An Introduction to Domestic Violence in Japan
For more detailed information, see Ken’s three part series on the 2006 survey on domestic violence by the Cabinet Office of Japan (Gender Equality Bureau) at What Japan Thinks here.
Alternatively, for those of you more interested in domestic violence in Korea, then see here for the first installment in my series on that. Further afield, see here for information on the dramatic decrease in spouse-to-spouse murders in the US over the last 30 years (extreme, but still related), which deserves to be much more widely known.
(Via: Feministing)
Korean Sociological Image #1: Motherhood for Son Tae-Young
With apologies to the authors of the blog Sociological Images for copying both the name and the idea, but then my own images will be few and far between, and naturally confined to only Korean examples! Besides, if the quality of the images on this blog didn’t already give it away then I’ve aleady been a fan of modern Korean art and photography for quite a while now, and have long lamented that the academic in me rebels against posting images just for the sake of it, no matter how well they might embody, say, a certain Korean zeitgeist or - my personal favorite – provide interesting juxtapositions.
Which may seem a bit rich to describe my first choice of this image (source) of Son Tae-young (손태영) from her appearance at the SBS Broadcasting center in Seoul yesterday, promoting her new drama Two Wives (두아내) that is due to air on May the 4th, but there are indeed *cough* two points to this image which make it – in the words of the about page of SI – “compelling and timely,” albeit both of which I’ve already discussed in depth and so will be simply linking to here.
The first, of course, is the fact that her bra is clearly visible, without which her appearance at the promotion undoubtedly wouldn’t have generated quite the attention in the Korean media and blogosphere that it has (see here, here, and here for the latter). Why that is significant in anything other than a voyeuristic sense is that – as far as I know – she is the first Korean celebrity to dress in that fashion, and, as I explain here, here, and especially here, Western celebrities doing so several years ago heralded big changes in fashions and notions of “appropriate” standards of dress for women here. Perhaps Son Tae-young will prove to be an icon that accelerates those?
She is already probably much more significant an icon as a (recent) mother though, mostly by virtue of numerous photoshoots of her unusually thin body while pregnant and then determination to return it to it’s former glory afterward (see number #11 here for the former and here and#15 here for the latter). Neither of which I bemoan her for as a celebrity in an already appearance-obsessed culture, and nor do I mean to imply that I think that Korean mothers are all mere passive followers of ideals of appearance set by celebrity mothers (let alone just one). Or then again, perhaps I should: as I explain here, many are already so concerned with their appearances that they: diet while pregnant; as a whole have proportionally more caesarean sections than any other group of women; and will quickly bottle-feed after birth in order to diet again, even though as fellow blogger Melissa points out here, breastfeeding is actually the surest means of losing baby-fat. And as she goes on:
What Korea needs is some famous (slim & beautiful) celebrity mom to talk about the glories of nursing/expressing milk and we’d start to see an increase in numbers. ^^
And when Son Tae-young said she was breastfeeding her son, there appeared to be the distinct possibility of that! But by wearing that particular outfit, then clearly she isn’t any more, even though it’s only been four months since the birth, and at least a year is best for the baby. Sigh.
Like I said, that’s showbiz, and I don’t bemoan her for it. Nonetheless, it’s a pity that Korea is still waiting.
(For all posts in the “Korean Sociological Image” series, see here)
Sexy Made Cute in Korean Popular Culture
Last Sunday, my new daily must-read Sociological Images blog discussed the Tokyo City Government’s appointment of three young women as “cute ambassadors” for the city, the better to promote Japanese kawaii (cute) culture and project Japan’s “soft power” abroad. Which just officiates what has occurred for decades really, although by all means Japan needs to exploit what it has a comparative advantage in given the dire state of its economy.
But choosing a 19 year-old that dresses like a schoolgirl, another as a Victorian doll in voluminous frilly skirts, and a third in a polka dot shirt with a bunny print, has certainly raised more than just eyebrows, and strongly tempts us purveyors of the Western gaze to pigeonhole them into the Western pornography genre of “lolitas.” Yet as numerous commentators there (and here and here) pointed out, Japanese lolita fashion, and much of Japanese cosplay in general, is intended as anything but sexual, and many of their adherents would be surprised at Westerners’ associations.
Given the huge size of the Japanese child and adolescent pornography industry for one though, then personally I find that view incredibly naive at best, but on the other hand it’s true that concepts of “cute” and “sexy” differ widely between individuals, let alone between cultures. Which is not to say that I don’t think that there are universal standards that can and should be applied for determining which is which regardless, but it does point to what can be fine lines between them sometimes.
