Manufacturing Outrage Against Korean Feminists: Could it GET any more obvious?

“It was there for literally 0.1 seconds! And drawn by a guy! And…and…WHY THE HELL DO YOU FEEL SO THREATENED BY IT ANYWAY??”

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes. Photo by Timur Weber @Pexels.

It’s always heartwarming when a columnist literally calls bullshit on the Korean manosphere.

For that sass alone, in a moment I’ll gladly pass on to you my full translation of Hankyoreh Gender Team Leader Jang Su-gyeong’s accusation, written in December 2023 about the MapleStory controversy of the previous month.

But for all her flair, I think it was a little misdirected.

“I am very interested and concerned about hatred and discrimination, which hang as prevalent and thick in Korean society as air.”

Basically, she criticizes the controversy for being only the latest example of the ‘feminist check’ tactic the Korean manosphere engages in these days. Whereby they: go bananas over any alleged instance of a small penis finger gesture; dig deep to find evidence that those responsible have even the slightest of feminist leanings; then shrilly demand the company responsible fire them and remove the offending gesture.

This is more pernicious and impactful than it may sound to outside observers. Emboldened by the term “feminism/페미니즘/女性主義” more accurately meaning radical feminism in Korean, to most men and women alike, virtually anyone even only indirectly advocating for sexual equality can get tarred with that brush. And when that happens, say, for wearing t-shirts incels don’t like, companies are only too eager to throw those real or alleged “femis/페미” under the bus, all for the sake of appeasing the manosphere.

Source: John Marcotte.

So I share her ire, and don’t want to get too hung up on semantics. It’s just that, precisely because the manosphere can be so loud and proud about what they doing, why they’re doing it, and who they’re hurting, with absolutely no subterfuge necessary, perhaps “bullshitting” isn’t the best way to describe the process.

Or, perhaps I only say that with the benefit of hindsight.

Because as if to prove her point, an even more bullshit controversy, over nonexistent government plans to switch the genders of emergency exit signs, is emerging as I type this a month later.

As you’ll see after her column, it’s a much more blatant example of what she describes. Especially when you contrast it with a real example, which there was a clear need for, made nationwide to the caregiver figures in subway escalator signs in the late-2000s. And which, to the best of my knowledge, did not result in any harm to anyone’s sense of manhood—no matter how deeply the Korean manosphere seems to feel threatened if the same ‘concessions’ were made today.

Left: the offending gesture, which is visible for precisely 0.1 second. Full screenshot source: 원정상 @YouTube. (For the record, I just thought it was too good a screenshot not to steal—I don’t know the YouTuber’s stance on the controversy.)

너 페미니? Are You a Femi?

장수경/Jang Su-gyeong, 2023-12-17 (flying710@hani.co.kr/@jsggija)

“너는 페미니스트야?”

“Are you a feminist?”

몇달 전 대학 때 친하게 지낸 남자 동기를 만나 들은 질문이다. 질문을 받은 뒤 처음 느낀 감정은 당황스러움이었다. 그동안 받아본 적 없는 질문이었기 때문이다. 페미니스트냐 아니냐를 따지는 게 무의미할 정도로, 나는 스스로 페미니스트가 아니라는 생각을 해본 적이 없던 터였다.

This is a question I was asked a few months ago, when I met a male classmate with whom I was close to in university. My first reaction was embarrassment. Because it was a question I’d never been asked before. I’d never thought of myself as *not* a feminist, to the point where it was meaningless to consider whether I was one or not.

“나는 페미니스트지.”

“Yea, I am a feminist.”

“왜 너 자신을 그렇게 규정해? 네가 생각하는 페미니즘이 뭐야?”

“Why do you define yourself like that? What do you think feminism is?”

“여성과 남성은 동등하고, 성별에서 오는 각종 차별을 없애야 한다는 거지.”

“I think it means women and men are equal, and so all kinds of sexual discrimination must be eliminated.”

“그건 인권 차원에서 당연한 거 아니야?”

“Isn’t that only natural from just from a human rights perspective though [So a feminist one isn’t necessary]?”

친구는 페미니즘의 방향에는 동의하면서도 페미니스트에 대해서는 부정적 생각을 가진 듯했다. 친구는 내게 “너의 정체성을 어느 하나로 규정하지 않길 바란다” “역차별당하고 있다고 주장하는 2030 남성들의 이야기도 귀담아들어달라”는 말을 남겼다.

Although my friend agreed with the general direction of feminism, he seemed to harbor negative thoughts about feminists themselves. He continued, “I hope you don’t define your identity as just this one thing,” and “Please listen to the stories of men in their 20s and 30s who claim they are being reverse discriminated.”

최근 게임 업계에서 일하는 여성 작가들을 향해 잇따르고 있는 ‘페미니즘 사상 검증’ 사태를 지켜보면서 당시 대화를 떠올린 건, 페미니스트를 옥죄는 사회 분위기가 전방위적이라는 생각 때문이었다. 친구의 질문 의도가 ‘사상 검증’일 것이라곤 생각하지 않는다. 다만, 이런 질문이 나와 동등한 위치에 선 사람의 ‘순수한 궁금증’에서 비롯된 것이 아니라 누군가를 검열하고, 억누르고, 일자리를 겨냥하고 있다면 말은 달라진다.

While watching the recent ‘feminist check’ [lit., ‘verification of feminist ideology’] that has been taking place against female writers working in the game industry, I remembered the conversation at that time because I thought that the social atmosphere that oppresses feminists is omnipresent. I don’t think the intention of my friend’s question [was malicious], to confirm that I was a feminist [and then target me on that basis]. However, if these questions do not arise from a place of genuine curiosity [and willingness to engage in dialogue] expressed by a person standing on equal footing with me, but instead is a form of sealioning aimed at censoring, suppressing, or targeting someone’s job, the story is different.

지난달 말 남초 사이트와 게임 업체 넥슨이 한 행동은 전형적인 ‘사상 검증’이었다. 남초 커뮤니티는 넥슨의 게임 ‘메이플스토리’ 홍보 영상에 등장하는 캐릭터의 손가락 모양을 두고 ‘남성 혐오’라고 주장했다. 근거는 빈약했다. 해당 영상을 작업한 하청 업체의 한 여성 직원이 자신의 사회관계망서비스 계정에 올린 페미니즘 옹호 발언이 전부였다. 전형적인 확증 편향이었지만 넥슨은 별다른 사실관계 확인 없이 해당 영상을 비공개하고 업체 쪽에 법적 대응을 예고했다.

At the end of last month, the actions taken by the manosphere sites and forums, and then the game company Nexon’s responses, were a typical example of the feminist check process. The manosphere claimed that the shape of the finger of the character appearing in the promotional video for Nexon’s game *MapleStory* was ‘man-hating.’ But the evidence was actually quite weak. A female employee of the subcontractor who worked on the video uploaded it to her social networking service account, and all she said was her defense of feminism. It was a typical confirmation bias, but Nexon made the video private without verifying the facts and announced legal action against the subcontractor she worked for?

이후 해당 작업물을 그린 이는 40대 남성 애니메이터라는 사실이 보도됐다. 주장의 근거가 사라졌으니, 남초 커뮤니티가 사과했을까. 아니다. 애초 사실 여부는 중요하지 않다는 듯, ‘언론의 보도가 거짓’이라거나 ‘남페미는 문제가 아니냐’며 방향을 틀었다. 그사이 해당 여성 직원은 개인 신상 정보가 털리고 온갖 욕설을 듣는 등 사이버불링을 당했다.

However, it was later reported that the person who drew the work was actually a male animator in his 40s. Now that the basis for the claim has disappeared, did the manosphere apologize? Not at all. In the first place, it seemed as if it didn’t matter whether it was true or not. And then they changed direction by saying, “The media’s reports were false,” or “Aren’t male feminists the real problem here?” Meanwhile, the female employee suffered cyberbullying, including having her personal information stolen and receiving all kinds of abusive language.

퓰리처상을 받은 영국의 저널리스트 제임스 볼은 책 ‘개소리는 어떻게 세상을 정복했는가’에서 ‘진실이든 거짓이든 신경 쓰지 않는 사람들이 만들어내는 그럴싸한 허구의 담론’을 ‘개소리’(bullshit)라고 말했다. 개소리꾼의 개소리는 거짓말과 달리 자신이 원하는 결과를 얻기 위해 최소한의 진실조차 중요하지 않기에 거짓말보다 해롭고, 팩트로 대응해도 힘을 잃지 않는다고 했다.

In his book Post-Truth: How Bullshit Conquered the World (2021), Pulitzer Prize-winning British journalist James Ball said that ‘bullshit’ is “a specious fictional discourse created by people who do not care whether it is true or false.” He said that unlike lies, this, the most bullshit of bullshits, is more harmful than lies because even the minimum amount of truth is not important to achieve the results one wants, and it does not lose its power even if it is responded to with facts.

“업장에서 왜 사회운동을 하냐”(허은아 국민의힘 의원), “악질적인 점은 실수가 아니라 의도적이라는 데 있다”(이상헌 더불어민주당 의원), “의도를 가지고 넣었다면 조롱”(류호정 정의당 의원)이라는 정치인들의 반응은 ‘개소리’ 기세를 더 강화할 뿐이었다. 정치권의 메시지는 ‘사상 검증을 하지 말라’ ‘페미니스트가 뭐가 문제냐’여야 했다. 기업은 개소리꾼의 개소리를 수용할 것이 아니라 무시해야 했다. 언론은 ‘집게손 논란’이라는 제목으로 개소리를 앞다퉈 보도하지 말아야 했다.

The politicians’ responses—“Why are you engaging in social movements at your workplace?” (People Power Party Rep. Heo Eun-ah), “The malicious point is not that it was a mistake, but that it was intentional” (Democratic Party Rep. Lee Sang-heon), “If it was put in with intention, it would be ridiculed” (Justice Party Rep. Ryu Ho-jeong)—only added to the bullshit’s momentum. Instead, the message from the political world should have been, “Don’t engage in a feminist check,” and “What’s the problem with feminists anyway?” Companies should have ignored this bullshit of bullshits, not blindly accepted it, and the media should not have rushed to report it under the title ‘Claw Hand Controversy.’

‘페미니스트는 남성 혐오론자이기 때문에 그런 집게손가락 모양을 넣었을 것’이라는 ‘개소리 담론’에 기업, 정치인, 언론 등이 동조한 결과는 ‘일터를 잃는 노동자’다. 2016년 ‘소녀에게 왕자는 필요 없다’는 글이 쓰인 티셔츠를 입었다는 이유로 교체된 성우처럼, 과거 에스엔에스에 페미니즘 관련 글을 올렸다는 이유로 2023년에 계약 해지된 게임 ‘림버스 컴퍼니’의 그림작가처럼 말이다.

Source: Twitter/@KNKNOKU via BBC.

The result of companies, politicians, media, and so on agreeing with the bullshit discourse, that “feminists must have put that index finger symbol because they are male haters,” is workers losing their jobs. Just like the voice actor who was replaced in 2016 for wearing a T-shirt with the words “Girls do not need a prince” written on it, the illustrator of the game Limbus Company whose contract was terminated in 2023 for [retweeting tweets that used derogatory terms for men].

개소리를 하며 ‘사상 검증’을 정당화하는 이들에게 말해주자. 너희 주장은 개소리라고. 페미니즘이 뭐가 문제냐고. 너희들이 페미니즘을 알긴 아느냐고.

Let’s tell those who spew bullshit in the name of feminist checks: Your arguments are bullshit. What’s the problem with feminism anyway? Do you guys even know *anything* about feminism? (END)

(For more information, in chronological order over November to December, including the response of the Nexon Union, please see the Korea JoongAng Daily, this Reddit thread, Korea Bizwire, the Korea Times, and again the Korea JoongAng Daily.)

Now fast forward to mid-January 2024, when multiple media outlets reported that in the name of gender equality, the government was immediately replacing the ‘male’ pictogram in some of the emergency exit signs nationwide with more obviously ‘female’ ones. Some outlets added that it was at the behest of women’s groups.

I’m sure I don’t need to outline the absurdities of such a plan. Nor that (most of) the multiple, eminently justifiable criticisms, did not necessarily stem from misogyny.

But more often than not, feminists became the target anyway.

Because at best, the new design was actually just one of many possibilities considered for updating the signs, to replace the existing ones only as per needed (so, no extra cost at all). Whereas at worst—and it’s unclear which applies, frankly—it was a complete fabrication of the media.

As were the supposed women’s groups that were demanding it:

직장인 A씨(29)는 “새 픽토그램을 보니 긴 머리에 치마를 입고 가슴 부분이 튀어나와 있었다”며 “여성 중에 이런 기호를 원하는 사람이 실제로 얼마나 되겠냐. 오히려 여성을 희화화한 듯하다”라고 말했다. 한 누리꾼은 “누군가 일부러 논란을 만들었다고 생각될 정도”라고 했다.

한 여성단체 관계자는 “어떤 기사에선 ‘여성단체 등이 요구해왔기 때문’이란 식으로 설명했던데, 그런 요구를 한 단체가 어디에 있나. 괴담 수준의 터무니없는 얘기”라며 “오히려 성 고정관념을 고착화하는 그림이다”라고 비판했다. (Kyunghyang Shinmun)

Office worker A (29) said, “When I looked at the new pictogram, I saw her with long hair and a skirt and her breasts sticking out,” adding, “How many women actually want this symbol? “In fact, it seems like a caricature of women.” One netizen said, “It almost makes you think someone created controversy on purpose.”

An official from a women’s group said, “In some articles, it was explained as ‘because women’s groups have been making demands,’ but where is the group that made such demands?” “It is an absurd story at the level of a ghost story,” he criticized, adding, “Rather, it is a picture that perpetuates gender stereotypes.”

And from the Dailian:

…”이런 것도 성별 갈라치기 소재로 쓰냐” 라는 등 비판 의견이 쏟아졌다.

…[Netizens] said “Is this just another thing that can be used to divide the sexes?”

Image sources: 스포츠하국, Pixabay (edited).

Now, you could rightfully argue that the media was responsible in that case, not technically the manosphere.

Only, there’s a great deal of synergy between the two.

Crucial context is that the notoriously clickbaity Korean media is one of the least trusted in the (developed) world, and that it is heavily male-dominated. Add that Korea is a deeply patriarchal country, currently in the midst of a polarizing “gender war,” then a constant backlash of ‘journalists’ scapegoating feminists for all Korea’s ills is all too predictable.

The deceit involved can be staggeringly blatant and obvious. I’ve even caught out with one bullshit story myself. When, after ‘reporting’ on a literally non-existent controversy over Berry Good member Johyun‘s cosplay above, then getting the sought-after inflamed response from the manosphere, the media added insult to injury by blaming the entire controversy on the reports of a single female reporter, who criticized Johyun for her overexposure despite praising male nudity in previous articles.

Only, her article on Johyun wasn’t published until several hours after news about about the controversy first appeared. (And ironically, her article wasn’t at all like it was described; in fact, they it was just as clickbaity as everyone else’s, and provided no basis to label her a feminist.)

Sources: MLBPark (1; since deleted); 2)

But still: these three cases alone are insufficient evidence of systematic misogyny by Korean journalists and the media. I do strongly suspect though, that a thorough investigation by academics, media-watchdogs, and/or feminist groups will undoubtedly reveal that such an agenda exists. Likely, many such investigations have already been conducted, so I’ll follow this post up with those at a later date.

In the meantime, Korean or otherwise, I will never, ever trust any news source that makes claims about unnamed women’s and feminist groups.

As part of my own 2024 agenda though, I try to highlight the positive where I can, and can’t end on that note.

So, with my apologies for the crappy quality of my digital camera back in the late-2000s, finally let me remind you of when, in a bid to challenge antiquated gender roles and encourage more equitable childcare between parents, subway-caregiver signs with a female figure were gradually replaced with an androgynous one. They were only replaced as per needed, so they didn’t cost extra money, leaving even the most vitriolic of incels struggling to oppose them without exposing their misogyny. Which is probably why I haven’t actually seen one with a female caregiver ever since.

Only, doing my due diligence, I’m sorry to report that today I learned my experience isn’t at all universal (let alone my nonexistent experience of female spaces). That the initiative stalled, and that as of 2019, many Seoul subway stations still have almost entirely female caregivers in their signs. Most ironically and symbolically perhaps, in Gangnam Station, where 100% of them are of women:

Source: Hankook Ilbo.

So, the fight continues, even over the little things. But it does continue.

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

“당신의 얼굴 괜찮습니까?/Is Your Face Okay?” Anti Deepfake Poster Misses the Mark

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

An ad at my local Busan subway station, which I’d never given a second thought to until today. I had no reason to—with a title and image like that, I’d assumed it was for some kind of beauty app or filter.

Then my aging eyes finally noticed the “딥페이크/Deepfake,” and I did a double-take:

It reads:

당신의 얼굴 괜찮습니까?

딥페이크로 인한 성 범죄가 매년 증가하고 있습니다. 성폭력처벌법 제14조의 2에 의거해 타인의 얼굴이나 신체 등을 허위 영상물로 만들거나 배포하면 5년 이하 징역 또는 5천만 원 인하의 벌금에 처하게 됩니다.

Is Your Face Okay?

Sex crimes caused by deepfakes are increasing every year. Pursuant to Article 14-2 of the Sexual Violence Punishment Act, anyone who creates or distributes a false video of another person’s face or body is subject to imprisonment for up to 5 years or a fine of up to 50 million won.

This text, a bland rehashing of the law, feels like a real missed opportunity.

The issue is who this ad is aimed at. The “Is Your Face Okay?” headline seems aimed addressed to victims, and indeed a Korean friend assures me that it is. However, surely most victims aren’t unaware that deepfakes are illegal? Surely, more of a concern would likely be feelings of embarrassment, shame, that they themselves were to blame for them in some way, and/or worries about the impact on their jobs and livelihoods? So, the priority should be giving victims assurances that these are not at all the case, and that they could receive all the help, support, lack of judgement, and legal aid they needed at the Center.

In their absence, a more creative alternative is that the headline is a double entendre intended to mean “Aren’t You Red-faced/Ashamed?” to potential perpetrators, then letting them know what might happen if they get caught.

Which applies? Unfortunately, there’s no further information about it on the Busan Gender-based Violence Prevention Center’s website, nor does Googling/Navering yield any results.

So, without disputing the Center’s good intentions for a moment, again I’m forced to defer to my friend’s judgement. In which case, I think the poster really misses the mark.

