The Game of Life. It takes the players through a life where you can make life decisions such as attending college, or applying for a job, and so on. The goal of the game is to end with the most money possible. Depending on if you choose to play as a male or female character, choices and difficulties are different. Demonstrating how much harder it is for a woman to succeed in their career and life aspirations than it would be for a man.

Awa Jammeh
I am Only a Reflection of You and Never of Me
Poem
The message of the poem is a mix of womanhood, mental health, and identity. I wrote the poem through my perspective, predicting the thoughts and emotions Jiyoung may have felt as if she had written the poem herself, similarly to how the book presented Jiyoung’s life through the psychiatrist’s perspective.

Zion Johnson
The Rebirth Jar: Reflection, Release, Renewal
Interactive Symbolic Art Installation
This project critically examines the psychological and societal challenges faced by women, mirroring the struggles of the protagonist in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. It invites participants to reflect on their personal burdens while recognizing the larger cultural forces that shape individual experiences. By engaging with this project, the audience gains insight into the importance of self-awareness, empowerment, and healing as methods of resistance against societal expectations.

Yahvi Kandanelli
Women Should Be Looking Through Windows, Not Mirrors, to View The Past
Painting
As I was reading Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 I came to parts that really showed the deep rooted sexism and gender favoritism in our world, and really showed me how strictly these gender norms are built into culture. I chose this title because as I was reading I realized I saw these situations happening in my life right now. Windows are suppose to be something u look through, u don’t see yourself in them you just notice the situation in them. But mirrors u see yourself in them, you relate and that’s what is so bad. That young women like myself are looking through mirrors that I can RELATE to, but we should have evolved from the past situation regarding gender norms and sexism not relate to it. I made this project: a girl looking at a museum full of art pieces with mirrors and windows because she should figure out what shes looking through to view the past of women: mistreatment and stereotypes. Is she looking through windows or mirrors?

Bekah Lefeber
Understanding Women’s Inequalities
One-Pager
Women around the world experience various inequalities that limit their opportunities, rights, and freedoms. These inequalities are deeply rooted in social, cultural, and economic structures. This project exemplifies a few of these issues and emphasizes the need to understand and help change these inequalities for women.

Margo Levanetz
Drawings from Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Drawing
My project represents the struggles of women through Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 by creating a comic showing an important moment in the book. Each of the panels shows Jiyoung’s tasks while having a baby. Jiyoung had to quit her job, do laundry, make dinner, take care of the baby, grocery shop, not have an income, while spending most of her time alone and without a social life. These panels show the amount of tasks that women are expected to handle.

Brooklyn Luling
Identity
Oil Painting
The oil painting presents Kim Jiyoung struggling to find her own identity as a woman. Because of the gender expectations in society, she lacks self-worth and impersonates different women in her life. The words that have been directed towards her and how she was raised show how it led to her being diagnosed with depression and insomnia.

Ella Manley
Two Sides of Dress Code
One-Pager
While how you can dress doesn’t seem to stick out as a big problem to many people, it shows the gender norms and inequalities in our society. This project, I have looked at dress code differences between men and women in schools and workplaces. This can help many people see women’s sides of how they’re discriminated against for their clothing all over the world when it comes to dress code. I hope this project can open eyes and help you see deeper into the problems with women’s dress codes in many women’s everyday life.

Samary Manzano
Summary of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Poster
A summary of the story with some commentary on the themes of the book.

Brenna Meadowcroft
Life is a Gamble
Painted Cards
This project shows the most valuable information from each chapter of Kim Jiyoung’s life through her therapist’s eyes. Each card represents a certain aspect that relates directly to her trauma and personality disorder. The cards bring the idea of unpredictable outcomes of her life which is a gamble that is related to cards.

Jasper Muniz
Woman in Pieces
Art Piece
Right from the beginning of the novel, we see Jiyoung’s identity begin to unravel into these other women, how frighteningly odd this all seems to the people around her, especially to her husband. But as it brings us back to the very beginning, taking us through every stage of Jiyoung’s life, we’re made to experience where and how the beliefs of her society have deeply permeated her and the people around her and have then desecrated her sense of self. Writing out, front and center, the step by step of how her identity was abstracted to where we saw in the beginning, making it painfully obvious that it’s not random, it’s not odd, it’s entirely expected as an outcome given everything that influenced this. This artwork analyzes this descension and depicts the fragmentation of Jiyoung’s identity and the responses of the men around her.

Ellie Poppe
Representation of Women in History
Essay
The under representation of women in history is a significant issue that has shaped how the past is understood. Despite their contributions to many fields, such as Ada Lovelace and Marie Curie in science, they have been overshadowed by male leaders. “Despite recent progress, the gender gap appears likely to persist for generations, particularly in surgery, computer science, physics, and maths.” (Holman, et al.) To move past this, more inclusive research is needed to ensure that we celebrate history in diverse experiences that shape the world. Revisiting historical narratives to include more women will require a lot of work in reexamining historical interpretations, and will be complex. Many roles of women have been distorted, and only highlighting a few important women instead of many that have shaped the world does not address their exclusion in the first place. Only including the perspective of white, western women is problematic as well, because it discounts the stories of women across different cultures and challenges. Despite these limitations, by putting in effort to include women’s voices in history, we will achieve a more balanced and accurate representation of the past, helping to build a better future. This is key in shaping how we can grow and become advanced in equality today.

Pedro Porfirio
Central Themes of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Digital Slide Presentation
This digital presentation examines the complex relationship between individual identity and societal expectations as portrayed in “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.” The project analyzes how the protagonist exemplifies the challenges faced by South Korea’s millennial generation—caught between traditional values and modern aspirations in a hyper-competitive society. The presentation explores three interconnected themes: the impact of economic uncertainty on personal development, the pressure of social conformity, and the search for authentic identity in a rapidly changing society. Through carefully selected textual evidence and visual representation, the project argues that Kim Jiyoung’s struggles reflect broader generational anxieties about finding meaning and stability in contemporary South Korea. The analysis reveals how economic precarity shapes psychological well-being and influences life choices, offering viewers insight into the profound tension between national progress narratives and individual experiences of insecurity.

Cassy Puntney
The Weight of a Girl
Drawing
This drawing shows the inequalities between genders in the novel. It shows how men always get lifted up by society just by being men and the way that gender expectations hold down women in South Korean society.

Samantha Rice
Everyday Discrimination
Essay
The essay compares examples of gender discrimination and sexism in the novel and South Korea to the experiences of women around the world, including in the U.S.

Kimberly Rios Bernal
Postpartum Depression
Lit Lantern
I am going to make a lit lantern of the book but it will focus on the topic of postpartum depression. I will make a summary on the subject, talk about how Kim Jiyoung felt during this illness, and how she faced it.

Nasir Ross
Voices of Resilience
Poem
In the writing, the poem captures the essence of Kim Jiyoung’s life and her struggles. The poem will connect with her experiences and to the challenges faced by women in modern society. My goal of the project is to explore the theme and messages of the novel.

Anna Schneider
The Scales of Gender
Painting
A painting of a scale showing Jiyoung’s brother on the lower end and Jiyoung and her sister higher on the other end to show how men have more weight on society compared to multiple women.

Brooklyn Thomas
Statistical Analysis of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Essay
In this research, I looked for examples of gender inequality in South Korea to see if the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 correctly represented gender inequality. Each website I looked at and analyzed had great examples from history of what was expected from women. Things like what they can do and things they should not do. Furthermore, I was led to an incredible story of how one woman was able to change the imagination of South Korea. This is an analysis of the real life statistics and examples behind the novel.

Aiko Torres Martinez
Gender Norms
One-Pager
This project focuses on Korean gender norms that affect both men and women. At the beginning of the novel, we learn about how Jiyoung’s family asks her to bear the burden of household responsibilities, leading to feelings of isolation and inadequacy. The book highlights her experiences of societal pressures in a patriarchal society. This project analyzes and explores the gender norms at play in the novel and how they reflect society.

Maria Cristina Vallecillo
Impact on Society
Poster Display
The novel had an impact on society in South Korea and beyond. This poster has a description of the impact it had on society as well as a short summary of the novel.

