(Source)
Via Tales of Wonderlost, who also passes on a translation by Opress-Crackatron3000:
Protesting sexual harassment and violence against women
ETIQUETTE FOR MEN AT NIGHT
1. Remember that your presence can be threatening to women walking alone at night
2. If a woman is walking in front of you alone at night, slow down. You walking quickly or speeding up can be and in most cases is threatening
3. If you’ve been drinking and are drunk, go straight home.
4. Do not pick a fight or aggravate women walking at night
5. Do not take off your clothes or publicly urinate
6. Be careful to make sure you do not touch or hit someone, even on accident.
7. If, late at night, you come to a situation in which you and a woman have to ride an elevator together, let her go up first and wait for the elevator to come back down.
8. If there’s a woman in a public restroom (There are Korean public restrooms with no gender or sex markings that are open to all people), wait for her to finish and come out first before using the restroom.
9. Report broken streetlights to the police
10. Tell other men about these rules and that they have a responsibility to not threaten women walking at night
Please share as much as possible!
Related Post: Groping in Korea: Just How Bad Is It?
The Grand Narrative 
some of these seem like common sense, some are good points that many sensible people might need reminding of on occasion, but the part about the elevator seems a bit excessive to me, though I would appreciate the gesture if someone did it for me.
yet despite how obvious these points seem to me, it saddens me a bit to think that someone has to spell these out, because it means there are people who don’t think at all about this sort of thing. And we all know about the men who, if confronted with said list, would ignore it, or worse react violently to anyone who dared criticize their behavior.
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I can understand going home if you are drunk, but if you’ve only drank a lil, and you’re not drunk, why should you go home?
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Since this poster doesn’t say or imply that, why should you ask?
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I haven’t checked but I presume that in Korea, just like in all western countries, it is men who are the greater victims of violence and it is men who are the main people to save and rescue others from mishap and disaster.
It is likely, as with the west, that Korean women cause men untold (literally) harm with false rape claims and make men extremely uncomfortable with unjustified accusations and assumptions.
So why should women have their paranoia worsened by this kind of propaganda? No person with criminal intent is going to be swayed by this poster. Surely a better society would come from telling men AND women to care about and look to one another for protection and safety from the few in society who would do them harm.
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Douglas, what you present as truisms are all deeply contestable. Also, they exhibit a flaw common to many anti-misandrist complaints about feminism, such as on the forum that you link to in your name: that somehow acknowledging and drawing attention to something negative that happens to women is to deny that it also does to men.
Please do check before you presume to speak about Korea.
Actually, the world over, the more violent the crime, the more likely the perpetrator is to be a man – 95% of murders for instance, in a classic 1958 study of 600 Philidelphia murders; and to be sure, most murder victims are men too. But other forms of violence, particularly the street harassment and rape under discussion here? Are you seriously suggesting that most of the victims of those are male?
Irrelevant even if it were true, but millions of heroines throughout history suggest otherwise. I do acknowledge that men are certainly socialized to be rescuers though, women the victims.
Yes, certainly: perhaps, hell, that does indeed happen in a good 1 or 2% of all rape accusations, and needs to be taken seriously. Forgive me though, if I regard something like 1 or 2 % of all rapists ever actually going to jail a much more pressing issue to deal with.
Of course, I’m sure you can provide alternative statistics – I’m generalizing, like you are by talking about the entire West and Korea after all.
Oh, Korean women have plenty of reason to be paranoid. You have actually talked to one of them about street harassment and rape, right? How about a Western woman?
Sure, probably not. But their friends and family might, and passers-by in the neighborhood. Check out Chapter 12, “Just Guys” of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men by Michael Kimmel for lots of inspiring examples of guys who – through reading posters like this or otherwise – were aware of the issues raised by it and so avoided or prevented a crime being committed.
Again: “a flaw common to many anti-misandrist complaints about feminism [is] that somehow acknowledging and drawing attention to something that occurs against women is to deny that it also occurs against men.”
I have an idea: how about you design a poster promoting your last point, which I could post on this blog, and/or translate into Korean for you. Deal?
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I don’t find this, “If, late at night, you come to a situation in which you and a woman have to ride an elevator together, let her go up first and wait for the elevator to come back down,” or the suggestion that you should go home if you are drunk to be reasonable at all. The both seem to reinforce a view that men are usually dangerous — it reminds me of the Australian air carriers that do not allow men sit beside unaccompanied children on flights. Unless I am mistaken, the implication with the drinking “advice” is that you should go home lest you assault or rape a women? If so, I think that is quite insidious, considering most men would never do anything of the sort. Some of these “rules” do a disservice to men, frankly.