What do you think?

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Visions of Corporeality | Artists at the Institute: Misha Japanwala—Webinar, 8AM Tuesday, November 14 in South Korea

(Also available as an in-person lecture at 6PM, Monday, November 13 at The Institute of Fine Arts, 1 East 78th Street, New York.)

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes. Image source (cropped): NYU The Institute of Fine Arts newsletter. NSFW images follow.

For the sake of shorter, more impactful and easy-to-remember announcements, I’m posting about notices about webinars and virtual lectures (that I’m able to attend) separately from now on.

Sorry that this one comes so last minute, but as far as I know registration for the webinar is available right up until the event itself:

“As part of the Institute of Fine Arts’ (Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, X/Twitter) ongoing tradition of inviting contemporary artists to speak about their practices in the Duke House Lecture Hall, this year’s Artists at the Institute Lecture Series invites four artists who explore the body as a site of confrontation. The body is continuously subjected to political, social, and aesthetic judgments both within and outside of the art historical canon. Whether it be through the ongoing battle with reproductive rights or the modification of the body in digital and social media, this phenomena proves to be omnipresent. Contemporary artists are constantly grappling with conceptions of corporeality, and each artist brings a diverse approach to what this means to them. This year’s series is committed to uplifting the voices of women working in representational practices across a range of media, styles, and backgrounds. Through feminist, cross-cultural, and art historical methods, these artists challenge the contours of corporeal form, transcending the limitations and restrictions that have bound the female body to the canonical canvas, and imagining how such liberation might transform aesthetics.”

Sources: NYU Institute of Fine Arts Instagram & Newsletter.

“For our second installment of Artists at the Institute, Visions of Corporeality, lecture series we are excited to welcome Misha Japanwala. Misha Japanwala (b. 1995, London, England and raised in Karachi, Pakistan) is a Pakistani artist and fashion designer, whose work is rooted in the rejection and deconstruction of shame attached to one’s body, and discussion of themes such as bodily autonomy, gender based violence, moral policing, sexuality and censorship.” (Instagram, homepage.)

“In our second installment of this series, Misha will touch upon what it means to be a Pakistani woman familiar with the historical objectification, commodification and control exerted on marginalized bodies by societies and systems enveloped in patriarchy.”

(Join in-person / Join virtually.)

And as a reward for those you still reading, please click here to register for the next virtual lecture I’ll be announcing tomorrow: “Remedy, Mobility, and the Feminized Consumption of Beauty in Post-Authoritarian South Korea,” a virtual talk featuring So-Rim Lee from the University of Pennsylvania, and presented by the Korean Studies Research Network. In South Korean time, that event will be on Thursday, November 16, again at 8am.

See you there!

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Performing in “Public” Spaces in Korea and Japan—Can Anyone Do it? Or Mostly Just Men?

“Musicians’ experiences of dis/comfort, im/mobility, security and threat, as well as their coping strategies, are all gendered.”

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash.

My TBR pile is glorious, and it is teetering. So, I really should have known better than to even glance at the New Book Networks feed…

Assuming I can actually find the space then, this latest, slightly pricey candidate is all due to Tuesday’s interview of Dr. Gitte Marianne Hansen and Dr. Fabio Gygi, editors of The Work of Gender: Service, Performance and Fantasy in Contemporary Japan (NIAS Press, 2022). Specifically, the section from 28:35-31:10 where Dr. Gygi talks about Chapter 6, in which his colleague, Dr. R. J. Simpkins, shares his findings from months of observing and talking to buskers and street performers near a Tokyo train station. Like me, listening will probably immediately remind you too, my beloved tribe (*hugs*), of Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World by Leslie Kern (Verso, 2020; see my review here). You also get how tempted I am right now then, as I almost seem to hear the soft serenade of “지금 택배로 주문하면 11월 24일 출고” sweetly whispered into my ear…Oh! Aladin, you tease…

Ahem.

With no further ado then, sorry for any mistakes in my transcript of that section of the podcast below. And please don’t worry about giving offense if you’d rather jump ahead to a reviewer’s excellent summary below that instead!

“Well, I think this is a wonderful chapter, because Rob, the author, was actually playing as a street musician himself, and that’s how he entered the field, and he’s been there for quite a long time, and it’s a wonderful ethnography, and very detailed. But towards the end he realized, ‘Well, I’m only talking to men. I know a few female performers but it seems to be a very different experience for them.’ So he started to focus a little bit more on the differences, and one of the things that he really found was that it’s all about space-making.”

“So, it’s a public space, you’re exposed to the gaze of the passers-by, but as a musician or performer you have to create…you have to take this public space and turn it into something else, like a concert venue or a venue for self-expression. And this of course takes on a very strong gender dimension. So men felt very much at ease, you know…especially the more rock-type musicians who would just start to play…there would be a good vibration and people would sort of assemble. But women working as performers felt very much exposed in a very different way. Now, you have to imagine, during commuter rush hour it’s mostly men…it’s salarymen who come back from work, often in a state of inebriation, and there would be a lot of sexual harassment, there would be a lot of unwanted attention, or rather boundary-breaking attention, so people would come, they would listen to a song, and then they would try to chat you up or get close or break the sort-of boundaries that you have created. And so there was a much greater sense of vulnerability, and what he sort-of concluded from that is a public space is also to a strong degree male-coded, it’s the male gaze that defines what is happening.”

“So if you expose yourself to that, you have to be aware of the gendered dynamics of the space and so his artists chose very different and very creative strategies [to deal with those]…Reyna(?) for example performed in a mask to deflect from the fact that she was a female performer, and so it is very important to understand that this public sphere itself is gendered…not something we would normally, you know, have a good understanding of.”

These difficulties and dangers are underscored by co-editor Dr. Hansen then going on to note that this was the most difficult subject in the book for any of the contributors to research. Because, unlike with other venues and performances, the rules of engagement (and enforcement) were not set. My personal additional takeaway from that being, those rules were also more open to exploitation and abuse by those with (male) privilege.

Photo by Victoriano Izquierdoh Barbalis on Unsplash.

For the busier feminist book geek among you though, as promised here is an excellent summary of Dr. Simpkins’ chapter by Dr. Kai E. Tsao, taken from her review in Feminist Encounters:

“Simpkins observed and interviewed music performers at a Tokyo station, and his chapter demonstrates that the musicians’ experiences of dis/comfort, im/mobility, security and threat, as well as their coping strategies, are all gendered. Male musicians considered their experience, occupying and transgressing in public space, as performing their authentic self and self-realisation. This sentiment was not shared by the female musicians. Instead, they performed ‘charm’ and created a ‘non-threatening atmosphere’ to navigate social interactions in a station space with a predominantly male presence. Public space around the station is coded: compared to their male counterparts who ‘naturally’ hung around to interact with their supporters, female musicians were much more cautious about the risks of inviting passers-by to take an interest in their performance. This makes me wonder: how is the performance of invitation gendered? How might female musicians be perceived if they invited an audience in a space where they were ‘not supposed to be’?”

And which also makes me wonder, what are the Korean parallels? Where are those spaces?

Frankly, I can’t really think of any. In fact, the only place I ever encounter buskers and street performers at all is the main drag of Gwangalli Beach close to where I live, which ironically I don’t visit very often because it’s always jam-packed with happy, 20-something, heterosexual couples (sigh). That very different audience composition to a busy Tokyo subway station then, as well as the very public and open setting, would likely mean performances there were almost completely devoid of the (negative) gendered dynamics described above.

Maybe various Korean laws are responsible for making them much less common than in Japan?

Or maybe not? Are there buskers in, say, Hongdae in Seoul? In Nampo-dong here in Busan, which I haven’t visited for years? Performers in busy Seoul subway stations? Please do let me know then, if know of any similar Korean spaces to what Dr. Simpkins outlines in Tokyo, and your experiences of them. And how do think the gender dynamics play out in those?

When “How to Own the Room” is Really Just a Lesson in Male Privilege
Why You’re NOT Living in a Feminist City: Two must-reads on living as a single woman in Korea and overseas
Single Korean Women Already Have to Pay Extra to Stay Safe in Their Homes. They Don’t Need to be Infantilized in the Process.
The Hidden Roots of Korea’s Gender Wars
Revealing the Korean Body Politic, Part 10: “An epic battle between feminism and deep-seated misogyny is under way in South Korea”
Revealing the Korean Body Politic, Part 9: To Understand Modern Korean Misogyny, Look to the Modern Girls of the 1930s

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

“Japan is Famously—or Notoriously—Known for its People Not Being Able to Say No.”

Turning Boys Into Men? The Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts, Part 8

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Photo (cropped) by Jim Flores on Unsplash.

Am I just projecting when I say Koreans too? Or that it’s mostly Korean and Japanese women, and especially young women, that suffer from this “involuntary consent”?

In a moment, I’ll share a passage about that from a recently published, thought-provoking book that you should totally buy, because it brought home to me just how gendered this stereotype was.

But first, I want to acknowledge that, of course, everyone has had the experience of being asked by bosses, relatives, and/or professors for unseen, undervalued, and usually unpaid labor, which social pressure prevented them from refusing.

There’s nothing specifically Korean or Japanese about this. Nor is expecting it of women the exclusive purview of Korean or Japanese men.

Photo by Valentin Fernandez on Unsplash.

But it’s also true that in this part of the world, that pressure is compounded by deeply hierarchical social relationships, gapjil, and long working hours combined with an expectation of unpaid overtime. And, with “superiors” generally doing the “asking,” Korean women’s relative lack of economic and political power means they do indeed get asked

Korean academia, for instance, remains notorious for all the verbal abuse, sexual harassment, and demands for personal errands professors inflict on their grad students. I want to convey my curious mix of relief and rage too, over learning that it’s not just me that notices it’s mostly female students that have to run those errands. And, as discussed in Part 2 of this series, I’ve already noticed the welcoming of prospective students that my female students are expected to do in the freezing cold every winter.

Which is why the following passage from Involuntary Consent: The Illusion of Choice in Japan’s Adult Video Industry (2023) by Akiko Takeyama, a professor of women, gender & sexuality studies at the University of Kansas, resonated so strongly. So strongly in fact, I didn’t even notice she also says “especially women” until I posted it here:

In Japanese society, where people are conventionally inclined to avoid conflict and prioritize social relationships over their own self-interest, the attitude that can lead to unforced but involuntary consent is ubiquitous. Japanese American anthropologist Dorinne Kondo has captured how Japanese people, especially women—herself included, as she became enmeshed in Japanese society as a “daughter” of her host family over the course of a two-year homestay in the 1980s—avoid saying no in their day-to-day lives. Similarly to the young Japanese women who become involved in AV, Kondo was not overtly coerced but nevertheless pressured to involuntarily agree to do things for others such as teaching English, fulfilling her duty as a filial “daughter,” and taking on the role of a ‘proper’ Japanese citizen. Her frustration grew as she felt herself becoming “trapped by social convention.” Kondo then realized that there was a profoundly different way of thinking about the self in Japan: individuality was valued only insofar as social relationships were not compromised. Under such circumstances, she “had no choice but to comply.” Kondo’s ethnographic moment vividly recaptures why [former AV actress Kozai Saki] could not say no or walk away when she faced her won dilemma. Her resistance would have deeply upset relational others at the filming site. Each time she convinced herself that everything would be fine if she would only yield to their demands.

(page 51; italics in originals)

But really, it released a cascade of thoughts. Next was that the biggest problem for vegetarians and vegans in Korea is not so much finding ingredients or suitable restaurants, but all the pressure bosses, coworkers, and family members will inflict on them to eat meat for the sake of avoiding causing awkwardness and inconvenience for everyone. And then, all the parallels with how to determine consent in the K-pop industry.

But if you’re still reading, I’m guessing it resonated with you too, right? If so, please do take a moment to let me know what it reminded you of, either in the comments or on social media. But I’ll be glad to have just gotten you thinking. And thanks for reading!

p.s. (My bad that the titular quote actually comes from a must-read interview of the author!).

The Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts Series:

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

How Investigating Women’s Supposed Disinterest in Chess Showed Me the Subtle, Insidious Ways We Stifle and Suppress Female Genius

Don’t claim women are “naturally” inferior to men in any intellectual endeavor, argued pioneering feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft in 1792, unless you first grant girls the same opportunities to master it as boys. Today, that includes not chiding them as “unfeminine” for being chess geeks. Or, for not taking things seriously when they’re not, and want to learn the game in their own ways.

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes. Photo above by Chris Yang, below by Jennifer Marquez. (Both on Unsplash.)

Very few girls and women have ever made it to the ranks of the top 100 chess players. In fact, at the moment there aren’t any at all. For some pundits, including all too many of those top players, this is all the evidence they need to argue that women are “naturally” inferior at the game to men.

Alternatively, some people place a lot of weight on the fact that there’s only one female chess player for every nine males. Yes, some truly exceptional girls and women do make it to the top 100 players sometimes, they’d have to concede. (Most notably, Judit Polgar, who became a grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer, and who was once ranked #8 in the world.) They may even admit that the proportion that do, compared to all female players, is actually quite comparable to the proportion for male players that do too.

But that only further begs the questions of why more girls and women aren’t attracted to chess in the first place, or why they don’t stick with it.

Yes, there is rampant sexism in the sport. But surely no more than many other sports, and not enough to account for such a massively lopsided sex ratio? Maybe the main reason it doesn’t appeal is because, overall, they really are worse at some of the various attributes required for success in chess?

I frame the arguments like this because, until I started writing, I didn’t realize their connection. For whereas I’m a decent human being, and so have always rejected out of hand the notion that women are naturally inferior at any intellectual activity or profession whatsoever (or that any sex is, for that matter), the reality that there are indeed many various, incontrovertible, very specific skills and attributes in which men tend to perform better than women, and vice-versa, has also made a great deal of sense to me. Only, until today, I didn’t realize my own cognitive dissonance—that those slight differences in performance could be seized upon to justify those arguments that girls and women don’t belong in chess.

But also until today, I didn’t realize their awesome rejoinders, which is what I’ll cover here:

That there’s far, far more to becoming a professional chess player than, say, being able to mentally rotate a three-dimensional object while doing a math test.
That those methods girls and women tend to favor, despite what you may hear, are in no way less effective than those boys and men do.
That a dominance of boys and men in any intellectual field, is not, ipso facto, evidence of their natural superiority in it. Because the barriers to girls’ and women’s participation in it can be far more insidious and subtle than most men, including myself, are aware.
And that our brains have an enormous plasticity. To the extent that, once girls and women do fully participate in hitherto, naturally “masculine” intellectual activities (or boys and men in “feminine” ones for that matter), they are fully able to overcome those initial sex-based differences.

Here goes…

What do I Mean by Biological, Sex-based Differences?

So, despite that introduction trashing them, why do I also say those biological, sex-based differences still make a great deal of sense to me?

Well, first and foremost, because they jibe with my own experience as a chess nerd as a teenager, when I spent most of my free time at clubs and tournaments instead of driving lessons and dates. In between, I’d pore over my books into the small hours, rather than bothering with minutiae like completing homework, or doing more than the bare minimum to pass my high-school classes. Rest assured, I also noticed the almost complete lack of women playing chess, let alone girls my age. But I just took it for granted.

So today, whether posited as a misguided explanation for their relative absence as we’ll see, or just as a reasonable observation to add to the debate as to why that is, when chess trainers, professional players, and commentators alike routinely mention an obsessiveness they see in boys interested in chess but which seems almost non-existent in girls, I can’t help but nod in agreement.

Indeed, it’s a point made so often on chess YouTube or Twitch, I can’t pinpoint a specific clip to link to sorry. But desperate googling reveals a similar observation has been attributed to former world snooker champion Steve Davis, about why his sport is likewise so overwhelmingly male-dominated:

…[when] once asked to explain why men dominate snooker, even though it doesn’t require great strength…he gave a controversial but great answer that applies to snooker, chess and many other fields of endeavor.

He said, essentially, “Men are the idiots of the species. Men have a certain obsessiveness that women lack. We happily spend hours, months, years to become great at things that are a complete waste of time (like hitting balls into holes with a pointed stick).”

The Quora commenter who posted that continued:

Women COULD become elite chess or snooker players, but it requires a degree of obsession and an insane amount of work/practice that most women don’t see the value in. Women may enjoy playing chess or snooker, but not enough to devote their lives to it. And devoting your life may be exactly what it takes to become a champion.

But this also made sense because of my intellectual baggage. Specifically, in the form of the book, The New Sexual Revolution by Robert Pool (1993), that I picked up during my halcyon, impressionable first years at university, thinking women would be impressed by the title and cover. (Hey, this line of thinking did work eventually.) From it, I learned for the first time about multiple science, evidence-based examples of men and women tending to approach various tasks differently. Or, in many cases, having incontrovertible advantages over each other when performing the same task. An example of the former is that men usually navigate by streets and grids, women by landmarks. And of the latter, that overall men have demonstrably better greater spatial ability, as well as the ability to shoot moving targets, both of which prove to be independent of prior exposure or later training. What science says about those differences three decades later though, and their implications, I’ll get to soon. But crucial is that then—as now—Pool’s own speculations from those seem perfectly reasonable (pp. 61-62):

The male advantage in spatial ability probably has greater practical implications than other sex differences because it is one of the largest differences and because spatial ability is important in many jobs….Researchers have found…that the high school students with high spatial ability are the ones who are most successful in geometry, mechanical drawing and shop classes….the skills learned in those classes are important for careers in science, engineering, drafting and design, and studies have shown that high spatial ability is related to success in such diverse jobs as automotive mechanic, architect, and watch repairman.

The sex difference is spatial ability may spill over into mathematics, where males have a medium-sized edge….

Later still at university, those lessons would be reinforced by my finding myself in lectures about gynocentric feminism, which was presented to me as a school of feminist thought which was likewise concerned with highlighting sex-based differences, and positively revaluing what its advocates considered the ensuing core tenets of ‘femininity.’ In hindsight though, it was a much more fringe than my sympathetic professor suggested in the late-1990s, and was already well on its way out even then. But, you could also say it was just a twist on the nature-vs-nurture debate really—that all things being equal, would or do men and women gravitate towards different activities and professions based on these differences, and regardless that those dominated by women shouldn’t be undervalued—and which is still very much ongoing. Perhaps most interestingly and controversially at the moment, in the fact that even in Scandinavia, it is women who are still overwhelmingly plumping for caring, nurturing professions like teaching and nursing instead of those related to STEM. (Just because Jordan Peterson is one of the many people pointing this out, doesn’t make it untrue.)

