Gender Relations

I went to the park to shoot some hoops by myself today after work. After about twenty minutes I saw a guy sidling his way up to my end of the park. I passed him the ball since it was clear he wanted to play. We tossed it around a little bit with some banal small talk about favorite sports, occupations and whatnot. He asked if I wanted to go play soccer up at the elementary school and I said "heck, why not?" I called the girls to have them come meet us, so as to quell the awkwardness a bit. Before they got there we managed to school some schoolboys in a quick little game. The little boys were as astounded to see me as they always are, and there was nothing too weird about it. They were really surprised however when they found out that I can actually play a little bit.
A little bit later the girls got there and we decided to take some shots on goal. The Korean guy didn't let us go in goal. He insisted that he be in goal the whole time and I'm assuming it was because he didn't want us to get hurt. Needless to say, we missed the goal more than a couple of times and he was adament about being the one to chase after the ball every time. The whole experience was so different from the many times I've played soccer with my guy friends in the States. Ball shagging is a dreaded task and one that needs to be shared equally by everyone. The same goes for mandatory goal keeper. Everybody prefers to kick the ball rather than be the target within the goal but the position is rotated amongst all players so that everyone has an equal opportunity to shoot on goal. That's the thing about playing sports where I come from, equality.
After a while, I asked the guy if he wanted to stop, seeing as he must be tired by now, to which he replied "no, no it's very exciting. I've never played soccer with women before." I was shocked by this but not wholly surprised. I mean I've seen how Korean women behave and what they wear and what they do. Of course they would never put on their kicks and grubbies and play some ball, they rarely take off their heels. I simply could not imagine how different I would be if I hadn't played sports my whole life and it wouldn't be nearly as much fun if I didn't play with boys most of the time.
So there are obviously olympic teams made up of Korean women. Where are all of those women hiding and in what way were they raised that was any different from the average Korean woman? Do Korean women not play sports because it's viewed as unfeminine or because they aren't good at them? How would they know if they're not good at them? Are women given opportunities when they're younger to try different sports? If women felt repressed by their inaccessibily to sports, or to other male dominated past-times, surely they would rise up and make a move to be more included. But, do they feel that way?
There was one little girl on the playground while we were playing the soccer game with the schoolboys. She must have been someone's sister because she was so young. All she did was stand in my team's goal and would run clear across the playground when the ball, followed by a stampede of boys, came towards her.
After soccer the girls, the guy and I went to the local chicken place for some beers and eats. Good times for sure but I'm left with this weird misunderstanding of gender relations. I've studied Western gender relations and it's all about equality and the rising status of women. What's the deal here? Are they behind the times? Are they yet to have their feminist revolution or is that even what they want?