1997년 후 홍콩소설에 나타난 주부와 가정부의 모습 ― 가사노동 / 돌봄노동과 여성 문제를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to research how women - especially housewives and housemaids - are described in relation to domestic/caring labor in Hong Kong fictions after 1997, and to estimate in which state the Hong Kong fictions are located on this matter regarding the gender equality problem. Although there has been improvement to the domestic gender equality in Hong Kong, it still is mostly the housewives who take full responsibility on domestic labor. The image of women as those dedicated to domestic labor is still being repetitively reproduced in Hong Kong fictions too. Moreover housewives are often narrated as unreasonable, irrational, unproductive beings, those who have no other choices but to do house chores and depend on their husbands. Furthermore, to housemaids (‘菲傭’) as social agent of domestic labor, the injustice of reification on women is done in the fiction as well as in the real world. Even the relationship of controlling and being controlled is built between housewives and housemaids of the same gender. Hong Kong fictions do not yet give enough attention to the significance of domestic/caring labor, which women still are entirely responsible to, on the issue of gender equality. Nonetheless, it is clear that Hong Kong fictions are showing the possibility of improvement on this matter.