To be clear, although Pool’s book was clearly formative, and I’ve been very receptive to the notion of fundamental, sex-based differences ever since, I’ve never been naïve either. Not about how absolutely no level playing field exists for entry into and success in hitherto “naturally” male-dominated interests and professions like chess, snooker, coding, engineering, and so on.

Or at least, I thought I’d never been naïve.

There’s More than One Way to Skin a Cat

Because today I learned that in addition to all the other, more obvious barriers and hurdles that discourage girls and women, that this extends to them even displaying the necessary character traits to succeed too. That it’s not that they don’t also want to geek out over the things only boys are “supposed” to like, necessarily. Just that if they do, they’re much more likely to be criticized for their obsessiveness. Whereas among boys and men, that same obsessiveness tends to be seen as a virtue instead.

See what I mean from this passage from Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez (2019), the inspiration for this post. If you’ll please bear with me, it’s five paragraphs long. But totally worth it for the aha! moment in the final two (pp. 95-96):

In 1984 American tech journalist Steven Levy published his bestselling book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Levy’s heroes were all brilliant. They were all single-minded. They were all men. They also didn’t get laid much. ‘You would hack, and you would live by the Hacker Ethic, and you knew that horribly inefficient and wasteful things like women burned too many cycles, occupied too much memory space,’ Levy explained. ‘Women, even today, are considered grossly unpredictable,’ one of his heroes told him. ‘How can a [default male] hacker tolerate such an imperfect being?’

Two paragraphs after having reported such blatant misogyny, Levy nevertheless found himself at a loss to explain why this culture was more or less ‘exclusively male’. ‘The sad fact was that there never was a star-quality female hacker’, he wrote. ‘No one knows why.’ I don’t know, Steve, we can probably take a wild guess.

By failing to make the obvious connection between an openly misogynistic culture and the mysterious lack of women, Levy contributed to the myth of innately talented hackers being implicitly male. And, today, it’s hard to think of a profession more in thrall to brilliance bias than computer science. ‘Where are the girls that love to program?’ asked a high-school teacher who took part in a summer programme for advanced-placement computer-science teachers at Carnegie Mellon; ‘I have any number of boys who really really love computers,’ he mused.55 ‘Several parents have told me their sons would be on the computer programming all night if they could. I have yet to run into a girl like that.’

This may be true, but as one of his fellow teachers pointed out, failing to exhibit this behaviour doesn’t mean that his female students don’t love computer science. Recalling her own student experience, she explained how she ‘fell in love’ with programming when she took her first course in college. But she didn’t stay up all night, or even spend a majority of her time programming. ‘Staying up all night doing something is a sign of single-mindedness and possibly immaturity as well as love for the subject. The girls may show their love for computers and computer science very differently. If you are looking for this type of obsessive behavior, then you are looking for a typically young, male behavior. While some girls will exhibit it, most won’t.’

Beyond its failure to account for female socialisation (girls are penalized for being antisocial in a way boys aren’t), the odd thing about framing an aptitude for computer science around typically male behaviour is that coding was originally seen as a woman’s game. In fact, women were the original ‘computers’, doing complex maths problems by hand for the military before the machine that took their name replaced them.

While I don’t know anything about coding, I’ve been dying for a chance to flex that I’m still a pretty damn good chess player. (And single; 진짜 뇌섹남 인데…) So, although chess too is not all it appears, and there are many ways to fall in love with it (a common sentiment is that it’s equal parts an art, a sport, and a science), I like to think I have some rare authority when I say that I still can’t see any real alternatives to its mastery other than long hours spent practicing, studying, and committing thousands of games, opening variations, tactical motifs, positional themes, and endgames to memory.

But then I thought again about how I did those, and took Perez’s point about staying up all night not being all it’s cracked up to be. Because in hindsight, much of what I worked on when I did was completely useless, even counterproductive, and made my schoolwork and non-existent social life suffer. At university later, it meant I failed easy classes, and am still suffering the consequences through my student loan repayments today. So, someone more mature and self-disciplined than I was back then, and more well-rounded, with actual friends and mentors to talk about learning, training, and—heaven forbid—topics unrelated to chess, would undoubtedly have made far more progress in chess in a fraction of the time that I did, let alone in many other aspects of their life.

Historically, Women Literally Couldn’t be Geniuses, Despite Ticking all the Boxes

Still wanting to flex how smart I am though (did I mention I’m single?), I want to causally convey how there must surely be a reason why chess is still considered a symbol of high intelligence, even genius too, at least in the West (I concede that Go is more complex. Or baduk as it’s known here, which all the geeks in Korea who would be playing chess are playing instead, damnit.). Also, to smoothly segue through that into the fact that we are indeed so wedded to the notion that related skills, talents, and traits are only virtues when possessed by men, that even the histories of the concept of “genius” and of the word itself contain this bias, especially in the last two centuries. As Christine Battersby explains in her pioneering 1989 book, Gender and Genius: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics (pp. 8 & 11):

Starting from the persistence of sexual prejudice in art and literary criticism today, [in this book] I move back in time to explore the way our modern notions of creativity are modeled on notions of a male God creating the universe, and the devious tricks used to represent all creative and procreative power as he attribute of males….

Women’s inferiority had been rationalized by the writers in the Aristotelian tradition as a deficiency in judgement, wit, reason, skill, talent, and psychic (and bodily) heat. Women had been blamed for an excess of passion, imagination, sexual needs, and for vapor-induced delusion and irrationality. But if we look at the aesthetic literature of the late eighteenth century, we will see that the greatest males (the natural “geniuses”) were being praised for qualities of mind that seem prima facie identical with Aristotelian femininity. I discuss the new qualitative distinctions that were developed, that used different types of passion, imagination, frenzy, and irrationality to account for the difference between geniuses and females. A man with genius was like a woman—but was not a woman….the revalued “feminine” qualities of mind were appropriated for a supermale sex….

Why does it matter that, whereas ordinary males have been blamed for effeminacy, in (male) geniuses femininity has been transformed into a virtue? I hope this book will make clear how women have been presented with contradictory evaluative norms against which to measure their attainments.

Or indeed, this very accessible 2021 lecture:

“Hard-wired” Differences These Ain’t

Remember those incontrovertible sex-based differences Pool discussed in 1993 though? To follow this audacious history of belittling, denying, and hiding women’s genius by pointing out the verdict of 2023 is…that these differences very much still exist, feels churlish, almost rude. But here’s the rub: they’re easily overcome. As Andrew Curry explains in, given my own 30-year fixation with those differences, an even more eye-opening—I want to say shocking—article at Nautilus:

George M. Bodner, a professor of chemical education at Purdue University….stresses it’s important not to perpetuate the myth that a gender gap implies all men are better than all women at spatial cognition tasks. Stereotypes about spatial ability can have an insidious effect. “When women hear myths, such as the idea that they have ‘poor spatial ability when compared with men,’ they often believe this will be true for themselves, and it often is not true,” Bodner says.

Had [Sheryl Sorby, a professor of engineering education at Ohio State University] been a little less stubborn, she might have left engineering altogether. Instead she went on to earn a bachelor’s and then a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Michigan Tech, and was later hired as a faculty member. As Sorby took more engineering courses, she got better at spatial cognition tasks, until eventually she found herself teaching engineering graphics, the very course that almost derailed her as an undergrad. “The brain is pretty plastic when it comes to spatial skills,” Sorby says. “I have improved my spatial skills vastly as an adult.”

That initial experience never left her, though. As a professor, she noticed talented young women struggling the way she had. So she set out to find a solution. “The fact that there are these gender gaps is a challenge, but it’s not a death sentence,” she says. “I know it’s something we can fix.”

With her colleague, Beverly J. Baartmans, she developed a spatial visualization course to help her students develop their spatial cognition skills.

That course was just 15 hours long, and even improved men’s abilities as well, despite being given a biological head start. And, because I can’t even begin to convey the magnitude of what this brain plasticity implies for future sex and gender roles, let alone playing chess? I can’t think of a better way to end this post than recommending you head straight over to Nautilus to read the rest of the article!

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Unpopular Opinion: “Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982” Didn’t Hit Hard Enough

Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 scores points for its raising of numerous feminist issues, but its treatment of them is frequently quite superficial. Here’s how one scene should have been handled differently, shattering stereotypes and suggesting solutions in the process.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes. Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash.

I didn’t like the novel Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 much at all. There, I said it.

It’s basically a Korean Feminism 101 compendium, which means it didn’t really teach me anything new. Its constant shoehorning of facts and statistics into the narrative ruined it as a work of fiction too. But the biggest flaw was Jiyoung’s constant, infuriating lack of agency, with its flipside that author Cho Nam-joo didn’t really offer any solutions to the numerous hardships she faces either.

That doesn’t mean those hardships aren’t well-described. Like I said in my earlier review, I don’t think it’s a bad book at all. If you personally learned a great deal from it, and/or laughed, cried, and seethed in anger alongside Jiyoung, then I’m hardly going to claim that my own disappointment and frustration mean I’m somehow a much better, more knowledgeable feminist than you.

But Jiyoung’s lack of agency, and Cho’s lack of solutions, are absolutely a hill I’m prepared to die on. One scene in the film set in a subway toilet, albeit not mentioned in the book, illustrates both very well.

In it (55-56:00), Jiyoung (played by Jung Yu-mi) has to get off the subway to change her bawling infant daughter. Once that’s done, she realizes she needs to pee herself, but struggles in the narrow cubicle to hang up her heavy bag with her daughter strapped to her chest. Then, before she attempts again, she eyes the walls and lock nervously, remembering a recent molka (spycam) incident at the place she used to work. The scene then shifts to her home, implying she gave up and went there instead.

At first viewing, it’s difficult to find any fault here at all. Given that the burden of childcare falls overwhelmingly on women, then more men—or, indeed, more unsympathetic childless women—sometimes really do need to be literally shown just how much effort that actually involves. So too, do more men need to realize how stressful it is having to worry about being secretly filmed literally every single time you used any toilets outside of your home, as well as the potential health consequences if you understandably chose to avoid them.

Admittedly, that may seem like a lot to ask of a one-minute scene. Yet with just a little tweaking, it could have achieved those aims very effectively and forcefully. Instead, it largely fails, for three reasons.

The first is because, ironically, guys can relate to the practical difficulties. The indignity of using a cubicle while wearing a suit and carrying a backpack, desperately trying to prevent either from touching all the urine and smokers’ spittle on the floor, is absolutely no joke. As for childcare specifically, my ex-wife would naturally take our daughters with her to the female toilets when they were young, but it’s not like I wasn’t often in just as awkward and uncomfortable situations with them in other cramped locations.

Devoid of any wider context then, which I’ll provide myself in a moment, men’s own issues with using cubicles can mean women’s complaints fall on deaf ears, let alone calls to make women’s toilets bigger than men’s. (In fact, some men even consider the proposal to be reverse-sexism.) This lack of sympathy is misguided, of course, but I can understand it—unless men are flat out told or shown why not, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that more cubicles in place of urinals suffice for women’s need to sit down. That women somehow still have to queue nonetheless, delaying everyone? Pop culture reveals that’s just their own fault, thanks to all the primping, preening, and gossiping that really goes on in there.

Next, the scene doesn’t do enough to convey the visceral fear of spy cameras. This is indeed much harder for men to relate to, because they never have to think about them when using public toilets. So, something much more forceful than Jiyoung’s brief nervous glances was required.

Best would have been a tweak to an earlier scene, which I’ll outline in a moment. But as an emphasis in this one, a more realistic cubicle should have been shown, with every nook, cranny, screw, bolt, and indent jammed with toilet paper and gum. Rather than the toilet the scene was actually shot in, which, complete with a rare heater, was easily the most pristine in Korea, seeing what it’s actually like in women’s toilets would surely have rammed home just how big of a problem spycams are in Korea—in a way that abstract news reports never could.

Image source: The Fact.

That earlier scene (44:30-47:30) is where Jiyoung’s former coworkers discover a spycam had been set up in one of the female toilets, and that their male coworkers had been sharing the videos, followed by meeting Jiyoung in a coffee shop to let her know. In hindsight, it’s all over surprisingly quickly. Whereas in the book, the incident is dealt with over three pages, and among the many grave consequences the coworkers reveal in those is that one victim overdosed on meds—possibly intentionally. This is omitted entirely in the film, but fits with the film’s much more kid-gloves, family-friendly tone overall (In particular, Jiyoung’s husband, played by Gong Yoo, is a vastly more sympathetic and likeable character than in the book. Perhaps a truer portrayal was rejected as harmful to his image?). In its place, the coworkers are not so much in tears as almost laugh off the affair, one joking about borrowing Jiyoung’s daughter’s diapers from now on.

Not only would I have absolutely kept that line about the coworker’s potential suicide instead, I would have devoted a minute to visiting her in hospital too. Was that not worth it to show that spycams have very real, devastating effects on people’s lives?

But if I only had an extra minute’s grace, I would use it to shift Jiyoung’s toilet scene to a few years earlier in her life, before she stopped working to have her daughter. She would be in her smart workclothes and high heels at a hweshik, an (effectively mandatory) after-work dinner with her boss and coworkers, and have to go to the toilet as everyone was preparing to leave to go to a second round at a bar. She would take longer than many of the men would like, because—and herein lies that context, as explained by Sora Chemaly in Time. Because, yes, it really does need explaining, as it’s not at all just about sitting vs. standing:

Women need to use bathrooms more often and for longer periods of time because: we sit to urinate (urinals effectively double the space in men’s rooms) [note also, “Women empty their bladders more frequently than men and take longer – an average start-to-finish time of 60 seconds for men, but 90 for women”—James], we menstruate, we are responsible for reproducing the species (which makes us pee more), we continue to have greater responsibility for children (who have to use bathrooms with us), and we breastfeed (frequently in grotty bathroom stalls). Additionally, women tend to wear more binding and cumbersome clothes, whereas men’s clothing provides significantly speedier access. But in a classic example of the difference between surface “equality” and genuine equity, many public restrooms continue to be facilities that are equal in physical space, while favoring men’s bodies, experiences, and needs.

So when Jiyoung did rejoin the group, one of those impatient men could have made an all too common complaint or joke about holding everyone up for the sake of putting on her lipstick. To which she could have angrily pointed out it wasn’t her fault, for any number of the above reasons she could have chosen to highlight (and/or by having to spend time ramming toilet paper into all those potential camera holes, would have killed two birds with one stone). She could have followed that the obvious solution of “potty parity”—mandating 2:1 or 3:1 female to male toilet size ratios in all new building plans, and/or building more shared toilets—wasn’t at all reverse-sexism, but would benefit both women and the men who had to wait for them.

Indeed, this scene would not be unlike the—MILD SPOILER—final scene in the film, in which Jiyoung actually does confront a guy who accuses her of being a “mom roach,” living the high life gossiping in coffee shops, a parasite on her rich husband and the hard workers who pay the taxes for her holiday of maternity leave. Which is a rare credit to the film, and certainly a better alternative to her just slinking away in shame like in the book, then getting gaslighted by her husband when she complains about it. However, as it’s the conclusion to what’s actually an extremely saccharine-feeling film overall as discussed, it’s somewhat underwhelming as a climax—SPOILER ENDS.

With an extra minute still, I would also add a scene of her as a teenager, suffering from bladder and dehydration problems that her much fawned-over brother avoided, because he could obviously better endure Korean schools’ notoriously dirty and outdated toilets. But I digress. The point is, Jiyoung in the subway toilet with her daughter is just one scene of many that could have been dramatically improved. I curse having read the book Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-made World by Leslie Kern (2020) in particular, which means I can just no longer unsee the flaws in the scenes in either the book or film. Although, given the former’s popularity, now I do appreciate the value of seeing one’s own lived experiences represented in print, even if Cho neither presents Jiyoung as a role model nor offers any potential solutions to what she faces.

Those responsible for the film however, could have and should have responded to the backlash by taking up that mantle, exploiting the potential of the new visual medium to shock and shame. Instead, they wasted the opportunity by making it as saccharine as possible, all for the sake of people who had probably never actually read the book and were even less likely to watch the film.

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

“Hashtag activism found in translation: Unpacking the reformulation of #MeToo in Japan”—Zoom Presentation by Ms. Saki Mizoroki, Friday April 28, 5:30-7pm JST

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes.

Do any of you reading this in Korea volunteer for a local feminist organization?

As a Western male feminist, or feminist ally if that’s your jam, frankly I’ve never seriously considered it. I’ve always just assumed my presence would be more awkward and complicated than helpful, and probably quite rightly so. There’s visa restrictions against non-Koreans participating in “political” activity too, even for permanent residents.

But are my assumptions correct? Or are they really just excuses?

Because I’ve recently become more interested in contemporary Korean feminist activism than ever. Perhaps, the day I get off my armchair and test those assumptions will come sooner than I think.

If you do ever see my bald head pop up on mutual Instas we follow then, blame Ito Shiori’s Black Box: The Memoir That Sparked Japan’s #MeToo Movement. Not just because because it well deserves its seminal title, but because I was shocked to learn just a few weeks later of the relative failure of that movement compared to South Korea’s. Why? What are the similarities and differences between #미투 and #KuToo? What mutual lessons do they offer for each other? I have to know.

Naturally then, I’ll be all over next Friday’s presentation below (note the open access accompanying article). I’ll also soon be cracking open my copy of Flowers of Fire by Hawon Jung (of course), but first will have to try the more specialized but older (2014) Practicing Feminism in South Korea: The women’s movement against sexual violence by Kyungja Jung while it’s hopefully still relevant.

If you have any other recommendations, please let me know. And I hope to hear your thoughts about next Friday’s presentation too! :)

Join Zoom Meeting https://sophia-ac-jp.zoom.us/j/99468537215 Meeting ID: 994 6853 7215 Passcode: 982771

In 2017, the MeToo hashtag spread across the globe. However, it showed limited success in the Japanese Twittersphere and instead inspired local initiatives such as #WeToo and #Furawādemo (“flower demo”). To understand this reformulation, we analyzed 15 interviews with Japanese social media users and 119 Japanese newspaper articles. The results corroborate the framework we label VTM (values, topics, media), suggesting that an intersection between perceived Japanese values, the topic’s gendered and sexual nature, and media affordances explain the movement’s local development. While perceived Japanese values clash against those associated with #MeToo, new formulations “soften” the protest by blending in values such as reserve and harmony. Overall, we show how perceptions of popular values rather than values as essential orientations shape activism. Finally, we discuss the study’s implications for understanding cultural variance in cyberactivism, highlighting how divergent notions of “safe space” shape such movements.