I think if you replaced men here with other categories to do with race or class, you’d find yourself in a lot of trouble.
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I love how Douglas can’t keep categories straight. The poster refers to situations in which men harass women. Douglas immediately hops to general crime rates in which men are certainly more often the victim (OF OTHER MEN). It has nothing to do with the question at hand. Then he constructs another straw man, the savior straw man. Which again, has nothing to do with harassment or violence against women. If I guy is ever a ‘savior’ in that kind of case, it is at best a draw for men. He then brings up false accusations against men. Again, a different issue.
The classic false argument:
“No person with criminal intent is going to be swayed by this poster.”
Applies to any kind of crime, littering, and protecting against forest fires. Who are these idiots who support laws, city statutes, or Smokey the Bear? Heck, why do we have “no parking” signs. Illegal parkers will not be swayed by them. Why do we have “please use condom” campaigns? Let couples not even think about protection, for the horny bastards won’t be swayed by advice or information.
Winding up for the classic ending, Douglas concludes with the awesome truism:
Which is 100 true, but analogous to arguing that we shouldn’t talk about the issue of hijacking, because if we just made ALL plane flights safe, hijacking would by definition have disappeared.
A ridiculous series of arguments that makes me wonder what happened to Douglas that he believes these kinds of empty arguments.
With that said, #3 and #7 are utterly and completely ridiculous, and #10 should only be used carefully, so as not to make certain folks (posters?) either reflexively paranoid, or weepy.^^
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Some of these looked familiar, and I remember them from jezebel (which in turn probably borrowed inspiration elsewhere, too): http://jezebel.com/5887698/how-to-be-a-good-guy-on-the-sidewalk James brings up a good point about raising awareness to potentially threatening situations we might not even consider, though I also agree with censorship that the list(s) are objectionable in parts. Most are common sense and could be applied to anybody in any situation (hell, I’d be nervous about a woman or child walking up quickly behind me on a dark street); that’s not to deny that women aren’t particularly targeted or vulnerable in certain situations, though.
Talking about violence against men is important, because of course it happens all the time and is tolerated in our cultures, but it’s a red herring here. As James quotes, “flaw common to many anti-misandrist complaints about feminism [is] that somehow acknowledging and drawing attention to something that occurs against women is to deny that it also occurs against men”.
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Unfortunately I’ve been too busy with an article and sleep-deprivation to respond to all the comments here sorry (Doug’s though, kinda demanded a quick rebuttal). But let me just add before I go to bed that I agree that while most are common-sense, and that some are inane and/or excessive (esp. 3 and 7), that raising awareness is the crucial point to take away from all of it. Indeed, to hammer that last point home, frankly I’m frequently amazed – well, to be accurate, more taken aback and appalled – at women’s personal accounts of street harassment, and realize that however much the poster’s contents may sound like common sense to myself and everyone reading here (who I like to think are a pretty educated and enlightened bunch), unfortunately they sure aren’t common sense to a hell of a lot of men out there. So the poster may be more necessary and helpful than people think.
MUST go to bed. Night!
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1. “Remember that your presence can be threatening to women walking alone at night”
Mainly because of feminist indoctrination.
2. “If a woman is walking in front of you alone at night, slow down. You walking quickly or speeding up can be and in most cases is threatening”
I thought my very presence was threatening.
3. “If you’ve been drinking and are drunk, go straight home.”
Women, on the other hand, are not expected to take responsibility for their actions when drunk, only men are.
4. “Do not pick a fight or aggravate women walking at night”
How about: Do not pick a fight or aggravate another person walking at night?
5. “Do not take off your clothes or publicly urinate”
Well, obviously this is common sense, but apparently it only applies to men. In fact, a feminist (I don’t remember which one) said that women should be allowed to walk down the street with only socks on.
6. “Be careful to make sure you do not touch or hit someone, even on accident.”
Neither men nor women should hit people. Well at least it says hit “someone” and not hit “a woman”.
7. “If, late at night, you come to a situation in which you and a woman have to ride an elevator together, let her go up first and wait for the elevator to come back down.”
Sorry, equality means no more chivalry. Also, as biased as the subjects are, what exactly does who goes first have to do with sexual harassment or violence against women?
8. “If there’s a woman in a public restroom (There are Korean public restrooms with no gender or sex markings that are open to all people), wait for her to finish and come out first before using the restroom.”
They should get restrooms for each gender, just a thought.
9. “Report broken streetlights to the police”
I guess, but I suppose the only reason this was included was because women might get harassed.