Sophia Vriesema
Strong Woman
Poem
This project and poem will bring an awareness to the challenges and barriers that women have to overcome. Well also showing it in a beautiful but sort of harsh way. Viewers will be able to see the history that is behind all of these words that are very powerful. Lastly, this project holds in on the positive outcomes that women have overcome when it comes to act or things getting passed through legislation, this poem will guide you through each step.

Ty Wells
Masking and Staying Positive in a Negative Society
Digital Art Project
A digital art piece that captivates the pressure people (especially women) may feel in a society that doesn’t respect and disregard them. This piece reflects how women feel on the inside when they are constantly put down by higher authorities, and addresses how many emotions women bottle up and facades they display to keep themselves afloat. Through this lens, people who are not in the same place women are often in will learn to emphasize their struggles and learn to advocate against issues that directly impact women.

Kalena Xiong
Through her Words: Intergenerational Letters
Letter display
This project strives to explore and raise awareness about women’s generational trauma. This project examines how gendered expectations, societal pressures, and historical contexts contribute to the cycle of trauma passed down through generations of women. This project draws connections between JiYoung’s personal struggles and the reality that women face in the world today. Encouraging conversations around the impacts of generational trauma will highlight the importance of breaking cycles to foster healing and equality for future generations. Writing a letter to JiYoung’s daughter, Jung Jiwon, from JiYoung’s viewpoint allows a new perspective to be seen surrounding the experience and passing of generational trauma. This letter will also be compared to modern day letters written by women, mothers, and grandmothers.

Adrian Zeledon
Summary of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Poster
A summary of the story with some commentary on the themes of the book.

Lindsey Anderson and Bella Smith
Day in the Life of a 1990 Korean Woman
Situational Card Game
Our project focuses on emerging into the life of a woman in 1990 living in Korea. Each player gets a randomized woman with statistics of their mental wellbeing and a short biography explaining if they have kids, are married, and occupation. Each player will grab 5 situation cards and this will deplete or upgrade their statistics. The goal is to not run out of a statistic. Situations are based off of a normal woman’s life in 1990 in Korea and include quotes from the book on the note cards. Each player will also have to choose 2 cards from the “married” or “unmarried” pile to also simulate the differences women faced no matter if they had a husband or not.

Bailey Baltz
Kim Jiyoung: Inner Thoughts
Painting
My painting is trying to show an interpretation of what is going on in her head. This painting is a collaboration of quotes from the book in a messy style to show how she is thinking in the background. In the front is an outline of Jiyoung from the cover.

Valeria Barcenas
The cycle of expectations
Model visual
My project shows the themes of social pressures and gender inequality in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 through the metaphor of a hamster wheel. The figure in the center is a woman holding both a child and a computer, which symbolizes the constant act that women need to balance in order to face her personal life, motherhood, and professional responsibilities. The wheel, placed between a living room and an office setting, reflects the cycle of these struggles, portraying Kim Jiyoung’s daily routine as she is trapped in a never-ending cycle of expectations.

Charles Blader
Jiyoung’s Playlist
I believe that music is something that many people can connect to. Being able to explain the chapters through music helps me and maybe others that are struggling to find meaning in the book. Music is a big thing for many people as well as me too. My tack board will include 2-3 songs as well as descriptions of why they were picked and what they represent. The board will also have pictures of the songs album covers just like a Spotify playlist.

Delaney Contreras
Eve’s Burden
Trifold
The project will be a trifold that will include various forms of women advancements/media (such as literature, art, movies, etc.), as well as several experiences from women in workforces, schools, and public/private settings who have been victims of harassment, discrimination, or hate because of their gender. It will also include overall information about gender inequality, and how it has impacted/formed women rights movements from early history to modern times in which misogyny is normalized in some places and environments.

Dallas Duke
Non-Consensual
There will be four models of women. Each woman will follow one of these groups: High schooler, Mother, Traditional wife, and Business women. Each of these women will have a fictional story behind it that covers real issues people face. On the models, there will be handprints over body parts that relate to the issues. Along with the story, there will be stories from others, data, and quotes from the novel. Next to the model, there will be a corkboard where people can anonymously share their stories.

Bailey Enriquez and Sarah Albright
Kim Jiyoung: Women Unseen
Poster
Our poster displays a generic workplace with a silhouette of a woman in the middle. We collected stories from working women about times that they felt invisible in the workplace. We placed these stories on the poster around the woman. We used invisible ink pens to write words that portray how the women felt in these situations onto the silhouette. We will have UV light pens that viewers can use to uncover these feelings.

Mason Glodoski
Experiences of Woman Around the World
Journal Entries SlideShow
My project uses the idea from Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 of the psychiatrist writing down and recording Kim Jiyoung’s life. I am using this same idea with writing down women’s experiences in countries around the world. I will use a slideshow and on each slide it will have a different journal about a different woman’s experience in multiple different countries. This is a connection to the book because it is giving a description of a person’s life experience. My project will continue with this idea but simplified and spread across the world.

Landon Johnson and Micaiah Schreiner
The struggles of women in Wisconsin and South Korea
Left side highlighting the struggles that Kim, and all women in South Korea faced and still face. Right side highlighting the similar struggles that women have faced, and still face in Wisconsin. In the middle will be comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences of the two places. Additionally our synopsis will be here.

Tanis Johnston
Men vs. Women in South Korea
Google slideshow/presentation
I wanted to make a presentation that highlights the differences between the lives of men and women in South Korea. In Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 attention is mainly only brought to how women in South Korea suffer. With this project I wish to show the similarities and differences between how both men and women suffer in South Korea.

Molli Keller
Faceless Woman
Canva photo presentation on computer
A photo of a faceless woman much like the one on the cover of the book. I have taken both quotes from the book and quotes from women in my life that represent the power and affect that normalized words have on us as women. The quotes in black are taken right from the text, and the ones in white are from real people’s experiences. I have separated these quotes into two groups; one being shown on the outside of the woman’s face which represents things that are said regularly towards or about women in a degrading manner, and the other being shown inside the woman’s face which represents the effects of her surroundings and what they cause her to think.

Sophie Klimke
Gender Differences in the Workforce
Trifold
For my project I am surveying men and women that work in the same field. They will be asked all of the same questions and I will then compare the answers on a trifold. There will be questions about parenthood, pay, and how they feel they are treated. My goal is to create awareness of differences that some people may not notice.

Charlee Kratz
All Of Your Words
Colored Drawing/Collage
In my project I created a drawing collage focused on Kim Jiyoung from “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.” The project explores themes of gender inequality and how words shape perceptions and experiences. The college has important words taken from the text, and a face drawing of Kim Jiyoung that highlights the influence of language on identity and self-worth, inviting viewers to reflect on how words can empower or diminish individuals.

Chase Maas
Not Just Jiyoung
My project focuses on visualising working women in the real world through the lens inspired by the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Each photograph reflects the silent strength, determination, and sometimes unacknowledged labor women go through.

Meghan Marks
Kim Jiyoung: True self
Painting
My painting is trying to capture what can’t be told by Kim Jiyoung and most women. For my painting I decided to make it very similar to the cover of the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, but instead of a desert on her face it’s a paper mask on a popsicle stick with a very generic smiley face. In the background are all sorts of phrases that kind of make up how women feel trapped or not heard. Overall the purpose of this painting is to help people, men and women, visualize how most people feel underneath; even if you can’t notice.

Bailee Mass
Unseen Struggles
Watercolor Painting
I am making a watercolor painting showcasing the struggles of both genders against sexism. The artwork will show that one gender doesn’t truly understand the struggle of another. In my painting, there will be one head but half of the face is a male and the other half is a female. In the background, there will be colored tiles with common sexist phrases. It will represent how someone thinks they understand what it is like to be the opposite gender, but will never actually know in their lifetime.

Molly McLain
Stereotype cake
This cake is trying to capture the inequalities and stereotypes that men have about women. The larger portion of the cake represents how men were favored in South Korea, along with the platter it is sitting on representing their higher position in society. The smaller piece represents the smaller role and less favorability of women. The writing on each of the pieces represents stereotypes of women and how women feel about it.