Saki Mizoroki is a doctoral student at the University of Tokyo and a visiting research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research focuses on feminist media studies, drawing on her extensive experience as a journalist. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Sophia University and a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked as a journalist for a top-national Japanese newspaper, The Asahi, as well as internet media, BuzzFeed Japan.

This talk is organized by David H. Slater (Professor of Anthropology, FLA).

*Mizoroki, S., Shifman, L., & Hayashi, K. (2023). Hashtag activism found in translation: Unpacking the reformulation of #MeToo in Japan. New Media & Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231153571

Flyer (PDF): Download from here

Why #MeToo Failed in Japan (Trinity Women & Gender Minorities Review)
Japan’s Me Too Movement and ‘Comfort Women’ Issue: Part 2 – Intersection of History and the Translation of Culture (Research Institute on Japanese Military Sexual Slavery)
In Japan, victims wary of #MeToo movement (Chicago Tribune)
In Japan, Saying ‘Me Too’ Comes With Risks (Voice of America)
In Just Two Minutes, My Eyes Were Opened to Why Resolving the Comfort Women Issue is so Necessary for Japan’s #MeToo
If You Understand Korean, Please Don’t Miss Out: “After Me Too” (애프터 미투, 2021) is Screening October 6-9!

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Pornography Actors are People too. Greater, not Less Access to Their Work Will Help Remind the Korean Public of That.

In response to a former Korean pornography actor’s shame preventing them from dating, I like to think that if they were monogamous with me, and didn’t behave in real life the ways they’d been required to in their videos, then I wouldn’t mind their past at all. But that’s all very easy to say when an opportunity to meet is so unlikely to ever occur. If it did, would I turn out to be a hypocrite? Would you?

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Source left, Namu Wiki. Source right, Joshua Gandara on Unsplash.

In Korea, something pretty big was cut from Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson’s classic portrait of the 1970s LA porn industry. But it wasn’t what you might think.

Instead, it was the three-minute scene where Julianne Moore, playing pornography actor Maggie/”Amber Waves,” tries and fails to get visitation rights to her son. Not only is it an extraordinary performance by Moore, but it also shows a very human side to the industry, providing a profoundly dark, thoughtful counterpoint to the glamour, sex, drugs, and tension that defines the rest of the movie. It was easily the most memorable scene from when I first watched the movie in New Zealand in 1998, and why I was virtually apoplectic when I suddenly realized it was just not there at all when I watched it again in Korea two years later.

Seeing the headline “Adult actress Seo Ha-hee looks for genuine love through tears” the same day as tributes to 25 years since the release of Boogie Nights then, I felt a duty to highlight her story. Yet it’s not really a news item per se, but rather a few slides from Insight’s Instagram account about her appearance (and lamentation) on a new Disney+ show; as Netizen Buzz has already translated the comments, the least I could do is translate the captions in a moment below.

But if felt insufficient.

Looking ahead then, eventually I’d like to cleave through the mass of (contradictory, hypocritical, patronizing, completely ineffectual) censorship laws in an attempt to determine exactly how South Korea remains one of the few developed countries where pornography is largely illegal. In particular, considering just how simple it is to download pornography from overseas, I’m especially intrigued by how the legal domestic Korean pornography industry continues to exist at all, when even pubic hair may not be shown on it (let alone genitalia) and the sex is so obviously simulated. Is the hospitality industry literally its only consumer, given that even in 2022, Korean hotels, motels, and yogwans still invariably have a few cable Korean pornography channels available on their TVs?

Either way, as Kelsey the Korean points out in her recent video above (from 6:08), while there’s a great deal about mainstream pornography that’s objectionable, it’s not like Korean censorship laws are achieving their stated aim of protecting the sexual morals of Koreans from it. If anything, she alleges, they may in fact be no small factor in their utter corruption and distortion. The lack of healthier homegrown options, I tend to agree, may indeed play no small role in channeling many young men to what (illegal) Korean pornography has become notorious for instead—an ongoing spy-cam epidemic.

Yes, healthy feminist pornography does exist—provided you’re prepared to pay for it, to help ensure the working conditions and salaries which make it such. And, seeing how much damage Korean censorship laws seem to have done in promoting unhealthy alternatives, then why not unblock access to other options?

In that sense of changing hearts and minds about pornography, would you say Seo Ha-ni’s “confession” below is a step in the right direction? Or do you think her shame about her former profession, so great that she hadn’t been prepared to date at all in the last five years, merely perpetuates stereotypes? Please let me know in the comments!

Source, all images: Insight @Instagram.

“I’m looking for a man who can understand what it’s like [/not worry about] to be [dating] a [former] pornography actor.”

A woman sheds tears in her quest to find true love.

[Insight reporter Gwon Gil-yeo]

Many people claim their loved one’s pasts are not important.

But if it were you, to what extent would that be true?

An interesting new dating reality program tests whether you can really fully understand/[not worry about/forgive] your true love’s past.

Released on Disney+ on 5 October, Pink Lie is a show in which one cast member each episode confesses lies they’ve been living under, in order to find true love from people who accept them for who they are.

In the first episode, Seo Ha-ni (36) drew attention for having formerly worked as a pornography actor.

For the last five years, she has run a candle manufacturing workshop. She describes herself as a candle artist, never revealing her past as a pornography actor.

She has performed at a high level in the industry, appearing in such movies as The Purpose of Reunion 2 and Private Tutor: Advanced Course (NSFW). [James—Rather confusedly, the former has no sex or nudity, and indeed is even available on YouTube.]

Seo Ha-ni, who cried while talking about her past, said “[Because of my former job], men [constantly] send me photos of their genitals or nude body shots on social media.”

This has meant she’s never been comfortable in romantic relationships.

Source: Insight

“I’m always worried that someone will recognize me in public,’ Seo Ha-ni said. “So, I’ve never held hands with a boyfriend while walking among the cherry blossoms. I’ve never had fun in water with a boyfriend in the summer, never walked together in the Autumn leaves, and never gone skiing with someone in the winter.”

In fact, Seo Ha-ni has [been so nervous she has] avoided men completely, confessing she has not been in a relationship in a whopping six years.

There is a lot of interest in her case, and everyone is anxious for her to find true love with someone without prejudice.

[James: The remaining two slides just explain a little more about the show.]

Meanwhile, three other women and four men appeared in the first episode.

They were: Han Ba-reum (33), a researcher at Samsung Electronics’ Future Technology Research Center; Han Da-on (31), a beauty company marketer; Kang Da-hae (26), an intern at a fashion company; Hong Ha-nu (32), CEO of Hallyu Entertainment; Park Han-gyeol (25), a wedding video company CEO, and Mo Chan-sol (29), an elementary school gym teacher.

Although they disclosed their age and occupation, in fact, just like Seo Ha-ni [at first], they were all lying.

According to the rules of the show, they must not reveal their lies [until their turns in later episodes].

MCs singer Kim Hee-chul, actor Lee Sun-bin, and YotuTuber RalRal all expressed their curiosity about what truths were hidden by the cast.

Episodes 1 and 2 of Pink Lie were released on 5 October, which single episodes to be released once a week on Wednesdays. (END)

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

If You Understand Korean, Please Don’t Miss Out: “After Me Too” (애프터 미투, 2021) is Screening October 6-9!

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

The clincher:

가장 도발적인 작품은 소람 감독의 ‘그레이 섹스’다. 흑백으로 구분할 수 없는 회색지대처럼 성폭력은 아니지만 그렇다고 즐거운 섹스도 아닌 성 경험을 말한다. 여성의 성적 욕망 자체에 조명을 비추는 작품이기도 하다. 내가 무엇을 원하는지 정확히 알아야, 피해 아니면 가해라는 이분법의 언어를 벗어나 자신이 느끼는 혼란과 모호함의 정체를 붙들 수 있다고 말하는 듯 하다. ‘미투’ 운동에 대한 다큐멘터리라기보단 말 그대로 ‘미투 그 이후’, 새로운 장으로 넘어가기 위한 고민이다. 네 작품 중 가장 마지막으로 배치됐지만, 매끈한 결론 대신 오히려 생각할 거리를 안고 극장을 나서게 한다.

“The most provocative [of the four mini-documentaries] is director Soram’s Grey Sex. It refers to sexual experiences that can be considered to be in a grey area—not outright sexual assault, but not exactly pleasurable, enjoyable sex either. It is also a work that shines on a light on the nature of women’s sexual desire itself. It seems to be saying that if you know exactly what you want, you can break free of the binary, dichotomous language of victim and aggressor, thereby taking control of and overcoming any confusion and ambiguity you may feel. Rather than a documentary about the ‘Me Too’ movement per se [like the previous mini-documentaries], it’s literally ‘After #MeToo,’ illuminating a path on how to move on to a new chapter. By being placed last of the four, rather than providing a smooth conclusion to the documentary as a whole, it give viewers something to think about as they leave the theater.”

See here for more information about this documentary as a whole, or these two trailers:

♥

Not going to lie, I’m expecting a few curious looks when I attend myself later this week. Will I be the only non-Korean person in the theater? The only man?*

What if that curiosity leads to—horror of horrors—someone actually striking up a conversation afterwards, forcing me to brush off my rusty spoken Korean skills as I explain why I came?

The peculiarities of my glorious visage aside, it would seem odd I was there. After all, my job is actually almost entirely devoid of office politics, because of reasons. True, there’s interacting with my young Korean students, which I admit will indeed always be overshadowed by my privilege of being a middle-aged cishet white man, not to mention the power over them which comes with conferring grades. Yet if you really knew anything my utterly lowly job, you’d laugh at the notion that such power was sufficient to seriously consider abusing it.

(Update—In hindsight, I realize my privilege in being a middle-aged cishet white man may have clouded my judgement about the lack of office politics. Sigh.)

Then there’s dating (etc.), which I’ve recently become painfully aware I haven’t pursued in nearly 22 years. Those few genuine offers I’ve received in all that time, that I like to pretend weren’t entirely just wishful thinking on my part (but do know I always turned down with nothing but grace and respect), don’t provide much of a foundation to navigate the choppy sexual politics of dating in the 2020s.

Gaining one then, is one good enough reason alone to watch this documentary. As is learning about the subject in general. There’s also simply showing financial (and moral) support for a worthy cause, which not everyone who feels the same way has the privilege to bestow. And finally, there’s reading that paragraph at the start of this post, through which I discovered that one of four mini-documentaries contained within speaks so profoundly to what I’ve read recently about #Metoo in these two excellent books, which I’ll be discussing at a later date:

I completely share your frustrations though, that in Busan at least, Korea’s second-biggest city, in CGV cinemas it will only play for a total of 12 times over 4 days, As in, literally only a single theater, let alone having no subtitles available.** Still, for those of you with the Korean ability and time, I do hope you consider supporting it by attending.

Who knows, maybe I’ll see you in Seomyeon? ;)

*(To my surprise, as I type this there’s only a 56%-44% women to men split among people who’ve pre-purchased tickets at CGV. Finally, this feature of Korean cinema websites actually proved interesting!)

**Update—Actually, it screened for much longer than expected, and did include Korean subtitles. Both of which were great of course, but it still seems odd not to mention the subtitles on the movie’s information page.

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

The Hidden Roots of Korea’s Gender Wars

Universal male conscription and rampant discrimination against working mothers will always grab headlines, but a recent ruling against segregated seating in study rooms is a stark reminder of the pervasive homosociality behind the friction

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Photo by co ttonbro from Pexels.

After university, Korean men and women have fewer friendships with each other than their counterparts in English-speaking countries do. At least, that’s my own personal experience, and I’d wager good money most of yours too.

Under-30s especially though, will make me want to hold on to my wallet. Koreans that age have known nothing but rapidly declining marriage and birth rates, a staggering rise in the number of single households, and ongoing economic precarity. In their wake, lifestyles and social norms that were centered around marriage and male breadwinner systems are undergoing a paradigm shift.

But change is never easy, nor universally welcomed. In particular, Korea’s ‘gender wars‘ are one troubling symptom of the transistion process. One of their main catalysts, misplaced anger over mandatory military service for men, will continue to buttress homosociality, by disrupting male university student’s relationships with female students who remain, as well as by subtly enabling male, age-based privilege when those men return, and by providing them with old-boy networks they will rely on for the rest of their lives. Not unrelated, long working hours for both sexes and a second shift of domestic and family responsibilities for women reinforce the notion of separate spheres.

17-Year-Old Tzuyu: “A Special Gift for Korean Men [who’ve completed military service].”

Yet these are only the broad swathes of the many roots of the phenomenon. Not so headline-grabbing, but no less impactful for all that, is that most Korean schools are single sex, with only a third of high schools in Seoul being coeducational for instance. Indeed, many schools prevent students from dating or even socializing with the opposite sex too.

A task in which they may have long been aided, it turns out, by a law requiring “study rooms” (독서실) to be segregated by sex, under the eye-rolling rationale that mixing them together is more likely to lead to sex crimes. (And a belief which is still taught in sex-education classes today.) As YTN just reported on Valentine’s Day however, this requirement has now been ruled unconstitutional:

I’ll translate the report in a moment below. But first, study rooms, for those unfamiliar, are like libraries where all the bookshelves have been replaced by rows of separate cubicles. Designed to be equally quiet, and with the sole purpose of studying, I’ve also been told by a friend that they were where teenagers especially “told their parents they were going when they were actually going on dates, since you were expected to be incommunicado while you’re there.” They’re also much cheaper and have been around much longer than “study cafes” (스터디카폐), which range much more widely in price and quality but in which you either have tables and desks to work at and/or can hire a separate room where noise is not a problem, and will likely have a range of snacks, coffees, and soft drinks available to purchase. For obvious reasons, both study rooms and cafes are primarily associated with school and university students, but they’re also commonly used by older adults, especially the half a million Koreans studying for civil service exams at any one time—which just goes to show how ubiquitous and common a part of daily life they are in Korea.

Unfortunately and finally, the report is frustratingly vague. Among the many obvious questions it doesn’t provide an answer to are: if the original law (or 1995 amendment?) covered all private educational intuitions, or if it only applied to study rooms and why; if it had been enforced at all before 2017 or if that was in fact the first and last time; why only 16 regional educational boards (out of how many?) incorporated it into their own ordinances; why the Jeonju Office of Education suddenly decided to enforce it; and so on. If any readers can help fill in any these blanks, I would be very grateful!

“This is a study café, which can easily be found in any neighborhood.”

주변에서 쉽게 볼 수 있는 스터디카페입니다.

남녀 자리를 구분하지 않고, 자유로운 착석이 가능합니다.

공공도서관, 공동주택 열람실도 마찬가지입니다.

하지만 독서실은 다릅니다.

남녀가 한 공간에 섞여서 앉아 있을 경우 행정처분을 받습니다.

This is a study café, which can easily be found in any neighborhood.

You’ll notice there is free seating, with no designated areas for men and women.

The same is true for public libraries and community reading rooms in apartment complexes.

But study rooms are different.

If men and women sit together in them, the owners will be subject to administrative sanctions and penalties.

“You’ll notice there is free seating, with no designated areas for men and women.”

근거는 지난 1995년에 개정된 학원법 시행령입니다.

성별에 따라 좌석을 구분해야 한다고 규정했고, 이 조항 등을 기초로 16개 시·도 교육청은 조례에 남녀 좌석구분을 못 박았습니다.

지난 2017년 12월 이 조례를 근거로 전주교육지원청은 한 독서실 업체에 열흘간 운영정지처분을 내렸습니다.

현장점검결과 열람실 내 성별 좌석 구분 배열이 준수돼 있지 않고, 한 공간에 남녀가 섞여 앉아 있었다는 겁니다.

이에 대해 독서실 측은 해당 조례가 직업수행의 자유를 침해하는 위헌적 규정이므로, 행정처분 역시 무효라고 주장하며 소송을 냈습니다.

This is due to the Education Academy Act, which was amended in 1995. [But the broadness of the Act is not given, nor why it was only being enforced in study rooms—James.]

It stipulates that seats should be divided according to sex. Based on this provision, 16 metropolitan and provincial offices of education have incorporated it into their own ordinances.

On this basis, in December 2017 the Jeonju Office of Education ordered a study room to suspend operation for ten days.

As a result of an on-site inspection, it had found that men and women were sitting together.

In response, the study room filed a lawsuit arguing that the sexual segregation requirement was invalid, as it infringed upon the constitutional right to freedom to practice one’s profession.

“[However], if men and women sit together in [study rooms], the owners will be subject to administrative sanctions and penalties.”

1심과 2심이 엇갈리는 치열한 법리 다툼 끝에 대법원은 독서실 혼석 금지 조례는 위헌이라고 결론지었습니다.

재판부는 헌법에서 보장하는 직업수행의 자유와 독서실 이용자의 행동 자유권을 지자체가 조례를 통해 과도하게 침범했다고 지적했습니다.

이어, 혼석을 금지해 성범죄를 예방한다는 입법 목적도 남녀가 한 공간에 있으면 성범죄 발생 가능성이 커진다는 불합리한 인식에 기초한 것이므로 정당성을 인정하기 어렵다고 설명했습니다.

대법원이 전북도 조례에 대해 위헌 결정을 내린 만큼 지난 2017년 먼저 관련 조례를 삭제한 충청남도를 제외한 나머지 15개 지자체는 조례개정이 불가피할 전망입니다.

YTN 김우준입니다.

After a fierce legal battle that went to a second trial, the Supreme Court agreed that the sexual segregation requirement was unconstitutional.

The Court pointed out that through the ordinance, the local governments excessively violated the freedom of occupation guaranteed by the Constitution and the freedom of action of users of the study room.

The Court further explained that the original purpose of the ordinance, to prevent sex crimes by reducing the opportunities for men and women to mix, was irrational and could not be used as justification to continue it.

As a result of the Supreme Court’s ruling that ruled that sexual segregation was unconstitutional, the remaining 15 metropolitan and provincial offices of education that incorporated the provision will be forced to revise it. One of the original 16 offices, that of Chungcheongnam-do, already removed the relevant ordinance in 2017.

Kim Woo-jun from YTN reporting. (End.)

Update:

An excellent article by Choi Jae-hee from The Korea Herald entitled “From study cafes to ride-sharing, Koreans seem to prefer same-sex environments. Why?” helped fill in some of those blanks. Specifically (but I highly recommend reading it in full):

[The Supreme Court’s] judgement was in favor of a local operator of a private reading room facility who was slapped with a 10-day business suspension from a local educational authority for breaking a gender segregation rule set by the North Jeolla Province’s education office.