10. “Tell other men about these rules and that they have a responsibility to not threaten women walking at night”
Or I could just tell people they have a responsibility not to threaten anyone. That would make a lot more sense.
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What’s with some of these loose translations? If we’re gonna talk about reasonable versus unreasonable expectations, I think it matters whether someone is being exhorted to:
Tell other men about these rules and that they have a responsibility to not threaten women walking at night [translation]
(which sounds like occasionally making a comment to your buddies when you see them doing something that might cross one of these lines)
or
주변의 남성들에게 앞서 말한 에티켓을 널리 알린다
‘Widely inform the men around you about the above rules.’
Yeah, good luck with that.
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Interesting.
About 2. Apart from the possibly scary part of someone following you instead of walking past you (I accidently scarred someone for life [?] by the first alternative in Korea not long ago), is it really good and reasonable advice to always adjust your speed to someone slower? Wouldn’t it be better to try to get used to the fact that most people who pass by, even late at night, are just on their way home, and couldn’t care less about you? Making people behave better is one thing, making people feel fear about things that aren’t necessarily dangerous (instead of the things that are) is another. I’m not sure about this one.
(Korea Times article from a few weeks ago, that I’m sure has been linked, but it concerns this part: http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/special/2012/08/390_117978.html)
Thanks for the post and blog!
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Agreed. Like I say in a reply to another comment, you can certainly quibble or dispute many or even most of the suggestions in the poster, but what’s most valuable about it is the awareness and consciousness-raising.
Actually, that Korea Times article hasn’t been linked, so thanks, although yeah, I think many commenters will have seen it already. But in return, you may be interested in this short blog post about it by one of the women mentioned in it, who thought the writer failed to see her tongue-in-cheek tone in her original article. Not sure I agree with her not being an “authority” on the subject though: if not her, who would/could be?
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What about etiquette during the day? I’m a white girl in Korea and some creepy guys follow me while I’m walking down the street at 2pm!!! Today one guy followed me and my friend in his car , didn’t stop staring at us and slowed down to keep up with us. That was extremely creepy. He then decided to speak and asked us in Korean if we speak Korean. I said “No English, no” and that’s when he gave up. I understand people staring, especially children, but this was… well, creepy.
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Wow, what a sexist, bigoted and hateful article. Can you imagine an article of similar bigotry telling women they have a responsibility not to commit paternity fraud or not to \’forget\’ to take the pill or not to hit a man in the groin just because he offended you with words?
I\’m betting the sexist author of this post would take immense offence at such an article. Typical pro-feminist sexist bigot.
1. Remember that your presence can be threatening to women walking alone at night
This ignores the increasing numbers of girl-gangs. Anyone can be intimidating to anyone else, it’s not just women who can be intimidated. Only a sexist would pretend otherwise.
2. If a woman is walking in front of you alone at night, slow down. You walking quickly or speeding up can be and in most cases is threatening
Yes, you get home late, you get soaked in the rain, you put all your own interests aside to ensure some woman you do not know who hasn’t expressed any fear to you ‘might’ feel better. Only a sexist would demand this. And guess who demanded it? LOL
3. If you’ve been drinking and are drunk, go straight home.
And why does this apply to men only? Only a sexist would make such a demand…oh ;)
4. Do not pick a fight or aggravate women walking at night
And why does this apply to men only? Only a sexist would make such a demand…oh ;)
5. Do not take off your clothes or publicly urinate
And why does this apply to men only? Only a sexist would make such a demand…oh ;)
6. Be careful to make sure you do not touch or hit someone, even on accident.
And why does this apply to men only? Only a sexist would make such a demand…oh ;)
7. If, late at night, you come to a situation in which you and a woman have to ride an elevator together, let her go up first and wait for the elevator to come back down.
Again, put your interests & wellbeing aside to ensure you elevate some random woman above yourself. Again, only a sexist would demand this… Oh there’s a shock, look who has demanded it LOL
8. If there’s a woman in a public restroom (There are Korean public restrooms with no gender or sex markings that are open to all people), wait for her to finish and come out first before using the restroom.
As above, yet again.
9. Report broken streetlights to the police
And why does this apply to men only? Only a sexist would make such a demand…oh ;)
10. Tell other men about these rules and that they have a responsibility to not threaten women walking at night
Why not tell women to practise similar? You know, people don’t go reminding one another “Hey John, don’t forget not to rape some random woman tonight and no more intimidating them either!!!” – similarly, people don’t go reminding one another “Hey Joanne, don’t forget not to falsely accuse some random guy of rape tonight and no more paternity fraud either!”