Still, my primary interest is Korea, and while it is by no means as extreme a case as Japan, and thus gets correspondingly less attention by the Western media and academia, arguably it’s much the more interesting. For like in Japan infantile, immature, and “cute” behavior on the part of adult women (or those in their twenties at least) is also very much encouraged by the media, but unlike Japan it occurs in an environment which discourages explicit expressions of sexuality, premarital sex being widespread but always kept secret (particularly by women). Which means that what expressions that do exist in popular culture are often in this faux cute guise instead, giving a dynamic to Korean celebrity culture that is ultimately very different to its Western counterparts.
( Source )
(Probably related are the harsh restrictions on pornography also {no genitalia or pubic hair allowed}, and hence the fact that the domestic industry is easily dwarfed by its relatively laissez-faire Japanese counterpart, but I don’t want to make too much of that: Korean men don’t like teenage girl groups {and thereby further encourage their sexual clothes and dance moves} simply because they lack the ready access to, say, schoolgirl manga that their Japanese counterparts have, although it would be naive to dismiss that element altogether)
Korean celebrities do provide role models for teenagers of course, and so while I’d be the last person to say that adolescents’ sexuality is suddenly dormant until being turned on like a light at the age of consent (which is 18 in Korea, not 13 as is often erroneously reported), nor that sexy dance moves and clothes by under-18s should be strictly verboten, it is true a public reluctance to acknowledge them as anything but cute is seriously inhibiting the development of sex education in schools and a healthy sexual culture in general, let alone acknowledging and dealing with the huge size of the teenage prostitution industry here.
As my friend Gord Sellar has written an outstanding (and lengthy) piece on all the questions raised by those issues here, and which has played no small part in my own evolving views on the subject, then I’ll wisely defer discussing them for now. But I can, however, give a very good recent example of the sort of thing I mean. Consider this commercial for the Korean yogurt drink O’yu (오’유):
I’ll wager that had you not seen it in this post, that you’d have found it perfectly innocent at first (given my recent track record, then me too). But consider what Extra! Korea wrote on it here, through which I first found it:
I don’t think it’s cute, and here’s why.
From their uniforms and the hallway leading to classrooms, these are schoolgirls. But look at how short their skirts are. That’s not regulation length, trust me. If these were 18-year-old high school seniors, then it could be overlooked, but when the camera shows a close-up of their faces, it’s clear that they’re much younger than that. And do I have a uniquely dirty mind, or does the final scene, in which one girl opens her mouth and tilts her head back in order to receive a drink from a giant phallus-like beverage container that gets closer and closer to her lips, remind you of a blowjob?
Now that you mention it…
But on the other hand (no pun intended), was that simply a fun perspective shot like this?
See here to see more like it (make sure to click on “더보기” under the two that will come up to see all of them). Now if that was the only scene in the commercial open to interpretation, then I’d probably err on the side of cute, but consider the first few seconds of it especially:
Yes, they are indeed cute and innocent teenagers. They’re also lying on the ground, wearing extremely high skirts – which look hitched up a bit to boot – and repeatedly spread and close their legs. And later:
I accept that there may be school uniforms with skirts as high as that (update: at least when they’re out of school that is), although I haven’t seen any personally, but regardless I’m not going to pretend that, once having seen them in the commercial, they didn’t get anything less than my complete and undivided attention, and that’s even without the jiggling of the girls’ hips at o:10 too. Nor that I feel a sense of outrage about the commercial as a whole either, but although I’m certainly convinced of the sexual elements to it, and am bold enough to think that you will be too now, I’d be very interested in hearing what mental contortions Korean friends or students of yours may go through to argue otherwise!
Update: Here is a good example of the two extremes, with adult women acting like babies, and babies acting like…well…it has to be seen to be believed!
Update 2: I wrote about this subject for the KoreaTimes a week later.
( All screencapture sources: Paranzui )
Korean Gender Reader
(Source)
1. God Moves in Mysterious Ways
My opinions on the marketing of teenage girl groups like the Wondergirls (원더걸스) have become much more nuanced since I wrote controversial posts like this and this a year ago, although regardless of my criticisms I never had anything against any of the groups or the singers themselves. And good on Kim Yu-bin (김유빈) above for standing up to the netizens who can’t tell the difference between turning “fat” and turning into a woman.
2. Korea Drops from 64th to 68th in its Gender Empowerment Measure
Probably the most stunning indictment of Korea’s gender relations, it’s worth quoting this Hankyoreh report in full for those of you who haven’t heard of the GEM before:
South Korea fell further out of the mid-low range last year compared to other world nations in women’s rights, a report shows.