The rule in question is the article 3 of the “Ordinance on the Establishment and Operation of Private Educational Institutes,” which stipulates that seats in studying spaces at private educational facilities should be divided by gender. It was introduced in 2009 largely to deter sex crimes and ensure a better study environment, officials said.

Unlike study cafes, which are categorized as a space leasing businesses or a restaurant/rest area business, reading rooms are regarded as private academies and thus are subject to the ordinance.

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

The Korean Conscription System Promotes a Servile, Subordinate, Sexually-Objectifying View of Women. Here’s How.

Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts, Part 7

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes. Source, right (cropped): Streetwindy via Pexels.

The contents of Everyday Sexism (2014) by Laura Bates, a UK-focused collection of public submissions and statistics on the myriad of ways women experience sexism on a daily basis, will be depressingly familiar to anyone who already considers themselves a feminist. Having accidentally ordered the book though, I could hardly not read it. Besides, I reasoned, what cishet middle-aged white guy wouldn’t still have a lot to learn about the topic?

So I persevered. And sure enough, there were many things which gave me pause, especially the accounts of sexual harassment experienced by female university students. Partially, because I’d been blissfully unaware of that sort of thing when I was a student myself. Primarily though, because they strongly reminded me of an incident at the “morale-raising” YG Military Festival held in Yanggu County in Gangwon Province on 5 October 2019, at which the female university students hired to be doumi (lit. “help-elegant-beauties”) were forced to wear revealing clothes for the soldiers. From the news reports below, which discuss that in the context of how routine it is to provide sexualized performances by professional performers and/or K-pop girl-groups at such events, it’s easy to see how choices like these can encourage a somewhat objectified, servile view of women among the (usually) very young, impressionable Korean men that go through the male conscription system. Many do overcome that socialization experience, of course. But the consequences for all Koreans of those that don’t would fill many, many chapters in a Korean version of the Everyday Sexism book.

Screenshot, SBS News.

My translated excerpts of various reports about the incident, starting with one from Wikitree:

YG 밀리터리 페스타는 양구군이 장병들 사기 진작을 위해 지난해부터 개최한 것이다. 이벤트 경기, VR 체험, 먹거리 시장, 가수 공연 등이 열린다. 네일 케어, 피부 관리, 타로점 등 체험 부스도 있다. 이번 축제에는 육군 2사단과 21사단 장병 2300여 명이 참가했다.

The festival has been held since [2018] by Yanggu-gun to boost morale among soldiers, featuring competitive games, VR experiences, food stalls, and performances by singers and girl groups. There are also “experience booths” [really stalls/tables] for nail care, skin care, and tarot readings. This year, about 2,300 soldiers from the 2nd and 21st Divisions attended the festival.

논란은 체험 부스에서 일어났다. 머니투데이에 따르면 행사 대행업체 측이 행사장으로 가는 버스 안에서 여자 알바생들에게 흰색 짧은 테니스 치마와 몸에 달라붙고 가슴 부분이 파인 옷을 제공했다. 알바생들은 “속옷이 비치고 노출이 심한 옷이었다“, “조금만 움직여도 가슴이 훤히 드러났다“라고 전했다. 이어 “행사 담당자는 ‘군인들이 쑥스러워하니 직접 데려오라‘, ‘군인들에게 적극적으로 대하라‘고 지시했다“라는 말도 덧붙였다. 이들은 피부 관리 부스에서 군인들에게 직접 마스크팩을 붙여주는 일을 했다.

The controversy took place over the experience booths. According to Money Today, on the bus going to the venue the event agency provided the female part-time workers with only short white tennis skirts and tight-fitting, lowcut tops to wear. The women complained, “They were so tight you can see my underwear through them,” and “Even if I moved only a little, my chest would be completely exposed.” They added, “The event manager instructed, ‘As the soldiers will be embarrassed, [especially those wanting you to put [skincare-type] facemasks on them], please approach them proactively and encourage them as you escort them into the booths.”

Some additional information from that report by Money Today:

알바생 A씨는 “사전에 알려준 의상보다 더 파이고 조금만 움직여도 배가 드러날 정도로 상의 길이가 짧았다“며 “알바생들이 속옷이 비치고 노출이 심해 민소매 티셔츠를 요청했지만 아무 조치가 없었다“고 주장했다. 일부 알바생은 노출이 부담스러워 따로 챙겨온 외투를 걸쳤다고 한다.

One part-time worker complained that, “The clothes were much shorter and tighter than what we were told about, exposing my stomach even if I moved just a little,” and that “Even though we asked for sleeveless t-shirts because our underwear was visible, nothing was done about it.” It is said that some of the workers wore a separate coat over the clothes because of embarrassment.

…

행사 대행업체 측은 “요즘 학생들이 많이 입는 테니스 치마일 뿐“이라며 “일부러 노출이 심한 의상을 제공한 것이 아니다“라고 해명했다. 행사 스태프는 여성이 25명, 남성이 15명 정도였는데, 대행업체 측은 “원래 남자 직원들은 힘쓰는 일을 주로 하고 여자 직원은 차를 따라주는 등 행사 도우미 역할을 맡는 관행을 따랐을 뿐“이라고 설명했다.

A person from the event agency responsible for the clothes said, “It was just a tennis skirt like many students wear these days,” and that “We did not provide any clothes deliberately designed to overexpose the workers’ bodies.” They further explained that 25 women and 15 men were hired, but that “It’s customary that men have to do a lot of hard work, whereas women just have to be helpers and do things like pouring tea.”

Confusingly, in the video of the event above, many doumi can be seen wearing other clothing, which is not addressed by the anchors in the brief SBS News segment below that. Yet why should they? Whether through chance, smarts, and/or previous experience with doumi companies, that some of the women had alternate clothes on hand doesn’t negate the fact that those without had no other options.

Professional entertainment group Waveya (not a K-pop group) performing at a middle school in 2012.

On the other hand, if it’s the norm to hire young women in high-waisted skirts and low-cut tops for just about anything in Korea, including performances at schools, then the comment about no additional exposure being intended may well be true, if somewhat obtuse. That being said, I’m just as confused as you as are as to how men putting up tables and chairs somehow justifies forcing women to wear revealing clothes while serving tea. It’s also frustrating that the reporter didn’t challenge that non-explanation.

Policing the Student Body: Sookmyung Women’s University students told to cover up

I see reason for optimism though, in that the issue of consent was the hook that made the incident newsworthy, especially given that this must-read by a professional doumi gives the strong impression that such incidents are routine. Had I been writing a news report myself, I might have continued by comparing students’ own festivals and events, which also regularly create controversy for their sexual overtones, but, crucially, at which the offending clothes are worn by choice. (Or perhaps not necessarily; the ensuing sensationalist reports are hardly deep, and now Everyday Sexism compels me to reconsider them.) However, the main reason for the news reports was more likely the harm caused to the military’s image, Asiae raising in their own report another controversial incident that occurred at a different military festival the year before:

지난해 8월14일 유튜브에는 ‘피트니스 모델 @군부대 위문공연‘이라는 제목의 영상이 올라왔다. 영상 속 피트니스 모델은 각선미를 강조하는 등 자극적인 동작을 선보였다.

해당 공연 사회자가 “지금부터 기본포즈 4가지를 보여드리겠다“며 자세를 요구하자 선수는 뒤돌아서 엉덩이를 뺀 자세로 머리를 넘겼다.

또 “나이가 어떻게 되냐“는 사회자의 질문에 “21살입니다“라고 답하자 장병들의 환호가 이어졌다.

On August 14 [2018], a video titled “Fitness Model @ Military Consolation Performance” was posted on YouTube by the military. The model’s dance was quite sexualized, involving showing off body parts like her legs. At one point, she proclaimed “I will show you four basic poses now,” turning around to thrust her buttocks at the audience with her head down, her face visible underneath. To the cheers of the men watching, she answered “I’m 21!” when they loudly asked her age.

해당 영상을 접한 누리꾼들은 “여성 성상품화가 지나쳤다“, “위문공연을 꼭 이런 방법으로만 해야 하냐“며 분통을 터뜨렸다.

또 당시 청와대 국민청원 게시판에는 “성상품화로 가득찬 군대위문공연을 폐지해주세요“라는 제목의 글과 함께 해당 영상이 첨부되기도 했다.

Netizens who saw the video on YouTube were angered, commenting that “The sexual objectification of the woman was excessive,” and questioning if such sexualized dances “were really the only way morale boosting performances could be done?”. Later, citing the video, a petition to abolish precisely those was posted on the Blue House’s public petition bulletin board [which the government has to respond to if it receives more than 200,000 signatures].

파문이 커지자 해당 부대는 영상을 삭제 조치했다. 부대는 “당시 공연은 민간단체에서 주최하고 후원한 것으로 부대 측에서는 공연 인원과 내용에 대해 사전에 알 수 없었으나, 이번 공연으로 인해 ‘성 상품화 논란‘이 일어난 데 대해 사과의 말씀을 드린다“고 했다.

그러면서 “앞으로 외부단체에서 지원하는 공연의 경우에도 상급부대 차원에서 사전에 확인하여 유사한 사례가 재발하지 않도록 하겠다“고 덧붙였다.

As the controversy grew, the military unit that uploaded it deleted the video. A spokesperson said, “As the performance was organized and provided by a private company, we could not have known what the contents would be. Nonetheless, we apologize for the “controversy over sexual objectification” this performance has caused. They added, “To prevent recurrences in future, we will check the contents of performances provided by external organizations in advance.”

Here’s part of the offending video, a blurred news report about it and other similar performances, and an unblurred compilation:

Given how family-friendly the atmosphere appears in the video of the 2019 YG Military Festival earlier, reporters raising that “fitness” performance may seem unfair, let alone my adding the compilation video in which other performers quite literally spread their legs in soldiers’ faces (I’ll let you find those scenes yourself). Similarly, in light of recent news about how important performing for the military years ago was for the sudden popularity of K-pop girl-group Brave Girls, and how devastating the loss of such opportunities due to the pandemic have been for other girl-groups, then it may seem that only a stereotypical feminist spoilsport could find any fault with that mutually-beneficial system, especially considering how tame most of the K-pop girl-groups’ performances are.

Actually, so long as universal male conscription continues, I’m not at all against performances—which is not to say there aren’t some issues that still need to be addressed with them, as examined in previous posts in this series. And yet, note that the family-friendly video is just one perspective produced by the local county government, which isn’t going to linger on the women’s bodies; unlike, say, the fancam below of New Heart, a professional cheerleading/dance team hired to perform at the 2018 festival. Also, just because this particular festival was relatively tame, that doesn’t mean something that raises more than just eyebrows may feature at the next one, let alone at more private performances on bases.

Indeed, a distinction needs to be made between performances by girl-groups and those by cheerleaders, fitness models, and so on. The former are more likely to perform in larger, more public venues; to be filmed; and to have reputations their management companies have to consider—considerations which don’t apply to private entertainers. Moreover, considering what we’ve seen of private entertainers’ performances so far, you do have to wonder what happens when no-one’s filming.

Ergo, this is no one-off. Engendering a sexually-objectified and servile view of women is fundamental to the Korean universal male conscription system. Don’t believe me? Just take the word of that military spokesperson. Not only does their feigned surprise, patronizing, disingenuous claim of ignorance, and passing of blame feel very, very familiar, but it’s surely revealing—pun intended—that their concern is over the controversy generated. Not the coercion, nor the revealing clothes.

Continuing:

군 위문공연의 선정성 문제는 국정감사에서도 제기 된 바 있다. 채이배 바른미래당 의원은 지난해 10월26일 국회 법제사법위원회 군사법원에 대한 국정감사에서군 위문공연의 문제를 지적하고 가이드라인 마련을 요구했다.

The issue of the sexual suggestiveness of morale-raising performances for the military has also been raised at the state administration. On October 26, 2018, the [since dissolved] Barunmirae Party [now former] lawmaker Chae Yi-bae pointed out the problem and demanded that guidelines be prepared during an audit of the military court of the National Assembly Legislative Judicial Committee.

채 의원은 “여성을 성상품화하는 위문공연을 폐지하라는 청와대 청원도 올라온 바 있다. 사과도 하시고 유사사례 방지하겠다고 약속하셨는데, 과연 방지할 수 있을지는 의문”이라면서 “국방부 훈령 등 지침을 살펴보니 위문공연관련 가이드라인이나 지침이 없다“고 지적했다.

Representative Chae said, “There has also been a petition from the Blue House to abolish morale-raising performances that sexually objectify women. I apologize for them and promise to work to prevent similar cases. But it is doubtful if this is possible, as there are no relevant guidelines or procedures in place.”

한편 위문공연의 성 상품화 논란이 커지자 육군은 올해 1월 외부단체 공연을 추진할 때 부대별 심의위원회를 꾸려 공연 내용을 미리 심의하겠다고 밝혔다.

However, in response to the controversy, the military announced that from January 2019 it would set up a deliberation committee for each unit to ascertain the contents of performances in advance when provided by outside companies and organizations.

If only that had extended to all companies and organizations involved, not just those providing performances. But, to finish with Money Today’s conclusions about the original incident—which may have sounded like hyperbole in isolation, whereas now:

…전문가들은 군인 사기 증진을 위해 여성을 성적 대상화하는 인식을 바꿔야 한다고 지적했다.

Experts pointed out that in order to increase military morale, the perception of sexual objectification of women should be changed.

윤김지영 건국대 몸문화연구소 교수는 “여성을 눈요깃거리, 위안거리로 내세워야만 남성 군인의 사기가 증진된다고 여기는 것은 시대착오적이고 성차별적인 생각“이라며 “행사 도우미의 불편한 의상이 문제가 없다는 주장도 결국 남성주의적 관점“이라고 비판했다.

Yoon Kim Ji-young, a professor at Konkuk University’s Institute of Body & Culture, said, “It is an anachronistic and sexist idea to consider that the morale of male soldiers is enhanced only by putting women as an eye-catching and comforting object.” She criticized it as a masculine perspective.

허민숙 국회입법조사처 보건복지여성팀 입법조사관은 “군장병도 불편하고 내키지 않았을 가능성이 높다“며 “최근 젊은 남성은 여성과 동등한 관계에 익숙한 세대인데 진정한 사기 증진 방법을 고민하지 않고 낡은 관행을 답습한 점이 아쉽다“고 지적했다.

Heo Min-sook, a legislative investigator of the Health and Welfare Women’s Team at the National Assembly Legislative Investigation Department, said, “It is highly likely that military soldiers are also uncomfortable and reluctant.” I am sorry for that,” he pointed out.

Sources: left, right.

For further reading, I highly recommend Sex Among Allies: Military Prositution in U.S.-Korea Relations (1997) by Katherine Moon and Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (2005) by Seungsook Moon. The former, for the obvious links to the long history of girl-groups entertaining foreign and then Korean troops; and the latter, on how the gender roles and rigid hierarchy learned during military service utterly pervade Korean institutions from schools to workplaces, frequently reducing well-educated and capable women in the latter to making coffee and cleaning tables.

That doumi exist at all I’d argue, and in such great numbers, are a partial cause and effect of that last. So for the sake of completeness, in my next post, I’ll provide a full translation of an article about their origins (from 2006, I don’t think anybody will be worried about the copyright!).

Meanwhile, pondering what a Korean version of Everyday Sexism would look like is what led me to writing this post. For the sake of more like it, what other issues specific to Korea do think should be covered, which wouldn’t be in the original UK version? Please let me know in the comments!

Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts:

Part 6: How does military conscription affect Korean gender relations and attitudes to women?
Part 5: South Korea’s Invisible Military Girlfriends
Part 4: 17-Year-Old Tzuyu: “A Special Gift for Korean Men”
Part 3: Korean Lolita Nationalism: It’s a thing, and this is how it works
Part 2: Male Privilege at Korean Universities
Part 1: Introduction

Was 21 Year-old Jeon In-hwa Forced to Appear on TV in a Swimsuit?

The #MeToo era may be the first time that older models and actors have ever been able to open up about their own experiences. When they do, the media should listen.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Source: YouTube.

Sometimes you have to state the obvious to show just how absurd and unfair an everyday situation is.

One such is the constant stream of movie posters featuring women with no heads. So, comedian Marcia Belsky countered that with the ‘Headless Women Of Hollywood’ project, pointing out that heads are “first and foremost the thinking part of the human body, where our motivations and feelings are located.” It naturally follows that the headless images of women “we are bombarded with on a daily basis, tell us persistently that [their] thoughts, feelings and personal agency either don’t exist or are of no interest. Further, facial features are the way we recognize other people. It’s the face that makes us individuals. That too is taken away.”

Source: Extreme Movie (left, right).

Smiling faces then, and the consent implied within, seem obvious counters to charges of objectification. Again, it naturally follows that the world would be a better place if everyone bore that in mind in their production and consumption of popular culture.

Yet ultimately they can only be a guide too. And one which often falls under the weight of its numerous exceptions.

The MV for Spring Girls by Sunwoo Jung-a is replete with headless, ostensibly objectifying imagery. Yet it remains “both feminist and as sexy as hell.” Source: YouTube.

I’ve covered many of those exceptions elsewhere, as well as US philosopher and law and ethics professor Martha Nussbaum’s argument for necessary distinctions between ‘positive’ and ‘negative objectification.’ And yet another is the reality that actors’ and models’ smiles are often plastic, belying their unpleasant experiences with the photoshoots themselves.

No-one reading this would suppose otherwise. But again, it’s sometimes necessary to be reminded of the obvious. Because without the giveaway of the title, no-one would have ever suspected there’d been anything untoward about the following, utterly innocuous-looking commercial:

Featuring now well-known drama star Jeon In-hwa (54), it was her first for Julia Cosmetics’ ‘two-way cake,’ way back when she was 21. I only read about it at all, because first, a few days earlier I’d learned what happened to then 22 year-old Japanese actor and model Kiko Mizuhara in 2013:

Source: @UnseenJapanSite

And next, only because that prompted a double-take when I stumbled across the following segment of the January 20, 2020 episode of Naturally, in which Jeon In-hwa explains her own similar negative experience with that commercial, when she was about the same age:

Source: YouTube.