Kelsey Moore and Evher Hernandez
South Korea 001
Art Canvas
This art canvas does not only portray and represent the South Korean Flag, it also whilst relating to the setting of the book has quotes within it to help portray the message of the book. The significance of issues relating to a country is a concept that is necessary to be called out on for. We can not let places get away with mistreatment of citizens and as citizens we need to unite our power and call out obstacles within a system.

Piper Olson and Hailey Wenzel
The Great Achievements of Women
Visual Representation (timeline)/trifold
Our project illustrates a timeline of the achievements/rights women have made and gained. The book had so many facts and statistics that make our project relevant to the book. We plan on creating a trifold with different sections serving as decades having one side of the book be for what happened at a time in America and comparing it to the same time in South Korea going from somewhere in the 1800s to present time.

Ariana Rangel Rivera
The Standards that Unite but Separate Us
For my project I want to display the differences of standar expectations that are set for girls and boys among different age groups and ethnic groups. Along with the differences and similarities between the standards for girls and boys across different races/ethnicities and age groups around the world. To show that this is a problem that we have all across the world among everyone. I wanted to display it with a picture capturing all this. The picture might include different girls and boys of different ages and ethnicities that face similar standards among their group of gender and the differences among their genders and the opposite gender.

Madalyn Reetz
Women’s Hardships
All women suffer from hardships in their workforce. But do we know exactly how much they suffer? This project outlines the stories from 4 different aged women who all struggled in their daily lives. It will show some of the hard truths that women face every day.

Jett Richard
The Struggles of Women in Korea and North America
Trifold
My project is going to be on a trifold. I will outline the struggles Kim Jiyoung faces as a woman in Korean society on one side, and the struggles of women in America on the other side. In the middle I will compare and contrast them.

Natalie San Filippo
The Price of Pink: A Closer Look at Gender Inequality
Trifold
My project is a trifold about the Pink Tax. It highlights the inequality between men and women, particularly the unequal cost between everyday goods. It shows the relationship between Pink Tax and Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Maddie Scharnhorst
Women vs. The World
I am doing a research project looking into the other struggles of women in other countries. Sometimes I think we forget about women in other countries who still don’t have basic rights. With this project I want to try to inform men and women about the ongoing struggles many women are still facing.

Max Scharnhorst
Trifold
My project provides real life examples of people in different countries that may have experienced something similar to Kim Jiyoung in the novel. I have interviewed a couple from the Philippines and a Math Professor from India to get a first person perspective of how women are stereotyped or discriminated against in these countries compared to Korea.

Autumn Stern
Kim Jiyoung, Inequality in the workforce
Trifold
My trifold captures the inequality in the workforce of men and women. It features testimonies of people who I have interviewed about their struggles and relationships with co-workers. It will be colorful and show the diverse experiences between men and women. Overall it will show how differently the different genders are treated through their journey of working.

Ryan Young and Peyton Pica
Kim Jiyoung: Parenting the Different Genders
For our project we will be interviewing parents that have 2 different gendered children. We will ask them the hardest part about raising their son and the hardest part about raising their daughter. We will then ask them if they treated them any differently based on their gender.

Aryana Ausderau
The Space Between
Painting
My project, The Space Between, is a painting that represents what I imagine Kim Ji-Young’s inner world might look like. I began with a simple silhouette of a woman’s head, then filled it with various elements representing the complexities and struggles in her life. The painting focuses on the space between the different roles she occupies, being a stay-at-home mom, while also yearning to return to her career she had before motherhood. The painting also highlights the mental and emotional weight Kim Ji-Young carries. Through this piece, I aim to capture the tension between her personal desires and societal expectations.

Adriano Barrios-Reyes and Brandon Velasquez
Kim Jiyoung’s Arirang
Song/Musical Performance (Video on computer)
The Arirang is a traditional Korean folk song that has many different themes and versions. We came up with the idea of playing the Arirang after learning that the song means separation or loss of a loved one. In reading Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 we saw the connections between the song and Kim Jiyoung losing herself, as well as her fading relationships with her husband and family. We play this song to allow the audience to mull the different levels of loss Kim Jiyoung suffers.

Khloe Bautch
Kim Jiyoung’s Life and Ours – What’s Changed?
Trifold
My project “Kim Jiyoung’s Life and Ours – What’s Changed?” talks about the struggles women deal with, like balancing work and family, facing discrimination, unfair expectations, and parental leave challenges. I wanted to learn more about what women like Jiyoung faced in their lives and how similar or different things are for women today. By comparing Jiyoung’s story to women’s experiences today, my project shows where progress has been made and where there’s still room for improvement. It shows how society’s expectations and work rules affect women’s lives and how the fight for fairness is far from over.

Ady Becker
Kim Jiyoung’s Life Diary
Diary
My project is a diary that shows how discrimination occurs throughout Kim Jiyoung’s life. Every entry shows a different experience that happened or might have happened to Jiyoung and how she and I felt. I put my opinions as a teenage girl in today’s society into each entry. Showing how it would make me feel today, can make it more relatable for other girls who might be having these experiences. I want girls to stand up for themselves so they don’t end up having a breakdown like Jiyoung, and I think this can show them what they should do in that situation.

Amarah Blundon
Jiyoung’s Hardships vs. The Hardships of Women in her Life and Modern Women
Poster
My project showcases the hardships Kim Jiyoung has faced throughout her life, things such as gender inequality in the workplace, harmful gender stereotypes, the pressure on women of her time to have a son, and many other inequalities that women face even today. I then compare her struggles with these inequalities to the struggles her mother, grandmother, and modern women face. I compare their lives through direct quotes from the text and sources from the internet. The point of this poster board is for the reader to connect the similarities of these hardships and how they affected the people involved such as Kim Jiyoung.

Liz Crumley
Our Deepest Dreads
Trifold
My project is dubbed “Our Deepest Dreads” and it represents the horrors of what Korean women experienced in their society. I used a lot of imagery and quotes so I can really show you the true meaning behind my art. Each quote you will see is directly from the book Kim Jiyoung Born 1982. You might notice the quotes are also in various fonts. I used this as a method to convey the emotions I felt behind the quotes. Some fonts are sharp because I sense pain there while others are more dull because I felt a sense of defeat in her words. The imagery depicts those emotions that I was feeling. I hope you can find your own meaning behind them too.

Cira Davis, Summer Wooden, and Macenzie Smith
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: Barbie vs. Ken in Society
Collage
In the project, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: Barbie vs. Ken in Society, we used the differences between men and women in a home, at work, and in politics to show how different society views the 2 genders. The project focuses on how men are treated in society vs women. This is shown through a collage that is used as a map to portray the different experiences of the 2 genders. The use of the well known figures Barbie and Ken also portray the fact that sexism and gender stereotypes affect everybody, regardless of status, success, or outward appearance.

Cali Dunn and Ivonne Rojas-Ortiz
Why is it so hard to be a woman?
Poster
For our project, we created a poster. We want people to see how hard today’s society is on women, to open people’s eyes to this harsh and awful reality. Our poster touches on how Korean society started to favor men over women, and how this became an awful problem. This project was created to shine a light on some of the small yet major problems within all of society.

Kennedy Gran
Fragments of Freedom
Collage
Fragments of Freedom is a collage that explores the contrast between traditional gender roles and acts of resistance, inspired by the themes of societal expectation and identity in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. On one side there are overlapping quotes from the book and other images that portray the traditional roles imposed on women. On the other, contrasting visuals and text represent defiance and independence, showcasing women breaking free from patriarchal constraints to reclaim their identities. My project highlights the tension between conformity and liberation, offering a visual on the struggles and triumphs of women navigating these roles in a patriarchal society.

Marisol Guzman
Jiyoung’s Psychosis Through a Mirror
Sculpture
This project focuses on the identity of Kim Jiyoung and the identities she takes on, by portraying her reflection in a mirror, reflecting not only her own image but also the faces of key figures in her life, her father, mother, brother, husband, and a deceased friend. These reflections illustrate how Jiyoung is a representation of all women and shows an imbalance of men and women historically seen in Korean society. The decision to use a white color palette reflects erasing individuality amongst women and highlights her uniformity and invisibility. The multiple reflections emphasize the shared experiences of women, illustrating how one individual’s life mirrors the struggles of many.