According to [2008 data] released Monday, calculated by the United Nations Development Programme for over 100 world nations, South Korea earned a score of 0.54, falling four spaces to 68th from its 2007 ranking of 64th.
The GEM is an indicator of women’s degree of participation in political and economic activity and the policy-making process, using for its evaluation factors such as the number of female legislators, the percentage of women in senior official and managerial positions, the percentage of women in professional and technical positions, and the income differential between men and women. A value closer to 1 indicates a higher level of empowerment.
In the first set of GEM calculations released in 1995, South Korea ranked 90th out of 116 countries, but its ranking gradually rose after that, reaching 68th in 2004, 59th in 2005 and 53rd in 2006. But its ranking fell once again in 2007, as it fell considerably compared to the overall average for nations assessed in areas such as percentage of female legislators and female professionals.
Like Michael Hurt pointed out back in 2006, these figures need to be placed in the context of Korea’s ranking in the Human Development Index (HDI), which combines things like life expectancy and education levels. Roughly speaking, the more developed and better a country is to live in the higher its HDI ranking will be, and usually its GEM will be pretty similar too. But then look at these (click for a much larger version):
(Source)
In brief, of the best 25 countries in the world to live in, only 4 are not also among the best 25 countries in terms of women’s rights and levels of economic and political power: Greece on 26, Israel on 29, Japan on 58, and finally Korea on 68. Put another way, women will certainly have a good quality of life in Korea, but they have less chance of becoming a politician or even a middle-manager or computer programmer than in:
- 59 Kyrgyzstan,
- 60 the Dominican Republic,
- 61 the Philippines,
- 62 Vietnam,
- 63 Moldova,
- 64 Botswana,
- 65 the Russian Federation,
- 66 Uruguay,
and
- 67 Nicaragua, the HDI of which was 120th(!) out of 179 countries surveyed.
In fairness though, Korea has actually improved in absolute if not relative terms:
In South Korea last year, women accounted for 13.7 percent of legislators, 8.0 percent of administrative and managerial positions and 40 percent of professional and technical positions, while the ratio of female to male income was 0.52.
The overall percentage improved from 2007, but South Korea was pushed down in the rankings through an overall improvement in gender empowerment among other nations examined. The overall average values for the nations studied were 19 percent for the percentage of female legislators, 29 percent for women in administrative and managerial positions, and 48 percent for women in professional and technical positions.
True, the gap between Japan’s HDI and GEM is also so high, and I can’t blame Korea’s low GEM ranking almost entirely on military conscription in this series but also regularly claim deep economic and social similarities between the two countries in other posts. While I do eventually plan to start covering gender issues in at least Japan and Taiwan though, until then I’d strongly caution against looking for instant explanations such as shared Neo-Confucianism, as Singapore’s HDI is 28 but it’s GEM 15(!), and China’s 94 and 72 respectively for instance (unfortunately there are no separate figures for Hong Kong, or for non-member state Taiwan). Moreover, China’s comparatively good GEM score is not due to the number of women in state-owned enterprises, as they almost always held lower, non-advancing positions within them and were the first to go when they were privatized, wound down, or restructured (but it may account for Vietnam’s relatively good one though).
3. Korean Lingerie Models too Embarrassed to Show Their Faces?
As long-term readers of this blog will know, the main reason that there are so few Korean women in lingerie advertisements is because many Korean porn stars have done so in the past, giving the industry a dirty reputation, although stereotypes of Caucasians’ more liberal sexuality and their role as signifiers of “developed country status” certainly also play a part.
FeetmanSeoul argues that this accounts for Korean models’ virtual disguises(!) at Levi’s “Best Body” fashion show in Myeongdong last week (right, source), although it may well have been the choice of organizers rather than the models themselves.
4. Korea’s Double-Standards Still Devastating for Female Celebrities
As I explain here, it’s still open to debate whether singer Baek Ji-young (백지영) has successfully salvaged her reputation after a sex video scandal in 2000, but another case that deserves to be far better known is that of Ivy (아이비), for whom simply the threat of the release of a similar video was enough to derail her career in 2007. On top of that, despite the trivial fact that the video didn’t actually exist, and that her ex-boyfriend was ultimately sent to jail for making the threat, she was sued by various companies she modeled for and endorsed because of the “damage to their reputations.”
Unfortunately, she is still considered beyond the pale. As PopSeoul! explains, songs originally written for her are now being used by other singers instead.
5. Sexual Violence
- It’s good that the drunken executives that harassed a 19 year-old student were arrested, but not that she accepted monetary compensation from them rather than pressing charges. As for why this is a feature of the Korean justice system, see here.
