• Home
• /
• Business

NKorea urges women to dress for revolution

SEOUL - Communist North Korea on Saturday marked International Women’s Day by urging its women to reject Western fashions and to “set good examples” in their clothes and hairstyles.

While the UN has lent its support to a worldwide drive to invest in women and girls to foster gender equality, the reclusive state has issued its own calls to its female population.

“Women must set good examples in all fields of culture and custom, including clothes, hairdos and language,” Rodong Sinmun, the official daily of the North’s ruling Korean Workers’ Party, said in an editorial.

It also urged women to raise their children as trustworthy revolutionaries.

“Thoroughly armed with revolutionary principles and class consciousness, women must not allow reactionary ideas and alien lifestyles being propagated by imperialists to penetrate our society,” it added.

The North also urged women to contribute to the defence of the nation.

“It is a sublime duty for women to... actively contribute to strengthening the country’s defence capability,” Rodong Sinmun said.

And it called for women to actively support uniformed servicemen ”as if they were their own relatives” and help strengthen solidarity between the people and the army.

Meanwhile, Pyongyang’s Chungang TV said North Korea has produced more than 40 female professors and 170 doctorate degree holders over the past 10 years.

It also said a culinary competition was being held in Pyongyang Saturday to celebrate International Women’s Day.