Riley Herman, Cayden Platetter, Dominic Christianson, and Corbin Johnson
Patrinopoly
Board Game
Everyone has played or heard of the ages old game Monopoly, but have you heard of it with a twist. In Patrinopoly, the players get the same feel as regular Monopoly but with it being centered around the Patriarchy. We were inspired to create Patrinopoly based on how much of an impact patriarchy had on Kim Jiyoung in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. The game also features quotes from the book and our research in class that can be attained by buying properties on the board. We hope you enjoy our creation, Patrinopoly.

Avery Hernandez and Raul Feria-Guzman
The Colors of Kim Jiyoung’s Mind
Poster/Painting
Our project “The Colors of Kim Jiyoung’s Mind” explores more in depth about Kim Jiyoung’s emotional mental state. Towards the end of the book, we found out that it was Kim Jiyoung’s male psychologist who was the narrator. We decided to use watercolors to symbolize psychological colors. Each color could symbolize what Kim Jiyoung went through emotionally, reflecting on the expectations she had and her struggles. We wanted to highlight quotes from the book and research paper that have a significant meaning to us and research in more depth to connect more on Kim Jiyoung’s with her mental state.

Ximena Hernandez-Serrano
Life for Women in Comparison to Kim Jiyoung’s South Korea
Trifold
My project “Life for Women in Comparison to Kim Jiyoung’s South Korea” explores how women in 6 different countries represent how women are treated worldwide and how they compare to South Korea in the time frame Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was written in. My project focuses on women and how they are viewed. I took inspiration from the social norms and family roles in the book.

Payton Hurst
Why Do We Standardize Women?
Poster
Through statistics, I found research of how women are perceived—both by others and themselves—shining light on how these perceptions influence their lives. Drawing inspiration from the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, I dug into themes such as the impact of childbirth on women’s careers, how their emotions are often dismissed in both personal arguments and professional settings, and I also dabbled in the gender-based expectations in a workplace.

Bo Killian and Sophie Edge
From Kim Jiyoung to Today: A Timeline of Gender and Society in South Korea
Trifold
Our project is a timeline that showcases statistics on society’s views of women’s roles in South Korea. It also highlights the number of women in the workforce. The statistics illustrate the decline in fertility rates to education levels in South Korea. The data shows that women who attend college are more likely to work than to have children. All of the graphs depict the relationship between work and education. Women are less likely to have children and pursue higher education because, when they get a job, they would have to take maternity leave but the women want to keep their jobs.

Soren Knutson
How South Korean Expectations Affect Women
Collage
With this project, I wanted to demonstrate how rough and forceful expectations negatively affected Kim Jiyoung. I decided to open Kim Jiyoung’s head to put in and give representations of experiences, which explains what women had to go through in South Korea. This was more than at her home, she also experienced this in school, work, and even throughout her lifetime. You may have noticed the heart with “work” under it. Well, that heart was broken after she had a baby, which then made her quit her job. The “Help out” in finger quotes means Kim Jiyoung’s husband, Dauyhun, broke his promise of helping Kim Jiyoung with raising the baby. Her eye with the swirls is the representation of Kim Jiyoung’s psychosis after rough experiences, and her experiences are all around her. The tray with 30th on it means she was the 30th in line to eat and the cut up food meant she only got to eat leftovers. The shoe meant a boy threw her shoe away from her. She was yelled at by Daeyhun’s family about her supposed to have a boy, even though she can’t control what gender she can give birth to. The tape on her mouth meant she couldn’t tell the people harassing her sexually to stop. One of the most noticeable things is Kim Jiyoung’s eye to the far left. That eye to the left are the tears she had to hold back after the experiences she had.

Cash Kulig and Jason Hinrichs
Patriarchy in South Korea
Trifold
Our trifold explains patriarchy in South Korea. We found some examples from online articles. And we also found evidence from the book Kim Jiyoung born 1982.

Donald Loga and Fernanda Hernandez Garcia
Gender Inequity as Related to the Family Dynamics of South Korean Households
Trifold
We have a trifold that explores the inner workings of South Korean families in terms of gender inequality. After reading the book we focused our thoughts on how Jiyoung’s younger brother was treated differently in his family just because of his gender. The first part of the trifold shows the relationship of the brother and the family as portrayed in the book. The second part shows general facts about the average South Korean family in the 1990s as well as some regional familial experiences such as in Thailand for comparison. The third part of the trifold shows current facts about the average South Korea family in the 2020s for longitudinal comparison.

Karli Molis, Natalie Herber, Taylor Johnson
Women’s Rights in the U.S.A. vs. South Korea
Trifold
Our project is about women’s rights, specifically the differences and similarities between the women’s rights movements in South Korea and the United States. Our project highlights the main events from the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s in both South Korea and the U.S. These main events detail what women were doing during these moments in history to try to gain as many rights as men. In the U.S., it was once believed that everything was completed by the early 1980s, but it turns out women were just getting started. In South Korea, there was a sense that things had just started to get out of hand, but everything was quickly addressed throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Addison Poeschel, Chloe Paulson, and Iyla Bergerson
Women’s Standards in Society
Poster
In the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 there are many points in the story where you can see society standardizing women, we decided that for our project we were going to base it off of women’s standards in society. We took a silhouette of a woman and filled it with a bunch of words that explain the standards against women around the world and outcomes of those standards. The words are messily spread around inside of the silhouette which gives a visual on how the woman’s brain feels when she is being standardized. We also took photos that give you a visual explanation on women’s standards and the outcomes of those standards. Lastly we added quotes found directly from the text to show standards against Jiyoung in the story.

Mason Przybylla, Kasey Grulkowski, Jack Waldera, Grayson Pronschinske, Aiden Evans, and Travis Johnson
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 – A Short Film by Kasman Productions
Short Film
For this project we decided to make a short film highlighting some parts of the film. We called it Kim Jiyoung Born 1982 A short film by Kasman Productions. Some of the things that we took from the book are the scene where Jiyoung was pushed away because she was a woman and how men got things first. I would describe my project by taking a little bit more comical approach but also making sure people will understand what is going on and how poorly the women were treated. That is some background information of my group project and how we included different parts from the book.

Cryslynn Smith
Comparing Gender Roles in Today’s American Society and Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
Essay
The concepts and topics in my essay are how gender roles in America today compare to the gender roles in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. People don’t really understand and know how gender roles affect others, mainly women, and when people try to stand up or speak out against gender roles they’re called crazy or weird. I wanted to write this essay to show a few factual things about how gender roles affect our current society and compare that to how gender roles affect people in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Westen Stenulson, Brodie Garbers, and Nolan Nordgaard
Kimopoly
Board Game
When we made this project we had it connected to a childhood game so you could learn about Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982 through the unfair systems and the pressure to follow certain rules. In Kimopoly, players try to control as much property and money as possible, but the game is really about who gets the most power and resources. Similarly, in Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982, the main character, Kim Ji-Young, struggles because society is set up in a way that gives women fewer opportunities and limits their freedom. Just like how the Kimopoly game will feel rigged for women to win the game or succeed to get anywhere and make progress. It makes it so that the amount of progress that the women’s progress seems like nothing compared to how far the male will succeed. The rules will be in the men’s favores and create a challenge for women through the game’s journey.

Hailey Stevens and Trinity McConnell
Broken Bottle Broken Girl
Poster
We chose to show how unfair rules, gender inequality, and emotional pressure can break women like Kim Jiyoung. Our quotes show how women face expectations from the start, making it feel like they can never live freely. They also represent Jiyoung’s mental breakdown and how years of being treated unfairly made her lose her sense of self. Women can work hard but still get held back, proving the system is unfair. Girls are taught to feel guilty and afraid even when they did nothing wrong. Altogether, our project represents the theme that constant pressure, like a bottle under too much force, can eventually make women like Jiyoung break.

Saffron Tudhope and Lilli Hanson
The Negative Impact of Patriarchy in South Korea
Mirror Display
We focused on thinking to ourselves, “How do men and women in South Korea treat each other?” This was important to us because it stood out the most. We were deeply inspired by Kim Jiyoung and her struggles, particularly how she was treated. We wanted to bring more awareness to this critical topic. We used the mirror to symbolize how you see yourself and how others perceive you, relating to how women saw themselves and how society viewed women.  We also dived deeply into the concept of patriarchy, exploring women’s insecurities, women’s rights movements, and how men treat feminists. Our project is unique because we decided to create a collage of pictures and quotes representing South Korean men and women. This approach allowed us to visually and textually highlight the complexities of gender relations in South Korea, making our project not only informative but also impactful in raising awareness.

