Splinter: Could North Korea End up with a Woman Leading the Country Before the U.S. Does?

The world of totalitarian dictators is getting a bit of a shake-up this week, as something that has been intensely speculated upon in the South Korean government and media has come to pass at least on some level: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has reportedly designated his teenage daughter as his official heir, indicating that she would be groomed to continue his family line and dictatorship. That said, it’s difficult to say how much media manipulation and spycraft is involved here–there are many in the South Korean government, media and public who believe that one of Kim Jong Un’s presumed but unknown sons would still be chosen as the successor when the time is right. Still, the public appearances and governmental backing of 13-year-old Kim Ju Ae still represent an exceptional and unusual moment for North Korea, demonstrating a break with traditional women’s roles within the dictatorship, and the seemingly absurd possibility that North Korea, of all places, could end up with a female executive leader before the democratic voters of the United States manage to actually elect one of our own.

This is not to say, by any stretch, that North Korea is some kind of egalitarian society, although its stated (but not pursued) socialist ideals at least theoretically state that women should be legally equal within its society. These founding principles have a history of smashing up uncomfortably against the practical reality of running a repressive totalitarian regime backed by traditional neo-Confucian values of servitude and loyalty, enforced by brutal prison camps, extreme surveillance and total isolation from information about the outside world. As a result, life for average women in North Korea has long been marked by deep systemic inequality and vulnerability to abuse, even as women have at times been forced to become the major breadwinners in North Korean society through its unregulated market economy while its men work in unpaid and mandatory government jobs. When women in North Korean society do rise to higher-ranking government positions, it is often because they’re the relatives of top leaders. Nepotism is by no means a western invention.

That is certainly the case of 13-year-old Kim Ju Ae, who is the only one of Kim Jong Un’s children whose identity is known. And we learned of her identity back in 2013 through the most absurd of means: When American former NBA star Dennis Rodman visited the country, he told media afterward that he had met with and befriended Kim Jong Un and wife Ri Sol Ju, and had “held baby Ju Ae.” Yes, the Chicago Bulls star basically outed the existence of this infant girl to the world.

A literal decade passed after that point before Kim Ju Ae began to appear on state television broadcasts in 2022, which have grown more frequent over time. Some have theorized that the primary function of these appearances alongside Kim Jong Un are to “soften” his public appearance as a repressive dictator, essentially attempting to position him as a loving family man. This view doesn’t really take into account, however, the nature of Ju Ae’s media appearances. Rather than simply being depicted in daily life or commercial venues with her father, Ju Ae has often been right there beside him at military and state functions, like inspecting intercontinental ballistic missiles, or being feted by troops at military parades. She seems to operate outside of social norms for girls her age, wearing her hair long, which is typically forbidden for unmarried women, and frequently being seen in designer clothes. South Korean analysts seem to believe that Kim Ju Ae has even begun to provide policy input in her father’s regime. That she’s being groomed for an important role seems clear.

“Dad, it’s bloody freezing”
“Shut up and keep pretending to dig”

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— Alistair Coleman (@alistaircoleman.bsky.social) Jan 6, 2026 at 8:56 AM

All of these theories require a certain fluency in North Korean state media that has been carefully cultivated in South Korea over the decades, where much energy is put into decoding what the state media transmissions of the North are attempting to indoctrinate into the public. Things that would likely seem unimportant or mundane to an American viewer, like the positioning of people in the frame, is thought to carry large symbolic weight in North Korean broadcasts. The fact that Kim Ju Ae has been shown in recent months in those broadcasts standing taller than her (notably diminutive, though round) father is therefore considered significant–as is the fact that she has been depicted walking directly alongside him (or even in front), rather than trailing behind like other members of Kim Jong Un’s retinue. Rarely is any individual allowed to carry that kind of equal weight in depictions of the supreme leader.

Perhaps counterintuitively, there is a case that could be made at least on some level that Kim Jong Un has legitimately been attempting to bring a bit more equality to the stations of men and women within North Korean society since he assumed power in 2011. He was educated primarily in Switzerland in his youth, attending the International School of Berne under a pseudonym between at least 1996-2000, which some hoped would lead to loosening of social restrictions in North Korea that have mainly failed to materialize. Still, he made Choe Son-hui the nation’s first female Minister of Foreign Affairs, one of the highest-ranking positions within an extremely patriarchal government structure. His sister, Kim Yo Jong, he elevated to a senior position within the Central Committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea, and she reportedly has his ear as an important advisor. At the same time, don’t get too excited: Kim Jong Un also appeared on state media in a 2023 address in which he urged the country’s women to have more babies to reverse its declining birth rate, proclaiming that it was an integral part of the “housekeeping duties” of women: “Preventing a decline in birth rates and good childcare are all of our housekeeping duties we need to handle while working with mothers.” So yeah, he’s probably not going to be viewed as a paragon of feminism any time soon.

There is certainly a possibility that one of Kim Jong Un’s secret sons is currently off at a Scandinavian college right now as well, and will be revealed with great pomp and circumstance down the road, ultimately snatching the title of heir away from his now 13-year-old sister. But at the same time, it’s a curious choice for the North Korean government to get so on board with the social promotion of Kim Ju Ae unless its leader views her as playing a genuinely important role. At only 42 years old, Kim Jong Un is still young for a leader, and could be in power for decades to come–it may be that he believes that slowly acclimating his culture to the idea of a female leader over the course of years will make the transition easier than his own rocky assumption of power. Or perhaps Kim Jong Un’s health is in fact worse than reported, and he now feels the need to begin the process as soon as possible, in order to start affirming loyalties to Kim Ju Ae. As is so often the case with North Korea, the intent of its leadership is shrouded in mystery.

In America, meanwhile, polling in the wake of failed presidential bids by Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris frustratingly suggests that Americans simultaneously believe a female President is both inevitable and impossible. Although a majority of Americans believe that a woman will be President sooner rather than later, an outspoken but troublingly large minority either believes that systemic biases will keep a woman out of the office, or outright say they won’t vote for a woman. October polling from The American University found that Americans expect double standards from female candidates, that they must be both “tough” and “likable” simultaneously, and that roughly a quarter of Americans under 50 said they “would not back a qualified female candidate for President.”

Perhaps they’ll change their tune if Donald Trump pulls a Kim Jong Un and anoints Ivanka as his successor?