Women characters no longer wait to be chosen in K-dramas

Forget damsels in distress and a focus on love interests. The women dominating K-dramas today are choosing themselves. Bechdel Day 2025 is a festival hosted by the Directors Guild of Korea to raise audience awareness of gender equality and diversity through film and TV. This year's 10 drama selections were chosen from among 102 entries released between June 2024 and May 2025, and reflect a trend for female characters defined not by their relationships with men, but by their own ambitions, relationships and agency. Whether in contemporary thrillers or lavish period dramas, women lead the charge in these media masterpieces. Critic Jung Duk-hyun said, "Of course, romance is still a staple, but increasingly we’re also seeing narratives of ‘womance’ — stories about women’s relationships with each other. Female-centered dramas have always existed, but what has shifted more strongly in recent years is how actively these women choose and live within their own stories.” Yun Suk-jin, cultural critic and professor of Korean language and literature at Chungnam National University, addedWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times