The Women Of North Korea: Icons, Heroines & Power Players | NK News
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September 24, 2026Sep 24, 2026

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The Women Of North Korea: Icons, Heroines & Power Players

Are the women we identify as prominent within the DPRK just as meaningful to ordinary North Koreans?

Who are the female icons of North Korea? Are the women we identify as prominent within the DPRK just as meaningful to North Koreans? And who are the women that hold the real power in North Korean society? Over the course of two special features dedicated to the other half of the North Korean sky, we’re going to find out.

The pantheon of North Korea’s female figures can be divided into four groups:

1) iconic female figures created and amplified by the propaganda apparatus since the inception of the DPRK; 2) a few, relatively unknown workers and revolutionaries, portrayed as