Less than 20 years ago, Korean women could get assaulted for publicly smoking. Less than 2 days ago, a short-haired woman in Jinju did get assaulted for the same, real reason—openly defying restrictive gender norms.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes. Image sources (adapted): @TheKpopProf on X/Twitter and @cottonbro at Pexels.
An academic friend has asked for help for her students, who are having trouble finding participants for surveys they need to conduct as part of their coursework.
If you’re eligible, both surveys are completely anonymous, and each should just take just a few minutes to complete.
The first is about how women feel about the way women and young girls are portrayed in anime/hentai. Your nationality is not important, but it is open to women and non-binary participants only.
The second is about smoking habits and perceptions of men and women smoking in Korea, and is open to all Korean smokers, although Korean ability is not required.
Park Soo-ae/박수에 in A Family/가족 (2004). Source.
Alas, I don’t think I’ve written anything much at all about anime. But back between 2010-2013, I did write the long series below about the gender politics of smoking in Korea, prompted by an incident in the news about a young woman getting physically attacked on the street for openly doing so. So I can certainly understand what prompted the line of questioning in that survey, and am very interested in learning from the students about how much things have changed in the last 10 years.
Fortunately, cases of women getting assaulted in Korea for smoking now seem like ancient history. But then it was never really about smoking, was it? The real reason female smokers were assaulted back then was for openly defying restrictive gender norms and roles. And, sadly, as more and more women are brave enough to do so in other aspects of Korean social life, it seems the rates of assault against them are only increasing in response. Most recently, with a woman in Jinju this week being attacked for having short hair.
I really didn’t intend to sound so cynical. And I’m not—preventing such crimes starts with undermining the attitudes behind them, and determining how prevalent they are helps towards that. So, thanks in advance for your help with the surveys, and please feel free to share them with your networks!
Related Posts:
- The Gender Politics of Smoking in South Korea: Part 1
- The Gender Politics of Smoking in South Korea: Part 2
- The Gender Politics of Smoking in South Korea: Part 3
- The Gender Politics of Smoking in South Korea: Newsflash
- The Gender Politics of Smoking in South Korea: Part 4
- Quick Hit: Korea’s Hidden Smokers
- How Many Teenage Girls are Smoking?
- The Pee Doesn’t Lie: 1 in 4 young Korean women smoke (The Gender Politics of Smoking in South Korea, Part 5)
- Quick Hit: Living as a female smoker in Korea
If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)
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