Eli Washkuhn, Devin Hutsell, and Travis Johnson
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: Cultural Comparisons
Storyboard
Our project is about the differences in culture from the U.S. and South Korea and how its portrayed in the book Kim Jiyoung 1982. On the left side we have the United States culture and how it’s different from the book and South Korean culture. And the middle section is the culture portrayed in the book and how it’s different from the others. On the right is South Korean culture and shows its differences through the years. We also made the timestamps on the poster from the time in the chapters of the book.

William Youngbauer
Comparing Mental Health of Jiyoung to the Teenagers and Young Adults of Today
In my project “Comparing Mental Health of Jiyoung to the Teenagers and Young Adults of Today” I looked at Jiyoung’s mental struggles and what could have been the causes of that. After I determined some of the factors to Jiyoung’s mental health, I did research to look at the the teenagers of today. I did an overview on what factors played a role in not only Jiyoung’s mental health but teenagers and young adults of today.

Ash Borda
Struggles Past are Struggles Still
Concrete Poem
This concrete poem was made to represent the struggles of women and gender inequality throughout the world. I chose to make the poem in the shape of a world map because of the world map given to Jiyoung and Eunyoung in their room. The map is used in the story to point out that Seoul is a tiny part of the world, that there is much more to the world than the city they live in. The poem itself talks about gender inequality in the traditional sense, with women being treated poorly compared to men, and in the modern sense, as gender-nonconforming identities fight for their existence and equality. Gender inequality is a major theme throughout the book that has been experienced in cultures worldwide and persists to this day. Similar to the lesson taught to the sisters, while the problems in the novel are within the context of South Korea, many of them have or continue to apply to the rest of the world in some way, with Korean culture being only a small part of it.

Valerie Borysenko
That One Feeling of Blue-Grey
Piano composition
“That One Feeling of Blue-Grey” is a piano composition that captures the foggy, uncertain weight of womanhood. Inspired by Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, the piece uses spontaneously created chords to reflect the muddiness that being a woman can feel like. The novel portrays a life where autonomy blurs under the weight of societal expectations and in composing it, I tried to reflect both my own and Jiyoung’s experiences of struggling to distinguish our true desires from the roles imposed on us as women.

Jadoiray Cowan
Blossoms of Resilience
Mixed Media Sculpture
This mixed media project is a visual interpretation of Kim Jiyoung’s journey and mind space. This piece is driven in many directions, just as Jiyoung was throughout her life. The unseen and unheard-of struggles of depression, societal expectations, and noteworthy strength she applied inspired this piece. The complexities of a woman who wanted more for herself attempting to navigate traditional gender norms along with the burden and gift of motherhood all whilst battling depression and feeling grave isolation was truly unfathomable. My piece is meant to be a tribute to Kim Jiyoung’s strides as a mother, daughter, wife, employee, and most of all human being. The figure consists of two images encompassed by a swarm of trees leading up to a symbolic figure representing her life. The first illustration represents Jiyoung as a dreamer. She is depicted as a young child who still has all of the creativity and imagination in the world; she is ambitious and passionate about life free of the heavy weight of society. In the second image, she is much older, shown caring for her baby and the household. She is tired and in a desolate state. She no longer has the enthusiasm for life and is confined by restraints and pressures. Along the side vegetation there is a wooden door adjacent to a rabbit; this alludes to a message of escape and freedom that was so desperately yearned for by Jiyoung. Behind the door lies endless possibilities, choices not made, the unknown, a door unreachable for her. The tree itself has many layers. As you explore the tree upward, the tree gradually bursts into flora symbolizing the good: the hope, the strength, and her inner femininity which she uses to her advantage not to her detriment. At the very top, this figure represents inner liberation and acceptance of the stoic world. This project encapsulates the invisibility that women face in society, the internal battles that no one talks about or could genuinely relate to, and the self-erosion that many women endure awaiting quiet embrace, trapped in a cycle.

Nicholas Duzon
A Good Man, a Good Husband, and a Ghost
Free Verse Poem Trio
The poem is a dynamic exploration of identity, silence, and the roles women are forced to inhabit, told through three distinct yet interconnected perspectives. The first section, framed as a psychiatrist’s report, reduces a woman’s struggles to clinical diagnoses, highlighting the systemic dismissal of women’s suffering. The second section shifts to Kim Jiyoung’s husband’s perspective, where his well-meaning but detached self-righteousness blinds him to her emotional turmoil, reinforcing the disconnect between intent and impact. The final and longest section, told from Kim Jiyoung’s perspective, is a raw reckoning with the erasure of her selfhood, structured as a rhythmic acknowledgement of how she has only ever existed in assigned roles rather than as an individual. The repetition of “I was” underscored the weight of these imposed identities, culminating in a powerful declaration that, while her voice has been silenced, she does not wish for the same fate to befall her daughter. Through layered structure and shifting voices, the poem critiques societal expectations, the cost of conformity, and the insidious way silence is mistaken for fulfilment, challenging who truly benefits from these roles and who, in the end, is left unseen.

Sarah Freek
What They Say to Her
Short Animation
This short animation portrays a woman who is disintegrating and disappearing when she is faced with sexist words. It visualizes how damaging, disgusting, dehumanizing, and hurtful sexist comments are as well as how they can impact women’s well-being and livelihood. The quotes used in the animation are all said to Kim Jiyoung at various points throughout the novel. The animation reflects Kim Jiyoung’s story of how sexism around her impacted her mental health. Not only does it represent Kim Jiyoung’s perspective, but it also represents all women everywhere and what they have heard in their lives. By the end of the animation, it says, “That’s what they said to her, now she’s gone,” referring to Kim Jiyoung’s mental state and that of other women who have shared similar experiences.

Brianna Grochowina
Invisible Woman
Acrylic Painting
I created the painting “Invisible Woman” as a visual reflection of the themes in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. In the artwork, the figure of Kim Jiyoung gradually fades into the background of a crowded street, symbolizing how society often erases women’s identities. This concept was deeply influenced by the book, which powerfully illustrates the quiet, everyday removal of women’s individuality and autonomy in patriarchal society. As I read about Kim Jiyoung’s life—her struggles, sacrifices, and how she slowly loses herself trying to meet societal expectations—I felt compelled to capture that sense of disappearance. The fading figure represents not just Kim Jiyoung, but countless women who are made invisible by systemic inequality and societal indifference.

Savannah Joerndt & Lily Scherrer
Gender Stereotypes around the World
Scrapbook and Poster
We are exploring gender stereotypes around the world. In the scrapbook each page represents a different country with pictures and quotes. On the poster, we showcase statistics, similarities, and differences of gender stereotypes around the world. The countries we focus on are America, France, Germany, South Korea, Russia, Slovenia, Ireland, Qatar, Singapore, Peru, Venezuela, and Jamaica. We chose these countries in order to represent places all around the world and to investigate well known and lesser-known places.

Kiera Kresge, Skye Lisota, & Maggie Aderman
Dual Identity Dilemma
Canvas Collage
We created a collage to represent the societal expectations and other personal experiences of Kim Jiyoung throughout the novel. The images and stickers we selected reflect the complexities of identity, motherhood, and the pressures of societal norms, all of which Jiyoung faced throughout her childhood in addition to her transition into motherhood. As highlighted in the quote in our collage—“I’m sorry that I am not everything you imagined me to be.”—Jiyoung shows her desire to live up to her family’s expectations, as well as society’s. This quote represents how she goes about facing society and how it has affected her in the process. The quote about wanting what you can’t have suggests a longing for something beyond her reach as a woman, which reflects the internal struggles faced by women in society, such as Kim Jiyoung. She wanted to be a good mother, but simultaneously wanted to continue her education and develop her career. She wanted to control her own life and not have to adjust to what society wants from her. We especially noticed this in the part of the novel where it tells us about how Jiyoung reacted to the question she was given in her interview for a job: “You’re at a meeting with a client company. The client gets, you know, handsy. Squeezing your shoulder, grazing your thigh. You know what I mean? Yeah? How will you handle the situation? Let’s start with Ms. Kim Jiyoung.” Jiyoung responds to the question in a way that she thinks the interviewer would want to hear, and she does this in order to help her secure the position. Even though, what she really wanted to say was: “I would break his fucking arm!” She knew this would not have landed her the job, so she toned down her thoughts to something more socially acceptable. The photo of the little girl looking up in a room, with a camera sticker above her, symbolizes Innocence and the desire to capture fleeting moments of Kim Jiyoung’s childhood. It shows a sense of nostalgia and the pressures of growing up in a world filled with expectations she was not keen to follow. The photo of the woman holding a baby emphasizes the theme of motherhood and the pressure that came with it from society. At the same time, it highlights the joy as well as the challenges of parenting. In summary, each picture shows a behind-the-scenes look into the possible thoughts going through Kim Jiyoung’s mind, and how the pressure of society around her ultimately leads her to mental and emotional stress, to feeling trapped, and having a loss of identity.