You sure do come across as a hateful bigot.
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One reason I don’t have an official comments policy on my site is because I think most people don’t need to be told how to have civil discussions and disagreements with strangers; those that do, simply aren’t welcome. If I ever did write one though, I would compare it to, say, how you should behave after being invited to a new colleague’s party at his or her house. And in this analogy, what you’ve done is listen to a discussion between the host or hostess and some other guests in the other corner of the room, walked over and barged into the conversation by calling the host a sexist bigot, then proceeded to lecture all of them while completely ignoring what they said previously.
At the very least, you’d never be invited again, and really should be kicked out there and then.
So, consider yourself permanently banned from this site Marx, as are Douglas, Zerbu, and any other members of your odious anti-misandry forum I ever come across. Perhaps that’s unfairly tarring you all with the same brush, but somehow I doubt any of you are prepared to repudiate Marx’s behavior here, and I certainly don’t need another excuse not to read any more of your repugnant comments.
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Wow. Just–wow. I cannot believe the people commenting on this article. James, has someone posted something on some anti-misandry site somewhere urging all their clueless readers to come here and say stupid things? Like, maybe a Todd Akin fan site?
No, the sign doesn’t imply that all men are one drink away from being rapists. It implies that people don’t have the best judgment when they’ve been drinking. Kelly, you clearly haven’t spent much time around men who’ve been drinking if you don’t know that some men who are well-behaved when sober get a bit handsy when they’re drunk. And some people–men included–get violent when they’re drunk. Some people–men included–can’t control their behavior when they’re drunk. And women are considered the victim when they drink too much so that they either pass out or cannot physically defend themselves, and get raped by a man who decides to take advantage of her inability to stop him. The fact that you can’t see that there’s a difference between (1) getting drunk and not being able to defend yourself and (2) getting drunk and not being able to stop yourself from assaulting people–that’s why people have to make these signs.
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Yes, unfortunately. It’s also open to non-members to read, so I can easily see which commenters are members (like Kelly, whose – deleted – comment you were responding to) or not. I also quite explicitly banned all members of that site from commenting here again, and one member even copied that comment on to their forum too, yet they’re still trying to comment regardless (indeed, they’re even congratulating each other on “inundating” my site). I guess they’re quite used to ignoring people.
Also deleted and banned is “Jeff”, who, even if he isn’t a member of that Anti-Misandry site (although it wouldn’t surprise me if he were), chose to lecture me about the rampant sexism against Korean men here, in the process ironically both ignoring and confirming my previous comment that a “flaw common to many anti-misandrist complaints about feminism [is] that somehow acknowledging and drawing attention to something that occurs against women is to deny that it also occurs against men”. Seeing a pattern here? :D
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Ugh, I don’t envy you having to deal with people who aren’t interested in what you’ve actually said and just want to use your site as a platform. But the upside is that my sympathy is prompting me to stop being lazy, go find my paypal account information, and finally make a donation to your site. Keep up the interesting, informative work!
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With respect, Jenny, telling all men they should go home when drunk lest they attack or harass a women IS sexist, extremely so. The more I think about it, the more I dislike this list. Everybody knows that some men are disrespectful when drunk, and that some are even violent. But the writer of this list, whoever he or she is, feels entitled to tell me, a stranger, how to behave by the virtue of the fact that I am a man. I don’t like that at all, and I am sure most men would feel the same way. We all know what the reaction would be on, say, Jezebel if someone said that women should go home when drunk lest they be attacked. This is no better: It is saying that all men must regulate their behaviour to an unreasonable extent because of the bad behaviour of a minority. Imagine the “suggestion” was rephrased to include a race? It would not stand.
James, I am genuinely puzzled by your point that the list problematic but good for raising awareness. Awareness of what? It seems to me to do more to instil unreasonable fear of men in general than contribute to reducing harassment.
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Oh, like I said in previous comments, I agree that #3 is excessive, or – to be more precise – very naively and/or crudely expressed (indeed, the list as a whole really). And I can appreciate your concerns about that point, which I think are technically correct. But I can’t really share your sense of outrage sorry, because your “hypothetical” Jezebel article is, well, pretty much what women are told all the time really, let alone used to blame rape victims.
Continuing to be more precise, I guess I would say the list is literally “thought-provoking” rather than “awareness-raising”: for all its (I still think quite minor) flaws, the streets would be much much safer for women if every guy read the poster before going out, regardless of whether they agreed on everything on it or not!
