Gender issues and Misogyny
- Jiwoo Kang
- Mar 15, 2019
- 3 min read
Since last few years, opposition between men and women has been a huge issue in Korean community. It always existed but it has not been too long since it is brought up to the surface. Not exactly the starter but the IlganBest (Ilbe), the community mainly ran by men, was created. Ilbe’s members are antisocial who have lots of complains about their country and they include misogyny. The ‘Kimchi girls’ and ‘bean paste girls’ were the slangs coined in the website. There are many other shabby words that are used in Ilbe. Those are created to depreciate women in Korea. To confront, feminists created Megalian and Womad. Those websites are to mirror Ilbe. In these websites, Hannam(Korean man) , Benz-nam, and honey wagon were coined to depreciate men in Korea.
Tarana Burke, African American activist started off the “MeToo” movement by confessing her episode of sexual harassment and many other women began to reveal their pain. (Shin,Kyung-sook 2018). “MeToo” movement spread quickly since one female celebrity’s confession to the public. In addition, “Off Corset(탈코르셋)” movement conducted in Korea is women to act contrary to men’s expectation of feminine behavior such as, not wearing make-up, cutting hair short, and wearing huge clothes to hide their body shape. As Korean feminists’ actions got bigger, the rivalry between the two genders got more serious. The ladies, who confide “I experienced too” for #MeToo movement, were called hysterical malcontents who are suffering from a mass delusion. (Hye-ryung Kim, 2019) Such being the case of mocking, women undergo secondary victimization. Secondary victimization in sexual assault cases is caused due to lack of respect in respond from public. It indicates social disadvantage and psychological pain the victims encounter in addition to direct physical and mental aftermath. Misogynistic men blame women for causing the crimes by “not wearing appropriately” or “being out late at night” or “behaving cheap in front of men” (Shin, 2018)
In Korean popular culture, anti-feminism and misogyny are not new. Last November, there was an incident that caused feminists to raise their voice. An assault case happened in a Burning Sun which is a club that Seungri ran. The victim’s brave appeal let public to know details that happened in the dark side. It seemed to be a simple assault incident between a guest and an executive in a club. However, this incident eventually revealed sexual violence in the club. In their VIP rooms, men brought girls to the room, luring with free drinks. The men put drugs into their drink which makes them to be uncontrollable of their body and to lose short term memory. When the girls are under the condition of the drug, the men raped them. Plus, they took pictures and videos of their intercourse, and they even shared it online. Not only Korean men commercialize women and think of them as plaything to settle their sexual desires, but they also look on each other’s crimes. According to the messages went on within the club staffs, they called women Mulgae (literally means “seal” but means good-looking guests in the club) to introduce to VIP male guests. When they were successful in having sex, they called it “Home-run”. One of the witness said that the staffs only blocked public to the room, have not done single action when all the crimes were happening in the specific room despite women’s scream. This tells that they do not take their behavior seriously and this is how women in Korea are treated by men.
There is no exception outside of the club. There are few male K-celebrities including Seungri are in the center of dispute. In a group chat of 8 males, there were dozens of sex videos of themselves with women shared and they caricatured the victims in the video. “They can’t report” said by Jeong Junyoung. They took advantages of victims’ weakness to get away from penalty. Thusly, victimized women could not report their hardship.
As seen, Korea is in serious case of sexism and many women are dealt as products. Men use their physical and mental competence improperly to bring ladies down. For last few decades, female’s position and power of their voice grew and that might have led men’s resistance to change which raised the antagonistic relationship within the two gender. If we talk it out, hopefully this problem is solved as world peace came true.
Kim, Hye–Ryung. "The Age of #Me Too Movement : Criminal Nature of Sexual Violence and New Criteria for Christian Sexual Ethics." Korean Journal of Christian Studies111 (2019): 269-93. doi:10.18708/kjcs.2019.01.111.1.269.
Hye-Rim Kwon. "Influencing Factors of Attitude toward Secondary Victimization in Sexual Assault Cases by the Police Officers." Journal of the Korea Contents Association 19 (2019): 671-681.
Shin, Kyung-sook. “#MeToo” Movement and Feminist Discourse. The New Korean Association of English Language and Literature.2018.5, 79-91. [신경숙. “#미투”운동과 페미니스트 담론. 새한영어영문학회 학술발표회 논문집.2018.5, 79-91.]
Until I saw Ms. Wang's grading I didn't realize there was a group where a discussion on the Seungri question actually happened-- only 지우 was brave enough to tackle this hard question! I applaud the hard work and thought in they essay and responses. It's such a really upsetting issue-- let's all hope for substantive change in Korea for the good of both men and women.
I think this was a great topic to discuss this week, definitely because of what has happened so far in the k-pop world. I definitely agree that the issue between the two genders persists in modern Korea, and that men view women as objects to make them appear more powerful. I also agree Jiwoo’s point that the Korean feminists tend to show a strong hatred towards the opposite sex. I personally think this is the reason that the issue is becoming worse. However, it’s also very conflicting because events such as the “Seungri night club” scandal keep worsening the tension between the two sexes. I think this issue is so much deep into the government system, as there are connections…
2018 was a year that truly dealt with gender issues and women rights. With #MeToo campaign and feminism being publicized, the attitude towards sexual assault/harassment has been slightly changing. The victims no longer hide and the rate of reporting sexual harassment has increased 14.3 percent compared to last year. I agree with Yujuan and Amber, and I believe that it is important for the policies to be improved and change in order to make improvements for women rights. With the changes of perception within the society, some policies were put into action, such as “MeToo Law.” However, only ten or more laws were implemented yet, and this indicates how slow the progress for improving women rights are in Korea. I…
As Jiwoo mentioned, “In a group chat of 8 males including [Seungri and jeong Jun Young], there were dozens of sex videos of themselves with women shared and they caricatured the victims in the video”. What shocked me the most was how the trending keyword that was on Naver was “Jeong Joon Young’s Video.” People were attempting to find the videos and the victims. This indicated how majority of people commits secondary offense without knowing that it is not a right thing to do, just like how Jeong Jun Young took videos of women without their permission and shared those with his friends without feeling guilty. This showed how this perception was prevalent in Korean society, people not being able…
Before taking this course, I was not aware of the amount of misogyny in Korea. From reading Jiwoo’s and Yujuan’s essays, I think it is definitely hard to change the norm in Korea to allow women to be treated as equal as men due to the tradition of treating females as “products” rather than human beings. We can also see this aspect through the concept of the male gaze in K-pop videos. It is shocking that the videos are mostly viewed by teenagers and younger audiences who are still in the process of developing their viewpoints. For example, even the cute aegyo music videos seem to implicitly hint misconduct behaviour.
The “MeToo” movement is a helpful aspect to increasing the…