Taylor Lorona, Ilsa Kahabka, & Addison Cole
All of us women
Wooden Sculpture
Our project is a wooden sculpture depicting women’s problems through Kim Jiyoung’s experiences. The scenes behind the four doors are interpretations of essential moments in Jiyoung’s life that led her to become who she is. We chose to portray Jiyoung’s encounter on the bus, her giving up her job, her encounter with critiques from businessmen in the park, and her mental breakdown. In more detail, a scene we chose to express in our sculpture is when an older classmate sexually harasses Jiyoung on a bus and follows her home. This was included in the project because of how relatable it is for many women; it represents the fear and terror women commonly experience in similar situations around the world. Similarly, women can relate to the expectations Jiyoung faces regarding her career. Even in modern times, women are still expected to focus on supporting their families. In turn, many sacrifices have to be made. Jiyoung endured this expectation when she had to quit her job, giving up her career and goals for herself. The scenes surrounding Jiyoung quitting her job exemplify the stigma about women in the workforce that is caused by the expectation that a woman’s sole focus should be her family. The stigma extends further than the workplace; while walking in the park with her daughter, Jiyoung is criticized by businessmen for being a ‘mom-roach’. This scene was included in our project to show the contradiction of the stigma surrounding women. While women are expected to stay at home and care for their children, they are criticized for not having a job and ‘taking advantage’ of their husband’s money. Despite not being a solid or singular scene, Kim Jiyoung’s possession-like episodes, where she takes on the personality of others, are a driving point for the story. They portray the outcome of Jiyoung’s past experiences.

Wyatt Macpherson
The Scales That Never Balance
Watercolor Pencil Painting
My project is a description of how in South Korea there is a massive imbalance between the importance in their social standards between genders. I used the different colors to help represent different things like power, having trouble in life, and influence. My goal was to create a representation of how the social standards affect the people in the country: one is held high and mighty while the other is subjected to a lot of pressure to be perfect and do what they are told and only what they are told. In my project, the men are on a podium, sitting on the #1 spot with a crown and purple rays of light to represent how they are more valued and have more power in South Korean society. The purple rays go back to royalty treating purple as a very important color that shows power/importance in society. Whereas the women are under the men, showing their lack of “power” in South Korean society and the pressure that is put on them to stay with the lack of power. The women are cracking because they are tired of being subjected to the consistent and large amount of pressure they are subjected to by society.

Tessali Martinez & Jared Walker
Inside Looking Out
Collage
These collages were inspired by specific quotes that embody the novel. Utilizing scraps of paper, we transformed the quotes into images to convey the raw emotion and symbolism permeating the novel. In the first collage, Jiyoung is curled up in front of three mirrors, each reflecting her different “identities.” However, it is important to note how she is only represented by who she is to others, rather than her true self. This illustrates her struggle with a diminished sense of self and the pressure to conform to societal roles, gradually depriving her of strength until none is left. The second collage is a depiction of the earth. But rather than land being green, the entire world is a hue of blue, emphasizing how men were the only ones truly acknowledged, while women were left in the shadows. At the center, the classic symbol of women is displayed; its indistinct quality reinforces the notion of women’s “insignificance” in society. Instead of being recognized as individuals, they were often viewed in terms of their utility, resembling objects more than people.

Kimty Nguyen
Forgive me for being born a Girl
Scrapbook/Collage Book
I created a visual diary that represents Kim Jiyoung’s childhood, reflecting how she gradually became aware of the gender inequality that shaped her life. I wanted to capture how sexism is often ingrained from birth, unnoticed at first but deeply affecting a person’s sense of self. The diary begins with soft, innocent imagery to mirror Jiyoung’s early years, when she did not yet realize the unfair treatment she received compared to her younger brother and male peers in her life. As the pages progress, the visual elements darken, incorporating mature tones, chains, and torn pages to symbolize her growing frustration and the emotional weight of societal expectations. By framing Jiyoung’s story as a diary, I emphasize how these experiences accumulate, shaping her identity and ultimately leading to the disillusionment and quiet rebellion seen in the novel. This project is a personal and artistic response to the novel’s core message: the limitations placed on women are not always loud or explicit but are woven into the fabric of their lives from the very beginning.

Mila Petricevic
A Girl Made of Glass
A poem and performance as well as a title poster
“A Girl Made of Glass” is a thought-provoking poem and performance questioning societal norms in South Korea as well as the broader subject of the suppression of female emotions throughout history. The accompanying art piece is a physical manifestation of the mental and emotional pressures explored throughout the poem. Through the symbolism of a glass box and the metaphor of a mirror, Kim Jiyoung’s conditioning to suppress her own needs is materialized and her contemplation, but ultimate delaying, of shattering the glass culminates in her mental disorder portrayed as a breakdown.

Austin Prosser
The History behind Kim Jiyoung
History Analysis
My project is a timeline starting at the beginning of the novel and showing when historical events take place in relation to the story. It includes pictures so the viewer can visualize these events and figures in Korean history.

Marina Razo
Kim Ji-young’s Fragmented World
Framed Watercolor Painting
In the novel, everyday objects may carry intense symbolic meaning, resonating with the protagonist’s social interactions and inner turmoil. Incorporating items like the younger brother’s toys, a diary, a world map, and ramen into the artwork unfolds layers of cultural commentary on gender roles, emotional expression, and societal expectations. Each item is a part of Kim Jiyoung’s world, providing insight into the bigger themes of inequity and identity that mark her story. The toys of the younger brother capture the entrenched gender roles and imbalances explored in the novel. The toys encapsulate how, early on, gendered expectations embed themselves in determining the ways the boys are nurtured to discover, lead, and dream while girls are often tied to conventions. By painting these objects, the painting calls attention to the domestic dynamics and cultural expectations that Kim Jiyoung faced in her childhood, illuminating where gender inequalities originate. The diary is an emotional element that symbolizes Kim Jiyoung’s inner conflict and unexpressed thoughts. It symbolizes a private space where she can talk about feelings that society normally subdues, indicating the conflict between her inner self and society’s expectations. The inclusion of a diary within the artwork symbolizes the importance of giving women’s lived experiences and conflicts, which are often trivialized or minimized, greater importance. Ramen serves as a metaphor for everyday life and emotional labor traditionally shouldered by women. Its visibility reminds us of the seemingly unexceptional, yet emotionally heavy, labor women perform within their families, such as caregiving. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 reminds us of how society diminishes women’s efforts to the mundane despite their invaluable input and impact. The world map is an effective symbol of the wider social world and limited opportunities for women. Within the story, it represents the potentialities as well as limitations confronting women as they navigate living in a male-dominated world. Highlighting the map emphasizes the global scope of Kim Jiyoung’s life and invites the reader to take into account the global backdrop of gender inequality.

Claire Tentoni & Aleena Koser
Who Is She?
Art Piece
“Who Is She?” reflects the identity crisis that Kim Jiyoung is facing along with the pressures of societal expectations for women. Many women in Korea have experienced this exact situation and the pressures of society to fit into a one size fits all box across all different categories. This painting will reflect all the women whose stories have never been told, but that is important. Women are expected to be so many people: a mother, sister, employee, a ‘man’, and a wife. They have so many expectations to live up to and feel so much more pressure than is understood by society. On top of the expectations of performing equal to men, they are meant to additionally live up to female expectations. Women so often have to work harder and forget who they are and their desires to bend and shape into the mold of a woman that society should ‘respect.’