- One of the five teenagers that drugged and raped a 16 year-old in Suncheon is a student at one of Brian in Jeollanamdo’s schools. Make sure to ask him for follow-up details.
- The Supreme Court upheld a 10 year sentence on Jesus Morning Star cult leader Jung Myung-suk for the sexual abuse of five Korean followers between 2003 and 2006.
- On Wednesday serial killer Kang Ho-soon was sentenced to death for the murder of a total of 10 women, including his wife and mother-in-law. See here and #5 here for more details.
6. Forum on Barriers for Women
( Source: unknown )
Held last Wednesday. Here’s the full report from the Korea Herald, by now only available to subscribers:
The Labor Ministry will hold an international conference on enhancing women’s competence today, at a time when increasing numbers of women are out of work.
According to statistics released by the ministry earlier this week, the increasing number of self-employed women who are out of work has contributed to the sharp drop in the total number of employed people in recent months.
The number of self-employed women who were out of work increased by 56,000 in January from a year earlier, rising to 112,000 in February and 120,000 in March.
Not only self-employed women, but women in general face additional barriers at work compared to men, said Rhodora Palomar-Fresnedi, vice president of global diversity at Unilever.
Some of the barriers include stereotyping, exclusion from informal networks and a lack of role models, Palomar-Fresnedi said.
“The difference between male and female employment rate is just above 20 percent, while the gender pay gap is almost 40 percent at median earnings,” she said, adding that such gaps were amongst the largest in the OECD.
“The question of whether women can reach their aspirations, use and grow their skills, be supported and energized within a workplace is a test for inclusion capabilities of that workplace,” she said. “(However) in recent studies, the major economic potential of women has been highlighted, citing women as powerful drivers of economic development.’”
Martine Durand, deputy director for employment, labor and social affairs at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Korea had recently made great strides in skills and competencies, but they had not been matched by progress in the labor market concerning women.
Noting that Korea had a lot of well-educated women, Durand said that times had changed, but that employment conditions had not changed with them.
“The Korean workplace culture may fit the male-breadwinner model, but that notion has lost much of its appeal,” she said. “Korean women, whose level of educational attainment is regarded with envy in many countries, find it difficult to pursue their labor market aspirations and combine this with motherhood.”
In conclusion, flexi-time work solutions and part-time employment opportunities should become more widespread and the remuneration system should be reformed into a performance-based system that does not automatically punish women for taking time off to take care of family commitments, Durand said.
By Cho Ji-hyun
Actually, I’m not sure that I’ve written a Korean Gender Reader where I haven’t mentioned the disproportionate effects of the recession on Korean women, but because their expectations from their jobs are so low, there are now actually more women in their 20s employed than males, and now that so many irregular workers have already been laid off – the vast majority of whom are women (see #2 here) – companies are finding that men in their 30s and 40s are all they have left to fire, and so whose numbers are falling at the fastest rate in 10 years.
I’m not sure either is much cause for a celebration though, whether from a feminist perspective or otherwise. Meanwhile, for the effects of the recession on the middle class as a whole, see here.
7. That Movie Poster
Yes, for the movie Ogamdo (오감도, source), apparently causing quite some controversy with it’s depiction of a women’s naked buttocks (a first?), but really quite predictable given things like this (see #1) and this. For more on the movie itself see here (including details on the owner of said buttocks), and there’s a nice…er…meaty discussion at KoreaBeat too.
8. Anti-Miss Korea Festival
Held at Seoul University on Saturday, and now in its tenth year, bizarrely there appears to be a great deal of information on it available in English, particularly in Australian newspapers (maybe this has something to do with that?) but virtually none in Korean, at least for this year’s event! As Australian newspapers are unlikely to report on how it went though, then I’ll keep looking for “안티미스코리아대회” on Naver, but in the meantime you might find this journal article about the 2000-2001 Drama Viva Women (여자만세) that it inspired interesting.
9. The Differences Between How Koreans and Westerners Perceive and Discuss Appearance
What is said to you and about you by Koreans often shouldn’t be taken at face value, but on the other hand is invariably very blunt, and this habit can take a great deal of getting used to. For a big discussion on how to navigate this cultural minefield, see The Hub of Sparkle here.
10. Monsters-in-Law
A Korean take on domineering mothers-in-law. For the religious/ethical and demographic reasons for why it’s no generalization to say that they’re much worse than their Western counterparts, see here and here respectively.
11. Welcome, Brides, But…
A good recent summary of the problems faced by migrant brides, although I concur with J. Scott Burgeson’s criticism of the author as being unable to ‘transcend the “pure-blood” ideology she claims to critique.”
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