Specifically, from the 1:00 mark, Jeon In-hwa, Han Ji-hye, and So Yoo-jin begin talking about the former’s commercials in her youth:

And from 1:20, her issues with the one of her wearing a swimsuit (my emphases):

지난 20일 방송된 MBN ‘자연스럽게’에는 전인화가 출연해 처음이자 마지막 수영복 차림 광고에 대한 이야기를 언급했다.

…전인화는 “저 광고 때문에 울었다”며 “그 때는 절대 방송에서 파인 옷이나 수영복을 안 입으려고 했는데 현장에 가니 수영복이 준비돼 있었다”고 말했다. 이어 “너무 안 하고 싶어서 울었지만 결국 설득돼서 찍었다”고 덧붙였다.

On [yesterday’s] episode of Naturally, Jeon In-hwa’s ad was mentioned, her first and last appearance in a swimsuit.

…”I cried because of that commercial,” Jeon In-hwa said. “I had absolutely no intention of ever wearing revealing clothes or a swimsuit on TV then. But once we got to the shooting location, [I saw that] a swimsuit had been prepared [for me].” She added “I cried that I really didn’t want to do it, but in the end I was persuaded to, and the shooting went ahead.”

Jeong So-yeong, MoneyS, 21/01/2020.

All over in a few seconds, I admit I lay myself open to charges that I’m blowing things out of proportion. My title—maybe a little clickbaity. Jeon In-hwa doesn’t seem particularly wrought over the memory. She humorously—but explicitly—doesn’t want to talk about it (much) either. And the potential downer is quickly passed over by her costars.

“Persuasion” potentially covers a wide range of sins too, but doesn’t automatically mean “coercion.” What point then, is there in dwelling further on a young, inexperienced actor and model overcoming their nerves 34 years ago?

Alternatively, even if something more sinister did occur, there would be little possibility of legal recourse after all this time. Moreover, Korea has draconian libel and defamation laws, which are regularly used to silence sexual harassment and rape victims—and both Julia Cosmetics and Korea’s largest advertising agency Cheil Worldwide are very much still around.

I would tend to agree with letting it go then, if Jeon had gone on to do more commercials in swimsuits and/or revealing clothes. But she didn’t. For a young, attractive female model and actor destined to become a huge drama star, ultimately with 24 more years of endorsement deals ahead of her, that avoidance borders on remarkable.

Unless her first experience was genuinely traumatic?

Jeon In-hwa in 2016, reminiscing about being a reporter at 20 before she got her break as an actor and model. Source: Seoul Economic Daily.

The possibility means she at least deserves to be (gently) asked what happened in 1986 exactly. Yet not a single media outlet has followed up on her unburdening. Believe me, I’ve looked.

Yes, legal issues remain a concern. But if it’s not possible to talk about her experience in the #MeToo era, then when?

Without asking the questions, her costars, the producers of Naturally, and/or the media missed a golden opportunity. At the very least, for encouraging others to come forward, and for fostering a small moment of solidarity with different generations of victims.

Instead, their collective nonchalance perpetuates the absurdity and unfairness of another everyday occurrence. That crying your eyes out and then being forced to smile as you wear revealing clothes in front of strangers? It’s just what women have always needed to do, and always will need to do to secure that modelling gig, right? It’s certainly not something newsworthy.

I’m just saying I think maybe it should be.

What do you think?

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Single Korean Women Already Have to Pay Extra to Stay Safe in Their Homes. They Don’t Need to be Infantilized in the Process.

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes. Source: Remark Vill.

If I was advertising literally anything to university students, “Don’t Worry Mom!” would probably be the very last headline I’d use. But until recently, this ad for Remark Vill serviced apartments really did tower over the Pukyong and Kyungsung University district, a small but popular nightlife district in Busan.

Its paternalism rankled immediately. In particular, it had the exact opposite message to this campaign by the accomodation-finding app Zigbang, which trumpeted the independence and sexual freedom for women which comes with leaving home. And it just feels odd for any real estate service to target potential customers’ parents, rather than the customers themselves.

Upon further reflection however…it still rankled. Because as can be better seen in the full version, she’s also in one of the numerous, surprisingly awkward and uncomfortable poses almost only ever seen on women in ads. For sure, that’s hardly something to break the pitchforks out for in itself. Yet, as sociologist Erving Goffman pointed out in Gender Advertisements (1979), such nuances do subtly diminish the women involved. As whereas men’s usually more natural poses render them literally much more ready for action, and are thereby more authoritative looking, actor Im Se-mi above would have to uncross her legs in order to be able to do, well, anything. Or in Goffman’s own words about the similar ‘bashful knee bend,’ her pose “can be read as a foregoing of full effort to be prepared and on the ready in the current social situation, [as] the position adds a moment to any effort to flight or flee. Once again one finds a posture that seems to presuppose the goodwill of anyone in the surround who could offer harm.”

Pose like Lee Min-jung on the left, and it’s difficult even just to keep your balance. Stand more naturally like Gong Yoo instead, and you’re much quicker to spring into action.

But one should pause after somehow arriving at phrases like “flight or flee” after pondering a sweet, innocuous-looking ad. Also, Korean mothers (and fathers) have good reason to be concerned about their daughters’ safety when living alone. The 2016 Gangnam murder case, in which a 23 year-old woman was stabbed to death in a public toilet for simply being a woman, is still very fresh in people’s minds. Korea’s spycam epidemic continues unabated, which is a big concern for women when using motels and public toilets. In May 2019, a security video shows a woman literally only just avoiding a stalker forcing himself into her apartment as she closed the door behind her. Moreover, before the video went viral, he was originally only going to be charged with trespassing, characteristic of a justice system widely considered to be very dismissive of women’s sexual harassment and violence claims.

Source: @koryodynasty

Naturally, daughters themselves are worried about the safety of their accommodation too. According to a recent study by the Seoul Metropolitan Government that surveyed 3,000 single-person households, 11.2 percent of female respondents cited safety as the number one difficulty living alone, against 0.8 percent of men. Also, according to a research paper by Kang Ji-hyun, a professor of criminology at the University of Ulsan, young women living alone are more than 11 times more likely to suffer from home invasion than men. Consequently, according to D. M. Park at The Korea Bizwire, they “have to pay relatively high housing costs [compared to men] as they prefer houses in safe locations and with security facilities, as well as additional money for anti-crime goods.” This difference is ignored in Korean social welfare and housing policies, as is the reality that women also make less money than men to pay those extra costs. One woman interviewed for the article described it as yet another ‘pink tax’ for women, being an example of the extra money women sometimes have to pay for a swathe of services and consumer items that men don’t, including what they have to put into grooming for their jobs.

The Daeyeon Remark Vill apartments advertised are symbolic of this: while the buildings won a special prize for their security features upon completion in 2017, nowhere on the Remark Vill website are the rental prices of any of their apartments in Korea listed—suggesting that they’re very expensive indeed (and, despite the area, unlikely to be actually aimed at university students). Moreover, given the dire job circumstances of Koreans in the late-20s and early-30s at the moment, even 32 year-olds like Im Se-mi might require parental assistance to live there. Who could possibly gripe about an ad then, that appeals to both potential female tenants and their parents?

A couple of subway stops from the Daeyeon Remark Vill apartment buildings, an alleyway for “women to go home safely” that is “specially patrolled by police.” It’s the first I’ve ever encountered in Korea, but likely only because I have the male privilege of never needing to look for them. How common are they?

But I was reluctant to let this one go. I would have loved to have deferred to what Korean women thought of the ad, if only I could have found any opinions they’d offered. In their absence, I had to rely on my gut. And that told me that if something instantly rankles, there’s usually a good reason for it.

After all, recall how odd “Don’t Worry Mom!” sounded?

Just because daughters would share parents’ concerns about their safety, doesn’t necessarily mean the ad should be targeted towards the latter. Someone—a single copywriter perhaps, or maybe a whole creative team—made a conscious decision to do so. And, sure enough, even if this particular ad is relatively harmless, just a cursory investigation shows the campaign as a whole is rife with traditional gender stereotypes.

The smoking gun comes from the Remark Vill homepage itself. On it, there are four themed commercials available to watch. Two of them—about the gym facilities and various safety measures, conveniences, and business services available to tenants respectively—you don’t need my translations for. The “Mom’s Relief” one below however, is simultaneously sweet and cringey, for you sense that you would never have a 32 year-old man portrayed in the same manner. And under that, the “Teasing” one, which—spoilers!—suggests that the formerly virginal daughter is now free to invite male guests for casual sex.

Yes, really.

Unless you’re targeting parents like myself, who is very cool with that, it’s probably wise not to run a campaign tugging at parents’ heartstrings, only to present those parents who do visit your website with a reminder of how much wild sex your daughter will soon be having in your absence. Indeed, at your expense too.

Maybe, just maybe, the “Don’t Worry Mom!” campaign was ill-conceived in more ways than one.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the “Mom’s Relief” commercial:

And my translation of the captions:

Mom, you’re bringing that up again?

I’m taking care of things myself now!

I can get lightbulbs changed if I need to, and the toilet unblocked too.

I don’t need to call Dad!

In fairness, of course there are many young people in any country who have to rely on others for simple household tasks; even back in 2009, when the single-household rate was much lower, there was already a plethora of such services available in Korea. My experience of the reporting on the trend, however, is that it tends to stress the alleged lack of adulting by female customers. And as for advertising, if the fact that a 32 year-old not knowing how to change a lightbulb or unblock a toilet doesn’t strike you as embarrassing enough—and who still doesn’t know after leaving home, the Remark Vill staff replacing the role of her long-suffering father—I invite you to consider how unlikely and unnatural-seeming it would be to have a male actor in Im Se-mi’s place.

The next screenshots reveal she gets her laundry and cleaning done by others too. Nothing wrong with that, and great if you can afford it, but—if she can’t even change a lightbulb, could she do those herself either? You really have to wonder.

(Ironically, earlier posts from the Remark Vill Facebook page actually include tips for such things as unblocking toilets by yourself—which just goes to show how much of a step backward this particular campaign is.)

There are copying and fax services available on the first floor.

I don’t need to go out at night.

If I want, there’s even cleaning or laundry services.

I can even borrow an umbrella when it’s raining.

Don’t worry!

But still, please come over often.

They don’t make kimchi for me here…

[You’ll come] Right?

I’ve got to admit, that’s pretty damn cute. Then I remember…

SHE’S THIRTY-TWO.

And on that note, on with the “Teasing” commercial:

And the captions:

It’s so good to be home!

What do you think? It’s good, right?

This is the first time I’ve had a man come over.

There is a state of the art security system in this building…

[…So] No unwanted visitors can come in [the building].

The building staff receive everything for me, like mail and deliveries.

If something dangerous happens…

A quick response from the security office is just a phone call away.

From the Remark Vill Facebook page, a highlight of that safe pick-up and delivery system (which can also be seen in the “Features and Services” video, as can real-time monitoring of one’s parking space):

Wireless delivery system. A smart delivery system makes this a very safe place to live alone.

Continuing:

There’s CCTV, and a tight security system overseeing everyone that enters the building.

[So] I don’t need a boyfriend!

Why are you looking like that?

You like me??

Wake up! I’ve never thought of you as more than a friend.

(No caption) Do you want to Netflix and Chill?

Technically, that the male viewer is the first to come to her apartment may only mean precisely that. But the hint of previous inexperience, combined with the desire suddenly awakened by his presence, sounds very familiar:

From Stephen Epstein’s and my chapter “Girls’ Generation? Gender, (Dis)Empowerment, and K-pop” in the Korean Popular Culture Reader (2014), alas, K-pop ages very quickly. Most of the 100 songs we analyzed for it, the young women of 2020 would only have vague memories of hearing as girls.

Perhaps it’s time Remark Vill realized they’ve grown up now too?

Related Posts:

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Why Does Korea Have so Many of Those Damn Smutty Ads?

Government inaction on Korea’s ubiquitous, sexually-explicit internet advertising undermines claims that its citizens need protecting from pornography, and has helped shape the Korean #Metoo movement.

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes. Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels. One NSFW image later.

When even the ad industry itself is calling for greater government regulation of sexual imagery in ads, you know Korea’s got a problem.

The main issue is that there’s just no escaping them. In the most recent survey of 155 major web portals, social media services, and online news sites conducted by the Korea Internet Advertising Foundation (KIAF) in 2016, 94.5 percent of the middle and high school students surveyed were found to have been exposed to sexualized ads. Frustratingly, the 69-page report (PDF, Korean) doesn’t also mention what proportion those ads were of the total ads examined. But, maybe the authors simply felt that was unnecessary, as everyone already knows that their numbers are just insane:

Porn remains illegal in Korea. And just last week, the government cracked down on loopholes to make the viewing of porn even more difficult.

Meanwhile, these ads objectifying women as sex objects flood the internet, appear on almost all ‘respectable’ Korean news sites, and more pic.twitter.com/6Q8Y3iHEB9

— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) February 17, 2019

See the thread for many more examples. Or like Raphael says, almost any Korean news website. Even alongside the cutesy, assumed safe webtoons my preteen daughters read too, I recently learned, sometimes there’s invitations to meet horny divorcees in our area.

But Korea’s smutty ads problem goes much deeper than just their scale, or their astonishing inappropriateness. For the KIAF surveyors also found that one in four of the offending ads promoted sex work, and/or even showed sex acts. Which is heinous not because either are unethical, but because such ads exist so openly in a society where sex work and pornography are both illegal, and which would never see the light of day if they were placed in traditional media.

Which begs the question: just how did Korea’s internet ad problem get so bad?

In the first instance, it’s simply down to advertisers’ algorithms, combined with the inattention and unconcern of site owners. This was ironically and hilariously revealed by the reporting of a similar survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MOGEF) in June 2012, when many news sites displaying precisely the kinds of ads the Ministry was railing against alongside the articles about the survey. Even more spectacularly, a few weeks previously many news site editors curiously chose to pixelate the bikini tops and bras of women who had written political messages across their breasts (as in only their clothing, not the messages or exposed skin), while those in the accompanying ads were left untouched:Fast forward to April 2018, when representatives from major Korean shopping portal sites were queried by The PR News reporter An Seon-hye as to why their Facebook ads for products such as headphones and men’s shoes tended to show women with exposed cleavage and/or in their underwear first. They simply blamed the algorithms, implying that somehow those absolved their companies of any responsibility:

페이스북에서 남성 이용자들에게 노출된 쿠팡 광고 이미지 “Coupang advertisement aimed at male users of Facebook.” Image source: The PR News.

티몬(왼쪽) 및 gs샵이 sns에서 남성들에게 집행한 광고 이미지. “Images of Timon(L) and GS Shop advertisements aimed at men.” The woman on the right is Ai Shinozaki, a Japanese gravure model. Image source: The PR News.

…하지만 해당 업체들은 결코 고의성이 없다는 점을 강조했다. 티몬 관계자는 “저희 같은 경우 19금 용품 광고는 아예 노출이 안 되도록 막는 등 선정성 측면에서 신경을 쓰고 있다”며 “자동 로직으로 광고 집행이 이뤄지기에 임의로 자극적 이미지를 사용한 게 아니다”고 해명했다.

“…However, industry representatives stressed that, in the end, there is never any deliberate intention to use sexualized imagery. A representative from Timon said, ‘In our case, from the outset we do work to ensure that no adults-only products are selected to be advertised [on Facebook],’ and that ‘the provocative images that do appear are not random, but are chosen automatically by the algorithm.'”

기본적으로 특정 시간대에 특정 연령 타깃군이 어떤 상품을 많이 봤다는 데이터가 쌓이면 이를 해당 타깃에게 동일하게 추천하는 방식으로 로직이 짜여 있다는 설명이다. 이번 노출도 이같은 설정 때문에 벌어진 현상일 수는 있지만, 의도한 건 아니라는 설명이다.

“Basically, when collected data on a site suggests that a certain time is the most heavily frequented by a targeted demographic, the algorithm automatically recommends products that demographic is likely to be interested in. The same logic applies to the revealing images accompanying them, but has never been the deliberate intention [of our company.]”

쿠팡 관계자 역시 “쿠팡이 고의적으로 선정적인 광고를 남성에게 보이도록 조작하지는 않았다”며 “활용되는 이미지 역시 판매자가 올린 것을 활용한 것”이라고 밝혔다.

“A representative from Coupang also claimed that their company ‘did not deliberately manipulate ads to target men with sexualized imagery,’ explaining that ‘the images of products [available from our site] are simply taken from available sellers.’ (end)

By all means, gratuitous T&A does sometimes work, especially when those objects belong to popular K-pop girl-group members. Yet it infuriates me when some, more radical feminists—especially anti-pornography activists—start from the position that such narrow portrayals of women are an accurate reflection of most—or even a significant minority of—cishet men’s tastes; examples like these demonstrate just how disingenuous and utterly unfair that assumption is. It’s also very patronizing for companies to advertise this way, says Sejong University Professor Kim Ji-heon elsewhere in the above article, and has the potential to put men off offending brands. Accordingly, evidence of sexualization’s effectiveness on Korean consumers is mixed, one 2017 study by Yonsei University researchers (PDF, Korean) for example, discovering that young Korean men actually preferred cute to sexy female models in game advertisements (which may be problematic for other reasons, but that’s a story for another post). Also, lest we forget, not all consumers are young men, with another study from 2012 (PDF, Korean) by Sungkyunkwan University researchers demonstrating that despite soju companies specifically targeting female consumers at the time, somehow women just weren’t responding to the ensuing “sexy” advertisements.

I can’t imagine why:

Screenshots from this summer 2009 commercial for ‘Cool Soju 168’; the logic was that “168” referred to a low 16.8% alcohol content, which supposedly helped women maintain their figure vis-a-vis stronger brands. One NSFW image follows shortly.

Nevertheless, Coupang’s algorithms at least, have hardly been tweaked since The PR News report came out, as any male Facebook user in Korea can confirm. Take this advertisement I was blessed with on the subway a few weeks ago for instance:

Facebook has given me 24 hour bans for far less.

Of course, in reality, no algorithms are value-neutral, so can’t be used as an excuse. Yet, to reluctantly play Devil’s Advocate for a moment, perhaps one reason Korea’s algorithms have the settings they do is that advertisers generally lean more heavily on sex-sells tropes during recessions, and one indication of how bad Korea’s is at the moment would be its highest youth unemployment rate in two decades. Another explanation of why they tend to be sooo eye-catching is that Hangul, the writing system, lacks capitals. This, which has factored into Korean webdesign from the get-go, is why Korean websites tend to be so GIF-heavy and cluttered to Western eyes, but is familiar to and preferred by Koreans. (Japanese websites are very similar, due to similar issues with kanji and kana.) Ingrained media culture and consumer habits go some way toward explaining why Japanese and Korean advertisers over-rely on celebrities to get your attention too.

