57 This redistribution system, which operates unfairly as it adheres to privileges and class, is made possible – and that is the other side of the coin – by the exclusion and suffering of the subordinate class, as well as women. The distribution system and related inequalities are reproduced within a nexus of political, material, regional, and sex-based inequalities interlinking with each other. Political inequality refers to a system which categorizes all residents into fixed status groups and affords preferential treatment to the elite as a privileged minority in order to preserve their power. Material inequality, a direct result of political inequality, divides the whole population through static class symbols, and allocates and manages all residents through a hierarchized material redistribution system. Regional inequality operates by singling out specific areas to be politically excluded or by isolating certain strata of society based on geographical areas. These excluded or isolated areas or strata can be considered as making up the lowest end with regard to material redistributions. On the other hand, sex-based inequality has been effected by a discriminatory method of redistribution, i.e. by determining men as the ‘heads of household’ and by treating women as their subordinate, dependent family members when allocating jobs and distributing food. This means that the North Korean redistribution system operates within a thoroughly androcentric system. And because sex inequality, which disfavours women through the redistribution system, is a complex product of the intermediate structure of political, material, and regional inequalities and plays out on the ‘question of food’, it can be said to correspond to the most fundamental and severe human rights violations. The unequal redistribution system which is grounded on such sex-based discrimination has invariably shifted the devastating consequences of food shortages to women. After the 1990s, the onus of securing one’s livelihood was transferred to women. When the allocation of jobs which had centred on the ‘heads of household’ was terminated and men refused to participate in markets, women became responsible for the livelihood of their families. Especially in the case of housewives, women have had to deal with an excessive burden following the decline of state schemes supporting domestic work and the rearing of children. In order to do business, they had to put up with travelling long