Charlise Ticknor, Absera Melak, and Bonnie Wang
Thirty-four Blinks
Painting, Drawing, and a Clay Sculpture
This project visually interprets Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 through three distinct stages of her life, reflecting her experiences under societal pressures. The first stage is represented by a dark, abstract painting, symbolizing the early constraints and expectations placed on her as a child and young woman. The second stage takes form in a clay sculpture of burdensome objects, illustrating the weight of marriage, motherhood, and societal roles she is forced to carry. The final stage is captured in a drawing of a long road, featuring a bus stop and a coffee cup, key symbols from the novel’s pivotal “mom roach” moment, signifying Jiyoung’s reflection on her life and the limited choices available to her. Through these stages, this project critically engages with the novel’s themes of gender oppression and the struggle for autonomy.

Bella Yearian
Faces of Resilience
Video Interview
This project paints a picture of the societal pressures on women: specifically, mothers. I chose to do a podcast type interview with each mother because everyone has their own story and background. It makes it so you hear different viewpoints. Although they may have different perspectives, the viewers will often find some similarities as well. These interviews connect to the novel because there is a connection from the mothers in the novel to the mothers of the real world. Throughout the novel, readers see the women struggling with pressures as well as mental health issues, seeing how they can impact a woman. The same can be said for the interviews.

Ria Buras
The Breakfast Nook
Poem/Watercolor Artwork
My poem highlights the theme of familial relationships, which was illustrated in Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. To do this, I alternated speakers in every stanza, switching from a mother to her maturing daughter. The mother remains in the kitchen, always preparing breakfast. It is not until the end of my poem that the daughter realizes all that her mother has sacrificed. My purpose in writing this poem was to highlight the people in our life that we take for granted, and thus their potential that so often goes unnoticed and untouched.

Victoria Gillett
Or So They Pretend
Sketch/Poem Scroll
My scroll takes the viewer back and forth through time, starting from the recent past during the days of the One Child Policy and going as far back as the Western Han Dynasty of China. Through a combination of minimalist sketches and original poetry, viewers learn about the various stories of six different women from history and how their lives were torn apart by circumstance and the patriarchal society of ancient China. Many aspects of Korean and Chinese history and culture parallel each other, from having infamous periods where vast numbers of baby girls were aborted–which still impacts their gender ratio today–to having environments that were hostile towards women’s behavior regardless of how they acted. Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 explores many of the same aspects that were–and are–part of Korea, and the resemblance between the two demonstrates how the issue extends beyond Jiyoung’s homeland, while also expanding upon how far back these customs go.

Kane Nickerson
Smile
2d Lego build
My Build shows the struggles of women and how they are treated in society and how unfair the system really is. It shows a woman with a Joker’s smile painted in red around her mouth with various scars on her face. This build and representation relates to the book, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, because the book mainly focuses on the unfair and unjust treatment of women in society. The build has two meanings. One, it shows that women are taught to be happy about their situation and be compliant while they surfer and are treated unfairly. Two, it also shows that women are told they must be a certain way to appeal to others even if it means sacrificing their own happiness in the process.

Lourdes Piel
Do You Work?
Black and White Digital Art Sketch
My digital art project portrays the struggles of a stay-at-home woman who puts in the same amount of work, if not more, than her other half, only to be told she does not work because she does not earn an income. It is a woman wearing a business suit with chains around her arms. She is in a spotless kitchen setting and off to the side is a man, her husband, in the doorway carrying a briefcase. His head is turned back as if he is the one asking his wife “Do you work?” as he leaves for his business job. I have a personal connection to this because my mom, who works within the home, was rudely asked “Do you work?” by another family member when he explained why he could not take time off of work to be by my grandfather’s side during his recovery from a major surgery. It severed our relationship with that family member and left only empty respect. My drawing relates to Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 because all of the female characters have lived through the same struggles of a housewife and that title being burned into them. Though they have a strong desire to work outside the home and earn an honest wage, society always finds ways to chain them back up inside the home.

Rachel Weaver-Brady
Forever Questioning
Documentary Video
My documentary, “Forever Questioning,” will take viewers to hear the stories of men and women in different generations of what they’ve experienced in their generation and if they believe this is how this is supposed to happen back then and nowadays. The viewers will also view their opinions of whether their kid(s) have the same gender roles as them and what they hope for their grandchild(ren). This documentary will show the struggles that women and men may or may not have in common with and if they’ve learned to move on from it or wear the scar on their back as a reminder. I decided to make “Forever Questioning” happen not only because I want to see the experiences of older generations but they should be heard and seen of their opinions and experiences.

Emily Bakey, Makenzie Ness, and Sophia Bento
The Weight of Silence
Mini Poster/Collage
Our mini poster shows the main themes of the book through pictures, quotes, and research. These themes include sexual harassment, sexism, discrimination against women, and mental health. Research about Postpartum Depression Disorder is used and related to the main character, Kim Jiyoung. This research also connects to how the book is being told through Kim Jiyoung’s eyes while talking to a psychiatrist. Research about Seoul, South Korea during the late 1900s and early 2000s is used to connect to quotes from the book about Kim Jiyoung’s childhood and experiences as well as the main themes. The pictures show the main themes of the book by showing the experiences that Kim Jiyoung went through in her life that relate to what is happening today. The pictures also show the modern version of Seoul, South Korea. This project is a critical interpretation of the book because it shows how as a child grows into adulthood, the environment and time period in which they live can have an effect on their mental health and who they grow up to be.

Ella Bauman and Gabby Stammer
The Invisible Burdens
Research Poster/Project
Our research project is shown in the format of a trifold and explores one of the main themes in this novel: the different ways women’s mental health is impacted, including a historical timeline of how women’s rights have evolved since the 1800s versus in this modern age. It also includes different expectations and stereotypes placed on women, which have important impacts on their mental health. Using quotes from the novel and different images to justify these different stereotypes. The main point of our research is to convey the message of limited opportunities and overwhelming expectations that impact a woman’s mental health.

Genevieve Bautista
Cleansing
Colored pencil collage
My artwork uses raised layers and colorful illustrations to put the unseen suffering of Kim Jiyoung, the main character, in bold. Dusted off by the men in her life, Kim Jiyoung endures emotional, mental, and physical crises with little sympathy from the very source of her distress. Though her story is fictional, the male indifference she encountered is very real, which is why I chose to depict it in a literal, lifelike style. The quote and images are direct references to struggles from Kim Jiyoung’s childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Mia Burgoni
Untitled
Poster
My project is a poster that demonstrates how the course of women’s rights has evolved. I wanted to include a comparison of the United States and South Korea in my project. I have included various quotes in the book to enhance the connection between the story and my project. As well as various pictures, maps, and graphs relevant to the story and my topic.

Keira Daniels
Shaped by Me
Mixed media
This project will include a portrait of Kim Jiyoung crafted from magazine and newspaper scraps. I assembled facial and bodily features, clothing, and words to make up the picture. This construction represents how society crafts and pressurizes women into fitting the “ideal,” specifically Kim Jiyoung in the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982.

Aila Gingerich and Ella Heyndrickx
The Words We Tolerate
Poster
Our project aims to highlight the way words set women back in history. We chose this project in light of the novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo. The gender roles readers find in Korea during Jiyoung’s life do not differ much from those women suffer today in the United States. Women are expected to tolerate vile words and offensive treatment, and if they do not abide, they are dubbed as exasperating and unpredictable. In Korea, not being a male is a curse in itself and women have to carry the burden of inadequacy from the cradle to the grave. The real-life scenarios and quotes from the novel we have chosen strive to draw recognition to the tyrant females cannot seem to escape: the patriarchy.

Addison Hervey and Gia Heid
Difficult Decisions and Complicated Consequences
Poster
Our project explores the difficult decisions Kim Jiyoung faced in Kim Jiyoung, Born in 1982 through the classic “Would you Rather?” game. We analyzed moments where Kim Jiyoung had to decide between personal desires and societal expectations. The themes of mental health stigma, womanhood, workplace discrimination, marriage, and gender roles, are questioned and explored. Our project shows that there is never truly a “right” answer, based on the numerous consequences that come with either decision. The project also showcases how even in the “right” answer, there can be consequences surrounding it as well. The project also explores how many believe they will choose the “right” answer but in the moment will choose to fit in with society. It allows viewers to see the difficulty in making choices in a patriarchal society for women.