But all of these contributing factors are decades old. I first noted the alleged link to the economy ten years ago, and the numbers of smutty ads have only increased since. Korean websites have overwhelmed me with GIFs since I first started having to navigate them in internet cafes here nineteen years ago. And the over-reliance on celebrities dates back to the early-1980s, when fifteen seconds became the standard length for TV commercials.

If so many features of Korean advertising are products of ingrained culture and long-term habit then, surely this over-reliance on sexualization could be as well? So too, that it just so happens to be a very stereotypically male-gazey version of it at that?

Noteworthy in this regard is men’s domination of multiple sectors of the Korean media:

Men dominate media in Korea:

– KBS: 9 of 11 board members male
– MBC: all 9 directors were male, 2 women appointed recently
– EBS: all 9 directors were male, 4 women appointed recently

according to survey by National Human Rights Commission of Korea https://t.co/aq8MqXaCQx

— Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) February 7, 2019

However, the Korean advertising industry is absent from that Twitter thread, and I’m personally unaware of its male-female make-up as I type this (sorry). So, let me defer to someone with inside experience: Seoul National University Associate Professor Olga Fedorenko, who conducted fieldwork in winter 2009-2010 at the agency responsible for the delightful Cool Soju 168 commercial from summer 2009 above. And in fact, in that agency at least, women made up roughly half of the employees. But it was indeed male-dominated, as no women there were above level five of the eight ranks within its internal hierarchy, “with truly managerial responsibilities [only] beginning at level six.” Also, the ensuing work-culture there could certainly be described as male-dominated too:

To assert that “sex sells”—the axiom that no one doubts in advertising and perhaps few do in society at large—was the usual way to deflect my criticisms of sexualized portrayals of women in much of Korean advertising, and women repeated that adage as eagerly as men.

Still, despite their professional embrace of the “sex code,” women showed a certain distance towards its centrality to advertising. They occasionally mocked male managers who favored sex-appeal strategies by default, “just because they like to look at pretty women,” as Chin’a put it, as she vented about wasting an afternoon the day before because her team’s Creative Director asked her to accompany him to help pick a female model for a commercial. “He said he wanted a woman’s opinion but in reality he just picked the model who he personally liked and who was flirty with him,” she said rolling her eyes in front of me and four other women as we were having lunch. Chin’a thought that the selected model was not the best choice, but the Creative Director never asked Chin’a’s opinion and even went as far as to re-schedule the shoot around the model, without consulting the convenience of other team members. Chin’a wished she had spent that afternoon working on their team’s other accounts.

Technically however, Fedorenko does not state if the same agency was responsible for the Cool soju commercial I criticized; I should have only said it “probably” was, because it was responsible for a new campaign for same product during Fedorenko’s time there a few months later. Ironically, a largely women-created and targeted, sexually-progressive, feminist, and therefore controversial one:

Which would seem to contradict the points made about work culture above. So too, that they’re from a snapshot of just one agency, and a decade old.

However, it’s also telling that there’s been almost nothing quite like that campaign in Korean advertising since, by any agency. Despite my fetish for Korean ads showing actual grown women with sexual desire and experience, I’m only aware of less than a handful produced in the last decade. Meanwhile, compared to men, women are almost 60 times more likely to be wearing revealing clothing in Korean TV commercials, a figure that is over twice as high and nearly ten times as high as their Japanese and Hong Kong counterparts respectively.

And yet, despite everything, I’m reluctant to attribute all that simply to the likely dominance of men in the industry.

Yes, we can all bet good money that the coders behind offensive internet algorithms are indeed sexist pricks. Or their bosses. Or at best, that they’re unoriginal and conservative.

But to claim that Korean ads are the way they are because men dominate the industry, is to make the assumption that most of the men within are also sexist pricks.

Hey, I’m not dismissing the possibility. In fact, I’d bet good money on that too. Given what we know about Korean ads, and that Korea has the biggest gender gap in the OECD, and comes 121st out of 193 countries in the ratio of female legislators to males, then there’s absolutely no reason to suppose that Korea’s toxic, patriarchal work culture hasn’t also infected the Korean ad industry.

But where does that accusation get us? If we want to persuade industry insiders to embrace change, what good would simply calling them sexist pricks actually achieve?

And cishet men’s sexuality, I can’t stress often enough, is so much richer and broader than its blokey, infantile stereotypes suggest. There are men of other sexualities in the ad industry too, not to mention (probably) equal numbers of women. I refuse to believe that all the admen, by definition among the most creative and artistic men in Korean society, all chose their careers based on no more than a shared dream of putting more boobs on phone screens, and that every man and woman who doesn’t share that grand vision is simply forced to acquiesce.

The issues raised in this post may even be well-recognized problems within the industry already too, but are intractable due to the influence of Korea’s patriarchal work culture as alluded to earlier, one big influence being the rigid hierarchy and visions of women and male-female relations learned before entering the industry from that vast socialization experience known as universal male conscription.

Or not: my apologies again, for lacking the money and time to translate dense Korean advertising tomes to find out. But either way, suggesting practical, actionable steps that the industry may already be receptive to does sound much more helpful than simply rolling our eyes at THE MENZ.

I think this is where we came in.

Recall that we started with the industry itself calling for more regulation. Specifically, the KIAF, responsible for the 2016 survey:

“Although there are guidelines for the level of sexuality permitted in online advertising, they lack effectiveness since they tend to be too generic and ambiguous,” said the KIAF official. “Regulations that manage such advertisements are scattered across government departments, and they need to be revamped.

A state of affairs which sounds suspiciously similar to the messy censorship of K-pop in the early-2010s:

The recent guidelines by the Fair Trade Commission are demonstrably inadequate, and laws are required instead. But considering that any limits on such a vague concept as sexualization are by definition arbitrary, then it is crucial that 1) the ensuing legislation process is transparent; 2) that implementation of the laws is consistent; and 3) that only one, preferably independent, organization has the power of censorship. Currently, that last is divided between a plethora of competing media and government organizations, and the ensuing unpredictable and often bizarre decisions ― including banning a music video for the singers driving without wearing seat belts, or allowing exposed navels on men but not on women ― have thoroughly undermined the credibility of attempts to curb the sexualization of teens in K-pop. A fresh start is urgently needed.

“Restrictions Imposed on 18+ Controversial ‘Wide Leg Spread Dance’”, April 2011. Source.

This segue into K-pop is no mere confirmation bias from a trusted source: for the body with the most responsibility for censoring K-pop then was MOGEF, which it did with a relish. As Lee Yoo-eun at Global Voices explained in 2014 (links added by me):

The censors of the ministry are notorious for accusing several thousand songs of being “hazardous” whenever they notice references to liquor, cigarettes or sex in the lyrics. Once a song is labeled as “inappropriate for youth under the age 19″ it can only be broadcast after 10:00 PM, and children are forbidden from buying it as well as from listening on the internet. Many young people get around this by using the IDs of their parents to login to Korean portal websites or watch on YouTube.

Music industry people…say it is troubling that the censorship is applied only to some randomly selected albums after they have hit the market, and not universally to every album. Many people see this as part of a new reality where the South Korean government is tightening control over citizens and free speech.

And this zealousness was in stark contrast to the complete inaction by MOGEF over smutty advertisements, despite raising the alarm in 2012 about their surging numbers as discussed. Indeed, it wanted the industry to do its own work for it instead:

여성가족부는 작년과 비교해 유해 광고는 늘었지만 법 위반 언론사들이 대폭 감소한 것을 감안해, 언론사에는 우선 자율 규제를 촉구하겠다는 입장이다. 청소년매체환경과 관계자는 “작년에 34개 언론사가 법을 위반했는데 올해에는 다 시정됐다”며 “언론사들을 직접 규제하기 보다는 인터넷신문협회 등에 자율규제기구인 인터넷신문광고심의위원회의 설치를 촉구하겠다”고 밝혔다.

“Although MOGEF points out that the numbers of harmful advertisements have increased since last year, the fact that there are actually less media companies breaking the law also needs to be taken into consideration, so first MOGEF is going ask media companies to regulate themselves. The official in the Division of Youth Media Environment continued: ‘The 34 media companies that broke the the Information and Communications Network Law last year have all since rectified their mistakes,’ and so ‘a self-regulatory system is preferable to direct regulation, and we demand that the Korean Internet Newspaper Association and so on establish an internet newspaper advertisement consideration committee.'” (end)

Further inaction still is evident from how, in the 2010-2016 period, MOGEF’s Korean Institute for Gender Equality Promotion and Education (KIGEPE) was given the task of monitoring mass media for cases of sexual discrimination, sexual prejudice, and sexual insults, but was given extremely limited resources to do so, and didn’t even cover the internet; ultimately only four cases were ever acted upon in those entire seven years. A subsequent study in 2016 found an undisclosed number of issues, of which the KIGEPE said “the results from their monitoring [had] resulted in 19 cases of corrective action [as of March 2017], insisting more education and appropriate measures need to be provided for TV show makers to achieve gender equality in the TV industry.” (More recently, this January the Korea Communications Standards Commission {KOSC} noted problems remained in variety shows specifically, without suggesting any measures to combat them.)

Yet that’s just MOGEF, which—without absolving it for its inaction—admittedly had very low resources and was in a precarious political position under previous conservative governments. If we look at the Korean media and its various overseers as a whole however, inaction over misogyny and problematic content is endemic, Korean dramas in particular being notorious for depicting dating violence as romance, but which the KOSC has washed their hands of. And don’t get me started on the media’s constant framing of the sexualization of minors in K-pop as good, clean, harmless family fun.

Source: Netizenbuzz.

In that wider context, inaction on smutty ads emerges as less the exception than the rule in the Korean media, and underpins a pervasive culture of indifference and desensitization towards degrading images and videos of (overwhemingly) women. That culture is evident in the decade-long foot-dragging in the shutting-down of Soranet, a hugely popular pornography site notorious for the sharing of hidden camera videos, as well as in the Korean #MeToo movement’s unique emphasis on punishing the purveyors of such videos, a central component in the current Burning Sun scandal. I can’t help but ultimately see links to the culture of indifference and desensitization towards sexual abuse by teachers in Korean schools too, with over 40 percent of perpetrators in the January 2013 to September 2018 period still teaching, and again only, finally, being aggressively challenged due to the Korean #MeToo movement.

Nextshark: “The School of Performing Arts Seoul, the alma mater of numerous well-known K-drama and K-pop stars, is facing co‌ntrov‌ers‌y after its former students a‌‌c‌‌cu‌‌s‌e‌‌‌d the school of c‌o‌rrup‌tio‌n and se‌x‌u‌al ‌ex‌‌pl‌oita‌‌tion of minors [through a music video].”

But perhaps it’s a too much of leap from boobs on my smartphone to tolerating “asking students for ‘sexiness’ and ‘inappropriate touches’ during school performances”?

Or not. Either way, if the government started to enforce the same standards for internet ads as it does for all other forms of pop culture, that would surely be the perfect way to find out.

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If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

How does military conscription affect Korean gender relations and attitudes to women?

The vision of male-female relations that conscription engenders—that men’s role is to do important work for the nation, while women’s is to remain on the sidelines offering their support through youthful looks and sexual availability—is pervasive in Korean daily life.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes. Photo (modified) by Berwin Coroza on Unsplash.

Last week, came the monumental news that Korean men were going to be offered alternatives to mandatory military service. So, CNN reporter James Griffiths asked me for some input into the Korean military’s background, specifically conscription’s effects on Korean gender relations. Little of my email could make it to his final article though, so here’s my full response for some context and further reading:

1) How does the military conscription issue affect gender relations and attitudes to women?

It’s difficult to overemphasize the role of the military as a socialization agent. Consider their ages: most Korean men choose to do their military service after their first year of university, barely out of high school, and Korea’s education hell means most would have had very little time for dating previously. Ironically though, new recruits can face being ostracized if they don’t have sexual experience, so many Korean men’s first sexual experience is with a sex worker just before enlistment. Visiting sex workers during their service is also considered normal. This is not wrong, but it is combined with frequent sexualized K-pop girl-group performances on bases, their ubiquitous messages of support for the troops in the media, and their being prominently featured on the military intranet (there are even military K-pop charts). This vision of women and male-female relations that the combination engenders—that men’s role is to do important work for the nation, while women’s is to remain on the sidelines offering their support, especially through their youthful looks and sexual availability—is pervasive in Korean daily life.

Military Manpower Association (MMA) endorsement models Apink saying “Thank you for choosing to enter the military. You are Korea’s REAL men!” (MMA Facebook page).

That may sound like hyperbole, but it is telling that Korea is the only country in East Asia where it is customary to use superiority-based titles in place of names in the workplace, and that even the Samsung Economic Research Institute once said that mistreatment by superiors in Korean companies is so pervasive that “many workers…take it for granted that they have to tolerate anything in return for getting paid.” In other words, when hierarchical military culture has had such a profound effect on the Korean workplace, and indeed much else about Korean daily life, then it is not unreasonable to see its role in shaping Korean gender relations too.

2) As regards the anti-feminist backlash from men’s rights groups, how driven is this by perceived unfairness of military service?

It is overwhelmingly driven by this perceived unfairness. But the media has done much to fan the flames, especially by encouraging the scapegoating of young women by exaggerating their economic successes in relation to men, and by perpetuating many negative stereotypes of them. In particular, that of the kimchi-nyeo (kimchi bitch), which refers to an economically successful woman who exploits her female privilege in not having to do military service, but who still expects men to pay on dates, who (always successfully) cries sexism when a man is promoted over her, and so on. Korea’s grossly skewed sex ratio among 20-somethings has a huge role to play in this backlash too, consequence of Korea’s sex selective abortions in the 1990s.

That Korea has the highest gender gap in the OECD however, is conveniently ignored by men’s rights groups. One can argue that it exists simply because women lose experience and rank after taking time off to have children, which is indeed crucial in what are such hierarchical, seniority-based companies as explained. But the gap also very much exists because doing military service comes with a host of indirect benefits, including taking advantage of their old boys networks created during their service, and of the widespread attitudes that men are more deserving of jobs (explicitly enshrined in government policy during the 1997 and 2008 financial crises), and that women, if no longer youthful and and sexually-available, should again step aside and support men from the sidelines by quitting their jobs by staying home to raise the children.

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Teaching Public Safety Through Objectifying AND Slut-Shaming Women Was a Bizarre Low, Even for Korea

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes. Image source: YouTube

The first time I watched the TVs on the KTX, Korea’s high-speed train, I wondered if graphic footage of insects eating each other was really the best way to showcase Korea’s glorious flora and fauna to tourists.

Fourteen years later, now I’m not so much fazed by this curious peccadillo of KORAIL’s, as eagerly look forward to the latest installment in these Boschian tragedies to entertain myself with on my trips to Seoul. And, it has to be said, they make a lot more sense than this safety campaign featuring women in bikinis did that I noticed last summer:

Fortunately, people with backbones complained, resulting in its removal and likely replacement with the same old invertebrate snuff films, as I’ve just learned from the following article:

“비키니 입으면 노출증?”…한수원 공익 광고 ‘성 상품화’ 논란 “Wearing a Bikini is Exhibitionism?” Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Public Service Commercial Causes Controversy Over Sexual Objectification

Chosun Biz, September 20 2017

한국수력원자력이 성을 상품화한다고 볼 수 있는 공익광고를 KTX와 서울 지하철 등에서 방영해 논란이 되고 있다.

A public service commercial by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) that has been playing on the KTX train and Seoul subway has led to some controversy over its sexual objectification.

20일 한수원과 코레일 등에 따르면 한수원은 최근 신고리 5·6호기 공론화가 진행되는 동안 원전과 관련된 홍보를 중단하기로 결정하며 기존에 계약한 광고 시간에는 지난 2015년에 만들었던 공익광고를 내보내고 있다.

According to [a KHNP official earlier today], KHNP and KORAIL [the national railway operator], KHNP decided to halt public relations efforts related to nuclear power plants while a public consensus was being sought on the fate of reactors Shin Kori 5 and Shin Kori 6 [at Kori nuclear power plant, close to Busan.] Three preexisting public service commercials made in 2015 were put in their place.

이 광고는 “당신은 상식적인 사람인가요. 다음 영상에서 비상식적인 점을 찾아보세요”라는 말로 시작된다. 이후 해수욕장에서 여성 3명이 겉옷을 벗어 던지고 비키니를 입은 채 바다로 뛰어드는 장면이 이어진다. 이 때 여성들의 모습은 슬로우모션으로 처리되며 몸매가 부각된다. 이후 자막으로 ‘무엇이 잘못되었을까요?’라는 자막이 나온다.

In the offending example, the text begins with “Are you a sensible person? Try to find what’s out of place in the following video.” Next, three clothed women on a beach run to the water, throw their clothes off, then jump into the waves in the bikinis that they were wearing underneath. While this is happening, the women’s bodies are focused on and [later] put into slow-motion, followed by the caption “What was wrong?”.

(James—Actually, the video did linger but technically didn’t slow-mo over the women’s bodies, and ended with “Did you find it?”, as the screenshot in the article also shows.)

이어 한 여성은 “아이들이 앞에서 막 벗는 것?”이라고 답한다. 또다른 한 남성은 “흐흐흐”라고 웃으면서 고개를 좌우로 흔들기도 하고, 또다른 여성은 “노출증?”이라고 말한다. 이후 광고 자막에는 “그것도 맞지만, 더 중요한 것은 이것”이라며 수영을 하기 전에는 준비운동을 반드시 해야한다고 알린다.

After that, one woman suggests “Was it getting undressed in front of children?”. Next, a man shakes his head left and right and laughs, then another woman suggests “Is it exhibitionism?”. Then, the text reads “Those are correct, but there’s something more important,” before revealing that it was that the women should have warmed up before swimming.

(James—Yes, really. It then shows the women doing precisely that instead, with the caption “No common-sense is more important than that to do with safety.”)

한수원의 유튜브 계정에는 해당 광고 영상에 대해 “화창한 날씨. 넓게 펼쳐진 바다와 예쁜 백사장. 평화로운 시간을 보내던 가족들 사이로 갑자기 젊은 여성 무리가 나타나 다른 이들의 시선은 아랑곳하지 않고 옷을 훌렁훌렁 벗어 던집니다. 여기서 가장 비상식적인 부분은 무엇일까요?”이라고 설명되어 있다…

In the description of the advertisement on YouTube, it says: “Sunny weather, a wide open ocean, and a pretty white sand beach. A family enjoying the peace is suddenly disturbed by a throng of young women undressing without thinking of anyone else around them. What is out of place here?”

