Sungkyunkwan Scandal is set near the end of the 18th century while Rookie Historian is set in the early 19th century.

Both female leads are feminists starting out on the career path of a government official. Said career path is illegal for women throughout Sungkyunkwan Scandal, but newly made legal a few episodes into Rookie Historian.

In Sungkyunkwan Scandal, the female lead is a Sungkyunkwan scholar, which -- to loosely connect the two dramas together -- was a typical starting point in the career path of a royal historian. However, in Rookie Historian, the government is in a hurry to fill the newly legalized positions for female historians, meaning that the women who want to become historians take the civil service exam without ever having attended university, drawing yet another divide between them and their male colleagues.


If you've watched Sungkyunkwan Scandal and wish to see further conceptualization of the career path and feminist movement that the female lead of SS started down, watch Rookie Historian.

If you've watched Rookie Historian and you're curious about what kind of university experiences the female historians might have missed out on during a time when such experiences were forbidden to them as women, watch Sungkyunkwan Scandal.