Hailey Holub, Keira Peterson, and Emerson Huebner
Magnifying the underlying importance of words
Collection of Italicized Words
Our project displays some of the significant words and phrases in the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, specifically those italicized throughout the text. Although readers may skim over certain sentences containing these words, they reveal underlying messages of the main themes in the book. This display is done in the format of a written paper, with the words written on it only visible when observed through a microscope, connecting back to the fact they may be skimmed over if not intently searched for. The words are also all defined to show the readers the true purpose and meaning intended by the author, Cho Nam-Joo.

Kate Jannette
The Grand Injustice
Collage
This project is a compilation of photos that reflects the injustice and unfairness Kim Jiyoung, along with many other young girls all over the world have been forced to endure. I have used images and headlines to depict the shame, anger, desperation, and conviction pent up in these girls who have been systematically mistreated. This collage is a symbolic representation of the ever-present struggle and unrealistic expectations which have plagued girls all throughout history.

Audrey Jenkins
Title
Multimedia Collage
My collage, made with makeup and magazine scraps explores the universal experience of raising a family in today’s gender climate. Inspired by how important and challenging it is to raise daughters who know how to navigate a world of double standards. Kim Jiyoung’s Mother and Grandmother enforced sexism growing up. Whilst there were certainly other influences, she was greatly impacted by being raised with such a mindset. She never learned how to deal with the normal traumas of womanhood, such as being taken advantage of or objectified. This work will portray how crucial it is to teach our daughters by example to stand up for themselves and fight against systemic sexism.

Brynn Krull, Joy Krull, Chloe Pfefferle
82’
Song Lyrics/Poem
This poem, written as lyrics to a song, will represent the emotion and inner dialogue that Kim Jiyoung faced as a young woman growing up in society with steadfast, and often unfair gender roles. As a daughter, sibling, wife, and friend, Jiyoung faces problems and circumstances simply due to her role as a woman in a male dominated society. These lyrics will tell a story of a young girl, tasked with various chores due to her blameless brother, all the way through to when Jiyoung had trouble finding a job because she was a woman who would require maternity leave. The song is based off the song Parody by Jeremih. The purpose is to shed light to the struggles, small and large, that are faced by ordinary women not only in Korea, but across the world.

Raena Lambie
Love is worth it
Poster
This poster will display the challenges, struggles, and joys surrounding a child for new parents, particular in the case of this story, new mothers. The image of the child will be at the center of the poster, because a child is typically the center of new parents’ lives. For Kim Jiyoung, her experience includes a new bond with her child, lower pay and eventually leaving her job and hints of postpartum depression; but also a new life filled with love. The warm tones surrounding some images on the poster represent the joys of a child; the darker tones however represent the challenges. The hearts on the poster represent the importance of the child’s life and a huge aspect of a new family: love. Through the ups and downs of being a parent, specifically a mother, love is what makes the hardships worth it.

Michaela Lavalle and Valeria Nevarez-Padilla
Simple Sacrifice
Poster
Our project focuses on how the lives of women are changed after having children. This drawing specifically focuses on Kim Jiyoung and her experience after giving birth to her daughter, Jiwon. The outer box shows Kim’s life before having Jiwon, including her career, friends/colleagues, and her future career plans. It’s more colorful yet not quite bright because even though she worked extremely hard to get to where she was, she was still limited by the sexism she faced from her male colleagues and bosses. The inner box shows Kim’s life after having Jiwon, without her career, overwhelmed by taking care of a child while also running the home, and limited social life. The faded and dull colors represent her stress and postpartum depression that caused her to partially lose her identity. The hand pictured is that of a man and he’s retracting his hand from the inner box because he couldn’t handle being in it for too long. This action shows how men aren’t always able to understand the sacrifices that women have to make in order to have a child and how taxing motherhood in general is. This project is a critical interpretation because it describes the struggles that women like Kim Jiyoung face after having a child and the immense sacrifice that goes into being a parent.

Georgia Leaphart
My Birth was met with Tears
Time capsule/memory box
The project is a collection of objects that attempt to encapsulate what was kept as valuable by the protagonist when Kim Jiyoung herself was seen as less valuable than her male contemporaries. My presentation delves on the themes of culture and of change, as the reader and the protagonist reflect on past experiences and reckon with the present in the context of the relationships between family members.

Victoria Lopez
Breaking Silence
Poetry Collection
A poetry collection that critically interprets Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by exploring the theme of cultural identity and its impact on individual expression. Each poem will reflect key moments in Kim Jiyoung’s life and examine how traditional Korean values, family expectations, and societal norms shape her sense of self. The concept is inspired by the novel’s documentary style and intimate narrative voice. It includes allusions to cultural pressures, intergenerational conflict, and the tension between tradition and modernity. The aim is to highlight her quiet struggle to define her identity with a strict cultural framework through a creative lens and using metaphor and imagery.

Camille Marquardt and Violet Hyde
Cooking with Kim Jiyoung
Cookbook
Our project is comprised of numerous Korean food recipes found in the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. In many cultures, women have always been in the kitchen, cooking food for their children and husbands. However, in recent decades, it has become more common for both males and females to be seen in the kitchen. We created a cookbook to not only bring attention to Korean culture but also to surface the idea that cooking is a universal skill that everyone should learn.

Mariel Pante and Samu Dube
The Silent Struggle
Poster
Our project features the struggles that women have to endure quietly through various stages of their lives; we use the life of Kim Jiyoung to illustrate these struggles. Our poster has three paper doors that can be flipped open to reveal drawings and images that demonstrate what Kim Jiyoung had to go through as a woman as her life progressed from childhood to adulthood. The doors symbolize how women are pressured by society to shut away their suffering and carry on despite facing injustice and unfair expectations.

Brecklyn Pohl and Noelle Nevins
Women Around the World
Poster
Our poster is about how women are discriminated against in different countries around the world. We researched women’s rights and how the treatment of women in Korea specifically has changed since the release of the book, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. Our poster includes quotes from important figures who have worked with the modern women’s rights movements. Our poster includes a poem that exemplifies how women feel trapped or silenced due to this discrimination that they have always faced. The poem is in the traditional Korean poetry style, called the Sijo. We modeled the poem after famous poems that relate to suffrage, such as Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou. Through our project, we are trying to show how women’s rights have evolved over time but how treatment of women still falls short of equality, even today in the modern era.

Brock Polzin
Equal Voices Equal Choices
Poster
My poster will point out the struggles and stereotypes women used to and still do face, which is a main theme of the book Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982. My poster will then show how women today break free of stereotypes and gender roles through a woman breaking through a glass ceiling in the middle. Then I will have one side with old stereotypes that women used to follow with phrases below the images, with phrases fitting to the stereotype or what struggles the women in the photos might have faced. Then, on the other hand, I will have modern and empowered women like scientists, business women, and pilots with phrases fitting to those photos, showing their empowerment. The pictures of the stereotypes will be in black and white to show how stereotypes are old and should be forgotten, and the pictures of the women breaking free of the stereotypes will be in bright colors to show how good independent women are. Then in the bottom middle I will have a brief explanation relating the poster to the book and the takeaway from the poster. Also, the title of my poster will be top center and it will be, Women: From Silent Struggle to Bold Voices.

Sarah Rettler
The Things She Carries
Painting
This project represents the conflicting expectations and negative stereotypes placed on women by society. Words such as “perfect,” “submissive,” “nurturing,” and “high-maintenance” are scattered among symbols of domesticity, beauty, motherhood, and more. All of the images and words illustrate the contradictory expectations women are meant to maintain simultaneously. Inspired by Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, this piece reflects the deeply rooted societal pressures that shape women’s lives from an early age. Just as Kim Jiyoung’s life is dictated by invisible rules, women around the world navigate the same. The words and images highlight how societal expectations confine women in “cages,” like the one portrayed on the bottom of the canvas. Ultimately, this painting critiques society’s treatment of women.