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I’m not sure why you are directing your comment at me because if you look back at what I said, I never took a position one way or another about whether the sign is sexist. My comments weren’t about whether the sign should have been made or posted or whether it’s fair or not. Although I have studied the issue some, I’m hardly in a position to know whether the situation in Korea makes this sign necessary or if it’s sexist in the context of Korean culture.
If you look at the remarks of the commenter I responded to, you’ll see that the part I had issues with was the part where the commenter implied that it wasn’t fair to expect men to go home when they get drunk to keep from assaulting people when we wouldn’t blame women for getting drunk and getting assaulted. It’s that last part I had a problem with because those are not the same situation at all.
I was trying to point out that there’s a difference between blaming a man (or anyone) who gets drunk and, for example, gropes someone and blaming a woman who gets drunk and IS groped. And surely, even if you think the sign is sexist, you can acknowledge the difference. In one situation, someone perpetrates an action and in the other, someone is the recipient of the action. One standard involves holding people accountable for their own behavior (groping someone) and one involves holding people accountable for someone else’s behavior (getting groped). I implied that it was not a double standard to treat the two different situations as two different situations. It would be a double standard if I said that it’s ok if women get drunk and assault or harrass people but not ok for men to do it. But to say that everyone should take personal responsibility for themselves to not to harass other people–including the suggestion that if you can’t stop yourself from assaulting people when you’re drunk then you should go home when you’ve had a few–that’s not a double standard, and it’s not an unfair standard to hold people to, either. The people who think that’s a double standard and that it’s too much to ask someone who can’t control himself when he’s drunk to go home rather than inflict himself on others–and clearly, those people exist–those are the people that make someone like the person who made this sign feel like they have to make these kinds of signs.
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Wow, women are weak, pathetic things aren’t they? I think would need toughen the hell up.
Butch up now. C’mon.
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This must be more of that “discussion” I’ve been accused of avoiding…
Banned.
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I find this call to infantalize women by claiming they need special consideration on public sidewalks (which everyone has an equal right to) rather ironic. Kind of come full circle, haven’t we?
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Let me refer you to my reply to Giap above…
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Congrats, James! If the MRA’s are bugging you, you’re doing something right!
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Thanks. I would say more, but I don’t want to feed the trolls!
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“One standard involves holding people accountable for their own behavior (groping someone) and one involves holding people accountable for someone else’s behavior (getting groped).”
But, with respect, this list does *not* do what you say above. It holds *all* men accountable for the behavior of a minority of bad guys. That’s the problem with it. It doesn’t mention men who are prone to assaulting people at all — it says men full stop.
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I disagree. It’s not holding all men accountable for anything. It is simply asking men to be aware of how threatening certain behaviors can be perceived to be by a woman alone at night. It wouldn’t hurt for men to take this into account even if they don’t follow the “rules” above to a T.
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Not sure if troll or just very stupid . . .
Thanks for demonstrating James’s point about completely ignoring what’s been said. You really want to argue about how terribly unfair that list is, and because you really, really want to argue about it, you keep pretending that I said something I didn’t. Do you have a reading comprehension disability? I never said anything about what the sign does or does not say. I commented ONLY about what another commenter impliedly said: that it would be unfair to blame a man for his own actions if he got drunk and—for example—groped someone unless we also were willing to blame a woman who got drunk and was the recipient of groping. If you want to argue about what the sign does or does not do, argue about it with someone who has actually taken a position on the subject.
I will now stop feeding the troll, because either your intelligence is too low to understand the simple words I’m using or you are a weirdo who gets off on taking people’s comments out of context so you can argue with them, and I really don’t want to be the person helping you out with that.
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Wow, thanks for the insults, which I never directed at you. You know nothing about my intelligence. You are a genius are you? You feel awesome about your anonymous insults?
You defended the sigh: “No, the sign doesn’t imply that all men are one drink away from being rapists. It implies that people don’t have the best judgment when they’ve been drinking.”
I — absolutely respectfully — disagreed. And in case you haven’t noticed there is no comment from a “Kelly” available on the board.
I haven’t ignored what has been said. But I am not obliged to agree with everything on the thread just because it is a serious issue.
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Saw this on tumblr and it’s brilliant. I posted it to facebook, and some of my male friends had about the same reaction as some commenters. It’s not Korea-specific, but you might be interested in imnotamisandristbut.tumblr.com. Unfortunately, the blogger decided to stop updating because of harassment, which is really telling. I find it disturbing how pointing out sexism and harassment and calling for a dialogue about culture and for change leads to people being accused of sexism.
Anyway, thanks again for posting this, and I love your blog!
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Thanks, and sorry to hear about that tumblr. Like you say, it’s really telling what happened.
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