In listening class today we heard another tape in which the husband spoke to the wife in ban mal (casual speech used among close friends and to children), while the wife spoke to the husband using the more elevated form of speech.

The first time we heard a tape like this, I asked why this was so. I didn't want to start a fight about cultural traditions or anything, I just wanted to hear what the teacher would say.

At that time, she said, "Yes, that is the case, isn't it? That isn't very good, is it?" Later, she or another teacher, I don't recall who(we have a writing teacher, a speaking teacher and a listening/reading teacher), said that traditionally, the husband was older than the wife, so the wife would naturally use respectful speech to the husband.

I think this is changing, but on TV dramas and such, the wife still usually uses the elevated form of speech to the husband while the husband uses casual speech to the wife, and it irritates the hell out of me.

On Sunday, at the Buddhist temple, I met Sheila, an Irish woman who is a hard-core feminist -- she's even authored a book about it. She said that on her most recent plane ride to Korea, she talked to a fellow female passenger: a woman who had four kids and who had been a scientist (I think) for the National Institutes of Health (I think) before becoming a mother. Sheila thought this was terrible -- "Why aren't men expected to stay home and mind the children?" she asked indignantly. She seemed to think it was a terrible waste of talent that this woman was no longer in the workplace.

Well, to an extent I can agree, but I also think that many, many women (most?) want to be mothers, and would want to stay home with their kids for some time. I'm not putting motherhood on a little Victorian pedestal, but hey, if that's your thing, that's your thing. I don't think strangers should be mourning your lost career opportunities if you aren't.

I'm not a hard-core feminist like Sheila. But it gets me bull-fighting mad when a casual conversation between spouses contains a built-in inequality. That is boooool sheeeet.