February 2013 was a huge moment for South Korean women as the nation swore in its first female leader.

As Park Geun-hye assumed the presidency of a decidedly patriarchal nation, she laid out an ambitious empowerment agenda. She shocked the gray-haired men dominating the economy by choosing a woman, Kwon Seon-joo, to head state-owned Industrial Bank of Korea and shaming companies hiring too few females. Park's gender-affairs minister cajoled companies to release data on female executive ratios. In 2014, Park devoted about 5.5 percent of public expenditure increases to promoting flexible work schedules and affordable child care.

But three years on, South Korea's "womenomics" moment is proving to be more rhetorical than substantive.