(James—And then, after giving more information about why KHNP had to start running 2015 commercials, a spokesperson explaining the organization wanted to stress public service rather than be seen to be showing favoritism to nuclear power, the article continues:)

…하지만 일각에서는 이 광고가 여성 입장에서 불편하게 느낄 수 있다는 지적이 나온다. 직장인 이지은(27)씨는 “해수욕장에서 비키니 수영복을 입은 여성들이 왜 노출증이라고 비난받아야 하는지 공감이 가지 않는다”라면서 “비키니 입은 여성들을 본 남성이 음흉한 웃음을 짓는 것도 성적 대상화를 하는 것 같아 불편하다”고 말했다.

…Yet it has been pointed out that the situation depicted is uncomfortable for women. Lee Ji-eun (27), an office worker, argued “I have little sympathy for a commercial that says women should be criticized for exhibitionism simply for wearing bikinis or swimsuits at a beach,” adding “It’s already uncomfortable enough for women wearing bikinis to be sexualized and smirked at by men.”

대중음악평론가 서정민갑씨는 자신의 페이스북 계정을 통해 “왜 공익광고에 젊은 여성의 몸매를 관음하고, 그들은 준비운동도 안하고 바다로 뛰어드는 신중하지 못한 존재 역할을 전담하는가”라고 지적하기도 했다.

A popular music critic, Seo Jeong-min, asked on his personal Facebook “Why does the ad so voyeuristically use women’s bodies this way, and why is it young women that are placed in the role of being foolish, thoughtlessly running into the sea without warming-up first?”

한수원 관계자는 “2015년 제작 당시 각 방송사 등에서 문제가 없다는 판정을 받았기 때문에 괜찮다고 판단하고 광고 영상을 상영했다”면서 “여성을 희화화한다는 지적이 있어 광고를 중단할 예정”이라고 덧붙였다.

The KHNP spokesperson explained “No problems with the advertisement were noted when it is made in 2015, which is why we decided to use it.” However, “due to the way women are depicted in it, we will discontinue it.” (End.)

As explored in great depth on this blog, the Korean media and government have a long tradition of sexualizing and/or sexually-objectifying young women for public causes, particularly of girl-groups for the military, so the complaints about this example came as a pleasant surprise. Was it because it was just so inane, and so egregious? Or was it the hypocritical slut-shaming that pushed viewers over the edge? Please let me know what you think in the comments.

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How Slut-Shaming and Victim-Blaming Begin in Korean Schools

From the moment Korean schoolchildren start developing, and their hormones start raging, Korea’s school uniform codes give them a daily reminder that girls’ bodies should be hidden and controlled.

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes. Image sources: left, “How much do you really know me?” by VisualValor/大前, used with permission; right, Mike Rowe, (CC BY-NC 2.0).

More than half of Korean men think revealing clothes lead to rape. Almost as many Korean women do too.

Those and other harrowing statistics (English, Korean) come from a survey of 7,200 adults aged 16 to 64 conducted by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family last year. In 2013, a survey of 200 South Gyeongsang Province police officers by the Korea Women’s Development Institute found similar results.

When I was much younger, I assumed results like this were simply due to ignorance. Surely, changing people’s minds was just a matter of presenting the facts? That even as far back as 1996 for instance, Korean Women’s groups, lawyers, and academics had thoroughly debunked any supposed links between clothing and sexual assault?

Well, we all know the answer to that. But only once I came across “This Article Won’t Change Your Mind” by Julie Beck in the Atlantic, about the bases of the post-truth era. did it finally click why:

…[People] will occasionally encounter information that suggests something they believe is wrong. A lot of these instances are no big deal, and people change their minds if the evidence shows they should—you thought it was supposed to be nice out today, you step out the door and it’s raining, you grab an umbrella. Simple as that. But if the thing you might be wrong about is a belief that’s deeply tied to your identity or worldview—the guru you’ve dedicated your life to is accused of some terrible things, the cigarettes you’re addicted to can kill you—well, then people [will] do all the mental gymnastics it takes to remain convinced that they’re right.

Ergo, if it is just common sense that a short skirt or exposed bra strap can lead to rape? And feels so intuitive and self-evident to so many people, despite any evidence whatsoever beyond confirmation bias? Then those beliefs must be deeply tied to self-identities indeed. Fundamental even, to how they understand and perform sex and gender roles. Which are not things people generally react well to being told they’ve been getting wrong all their lives.

Especially not by, say, slutty man-hating feminazis insisting on the abstract ‘truth’ of surveys over their own, average-Joe’s lived experience.

So where then, do their victim-blaming notions of sex and rape come from? Their beliefs in male entitlement to sexual access to women’s bodies, upon which those are based?

In short, from everywhere, which is how come those beliefs are held so strongly.

It’s only a feminist cliche because it’s so true.

Among the many methods and messengers, one is undoubtedly the romanticized depiction of dating violence in Korean dramas. Another is inadequate, heteronormative, marriage and biology-focused sex education, which teaches girls not to be alone with their permanently sexed boyfriends, lest he demand sexual compensation for paying for their date. Another is the government and media encouraging the exposure of women’s and girls’ bodies for soft power, nationalist, and military causes, but discouraging it when it’s of their own accord. Linked to which is women being told to cover up on public transport to prevent upskirt photos, rather than potential perpetrators warned not to take them. And yet another, which will be the focus here, are the double-standards and victim-blaming inherent to Korea’s school uniform rules. They’re such a big deal because, when kids start developing, and when their hormones start raging, they teach fresh young minds how to deal “appropriately” with both—and what punishments girls and women will receive if they don’t learn that lesson.

For those unfamiliar, here’s a taste of what Korean school uniforms are like:

Korean school uniforms have actually had quite a chequered history over the past decade. In the late-2000s to early-2010s, the focus was on their increasing cost, which was partially fueled by retailers’ habit of hiring K-pop stars to promote them; ultimately, the industry announced a voluntary moratorium on celebrity hires, which lasted for about two years. At about the same time, there was a great deal of controversy over girls wearing shorter and shorter skirts, which was tied to the liberalization of students’ rights (more on this later). Annual “naked graduation ceremonies” started hitting the news too, where students would attack their no longer needed, much-hated uniforms with knives and scissors. And then, in late-2015, Korean entertainment mogul JYP came under fire for girl-group TWICE’s overly-sexual and body-shaming advertisements for Skoollooks, which surprised because, JYP’s characteristic, pimp-like demeanor aside, their messages were little different from those which preceded them:

Compare Skoolooks’ 2015 ad with JYP and Momo of Twice (source: Instiz) with Smart’s 2008 ad with Shinee and Victoria of f(x) (source: Soompi).

But what of the boys in that history? If they’re mentioned at all, they’re framed as victims, being so distracted by the girls’ uniforms that they’re unable to concentrate—along with their male teachers. Another strong theme is adults stressing how vulnerable the girls are on their commutes, simply for wanting to be fashionable by wearing their skirts high.* Peruse the links, and you sense a collective throwing of hands in the air, as girls are reminded again and again that everything that happens to them is their fault…alongside repeated, titillating, pictures of their offending legs.

(*Related: A recent Al Jazeera report discusses how Japanese schoolgirls are indeed more vulnerable to harassment than adult women, for whom the harassment drops once they graduate and stop wearing school uniforms. But this is because schoolgirls are perceived as less assertive and more vulnerable, and has nothing to do with the make-up of their uniforms per se.)

By coincidence, an ad from an unidentified retailer that popped up the day before publication. The text in the photo reads: A 3D-level bodyline, a 3D design which fits your body perfectly; Capture men’s hearts with the tulipline, a skirt which shows off your body; Control the length of your skirt freely; A very good figure zipper, shows off your good-looking clothes. Source: 라니‏@ComfortnLullaby. (Update: Shortly after publication, Korea Exposé published a more detailed look at the advertisement.)

Yet all these points are already depressingly familiar from similar discussions in English–speaking countries. And all of the above links happen to be in English too. So, I want to add something new to the English discussion of Korean uniforms by translating segments of some (mostly) recent Korean-language articles on the subject. Centered around this one:

속옷 입지 않으면 벌점… 황당한 학교 / Absurd Schools Punish Students For Not Wearing Underclothes

Written by Song Min-seo, edited by Son Ji-eun, OhmyNews, 26.02.2017

…지난 2016년 ‘청소년인권행동 아수나로’에서는 온라인을 통해 여성 청소년을 억압하는 서울시 소재 학교의 교칙들에 대한 설문 조사를 실시했다. 200여 건의 응답은 하나같이 학교보다는 수용소를 연상시키는 해괴한 교칙들과 사례들을 담고 있었다. 이 글에서는 해당 설문 내용을 바탕으로, 여성 청소년에게 가해지는 제재와 차별에 대해 다루어 보고자 한다.

…In 2016, the NGO “Asunaro: Action for Youth Rights of Korea” conducted on an online survey of Seoul school students about the ways in which their schools discriminate against and curtail the rights of female students. More than 200 responses revealed a series of bizarre rules and practices more reminiscent of concentration camps than of modern schools. In this article, I would like to discuss what sanctions and discrimination against women and youth emerged from the questionnaire.

The first part deals with restrictions on hairstyle and length, and discusses a case of a teacher in a school in Gyeonggi Province, who admonished a student with short hair for looking like a boy, telling her it wasn’t feminine enough and that men wouldn’t like her. Then later:

…복장 규제 또한 여전히 나아진 것 하나 없이 잔재한다. 치마 끝이 무릎 밑 몇 센티미터, 혹은 위 몇 센티미터에 오는지 재는 것은 빈번하고, 일정한 기간을 두고 복장을 대대적으로 검사하는 학교도 있었다. 한 학교는 여학생을 의자 위에 세워 놓고 교사가 자를 들고 치마 길이를 잰다. 이 행위는 학생들의 의사를 전혀 묻지 않은 채 강제적으로 이루어지고, 심지어 남교사도 참여한다. 응답자는 이 행위에 수치심을 느꼈다고 말한다.

…[Despite the Seoul City Council’s Students’ Rights Ordinance of 2011], uniform regulations showed little to no improvement also. Requirements that skirt lengths come to a minimum of a few centimeters above the knee, or even below the knee, were very common, and some schools regularly checked them. For those checks, all the girls in the classroom are required to stand on their chairs while the teacher measures the length of the skirts [This is discussed in several of the videos above—James]. This check is compulsorily, with no concern given to the students’ opinions or feelings at all, even if it’s a male teacher doing the checking. Respondents said that they felt very embarrassed and ashamed by these checks.

♥

Let’s pause from the article for a moment with news about one such inspection:

“왜 이렇게 짧아” 교복 들어 올린 교사 ‘강제추행’ / “Why is Your Skirt So Short?” Lifting a Student’s Skirt Ruled ‘Indecent Act by Force/Compulsion’

MBN, 09.09.2015

A transcript (via MBN), with my translation:

지난 2013년 서울의 한 고등학교. 교사 56살 박 모 씨는 교실에서 자기소개서를 쓰고 있던 한 여학생에게 다가가 왜 이렇게 치마가 짧냐며 교복 치마를 들어 올렸습니다.

이 과정에서 여학생의 속바지가 드러났고, 박 씨는 강제추행 혐의로 재판에 넘겨졌습니다.

박 씨는 단지 복장 불량을 지적하려고 치마 끝자락을 잡아 흔들었을 뿐 추행하려는 의도가 없었다고 주장했습니다.

하지만, 1, 2심 모두 유죄로 보고 벌금 5백만 원을 선고했습니다.

공개된 교실에서 16살 여학생의 치마를 들어 올린 것은 객관적으로 볼 때 성적 수치심을 일으키는 행위라는 겁니다.

또 강제추행죄는 꼭 동기나 목적이 있어야 성립하는 것은 아니라고 판단했습니다.

피해 여학생이 치마를 살짝 건드린 것이라며 처벌을 원치 않는다고 진술했지만 받아들여지지 않았습니다.

처음 조사에서 속바지가 훤히 비쳐 수치스러웠다고 진술했기 때문에, 합의 과정에서 진술을 바꾼 것으로 판단한 겁니다.

대법원 역시 상고를 기각하고 박 씨에게 강제추행죄를 적용해 벌금형을 확정했습니다.

In a Seoul high school in 2013, a 56 year-old male teacher identified only as “Mr. Park” grabbed the skirt of a female student who was writing a self-introduction letter, lifting it as he accused the student of having a skirt that was too short. In the process, the student’s underwear was exposed, and Mr. Park was accused of causing an “Indecent Act by Force/Compulsion.”

In his defense, Park insisted that he did not intend for the student to expose herself, but only to grab and shake the end of the skirt to point out that it was too short. However, it was judged that raising a girl’s skirt in a classroom in front of others is always an act of sexual shaming, regardless of the intent or motivation. Consequently, he was found guilty in both his first sentencing and by the Supreme Court in his appeal, receiving a fine of 5 million won.

♥

Back to the article:

여학생이 무조건 교복 치마만 착용하도록 여학생의 바지 착용을 교칙으로 금지한 학교도 있다. 19세기도 아닌 21세기에, 학교 밖 여성들은 자유롭게 원하는 옷을 입는데, 학교만이 아직도 여성에게 바지를 착용하지 못하게 하는 19세기에 머물러 있는 것이다.

Some schools prohibit schoolgirls from wearing pants, only allowing them to wear school uniform skirts. But this is the 21st century, not the 19th, and away from our schools girls and women can wear what they want freely. Why do schools seem so firmly entrenched in the past?

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And another break already sorry, because this pants vs. skirts issue was a big deal for me back in 2011, when I was concerned that my daughters would ultimately have no choice but to attend a skirts-only Korean middle school (my eldest daughter was starting elementary school then). Fortunately, we ultimately found an underfunded but otherwise lovely multicultural school for them, which among its many other benefits doesn’t actually have a uniform. But reading the above suddenly got me was curious as to how many Korean schools still insist [only] their female students freeze every winter:

교사 ‘성차별’ 발언 등 여학생 인권침해 여전 / Teachers Are Still Violating Female Students’ Rights Through Sexist Language and Verbal Attacks

Kwon Su-jin, Veritas, 07.03.17

…여학생에게 치마교복만 입도록 할 경우 성차별적 관행이 될 수 있다는 점에서 여학생의 바지 교복 선택권을 보장해야 한다는 내용도 담았다. 2015년 서울교육청 학생생활규정 점검 결과 ‘치마와 바지 선택권 조항’이 있는 학교 비율은 중학교 73%(281교), 고등학교 59%(189교)에 그쳤다.

…it was stated that girls should have the right to choose school uniforms because it is a sex discrimination practice if girls are allowed to wear skirt school uniforms. According to the Seoul City Education Office, in 2015 the ratio of schools with optional skirts or pants was only 73 percent (281 schools) of middle schools and 59 percent (189 schools) among high schools.

Note that this only refers to Seoul schools, and that the Seoul City Council Students’ Rights Ordinance of 2011 was only followed to varying degrees by schools in the rest of the country; consequently, the nationwide figures are likely to be lower. Continuing:

‘여학생다움’을 강조한 두발, 복장 기준의 개선도 필요하다고 봤다. 여학생과 남학생에게 상이한 기준을 적용한 용의복장 규정 여부를 점검해야 한다는 내용이다. 상담 사례에 따르면 학교평판을 이유로 여학생은 춥더라도 치마만 입어야 한다는 교칙이 있는 학교도 있었다.

I [the author] think that it is necessary to improve dress codes, which currently seem to be focused on female students. It is necessary to check for double-standards. According to a case heard by the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education’s Students’ Rights Center for instance, one school had a rule that girls should wear only skirts “because of the school’s reputation.”

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Back to the main article:

학교 안의 여성들은 스타킹의 색깔마저도 하나하나 통제당한다. 이상한 점은, 스타킹 색에 관한 규제가 학교마다 통일되지 않았다는 점이다. 어떤 학교는 검은색만을, 어떤 학교는 살색만을 신게 한다. 그러나 이유는 같다. ‘야해 보이기 때문’이다. 스타킹 색마저도 성적 대상화의 소재가 되는 것이다.

The color of girls’ stockings is controlled by schools too. What is strange is that the rules for those aren’t uniform [no pun intended—James], but vary widely depending on the school. Some schools demand black stockings only, some schools demand flesh-colored ones. But in each case, the justification is the same: “It has to be dull.” It seems even stockings’ colors are considered a potential source of sexual objectification and sexualization.

응답자 A의 학교에서는 카디건을 허리에 묶는 것을 금지하는 교칙이 있었다. 허리 라인이 드러나서 선정적으로 보인다는 것이 근거라면 근거였다. 이 교칙은 여학생에게만 해당되었고, 당연하게도 여학생의 반발을 샀다. 그러자 학교가 취한 조치는 교칙을 없애는 것이 아닌 남학생에게도 똑같은 규칙을 적용하는 것이었다.

One respondent to Asunaro’s survey had a school rule that prohibited cardigans from being taken off and tied around the waist, as this was considered to draw attention to and sexualize the wearers’ waistlines. Of course, this rule only applied to girls, who complained a lot about it. In response, the school didn’t just eliminate the rule, but decided to apply it to boys as well.

머리부터 발톱까지… 그것도 모자라 속옷도 통제 / From Student’s Heads to Their Toenails…Even the Underwear They Can Wear is Controlled

여성 청소년의 속옷까지 통제하는 학교. 변화하지 않는 교칙으로 학교 안 청소년들은 억압받고 있다 / Schools Even Control Female Adolescent Girls’ Underwear. Unchanging School Rules Are Pressuring Female Students. Source: jackmack34@Pixabay.

학교는 여학생의 속옷에 관해서도 교칙을 만들어 규제한다. ‘흰색속옷, 티셔츠, 나시만 허용’, ‘작년까지는 셔츠 속에 나시 입는 것 금지, 현재는 무채색이고 프린팅 없는 티만 가능하고 꼭 입어야함. 브라만 차고 셔츠 입어도 벌점’. ‘브라 등 속옷 입지 않으면 벌점’.

Schools regulate female students’ underwear with such rules as “Only white underwear, t-shirts, and vests are allowed” at one school; at another, “Until last year, wearing vests under shirts was prohibited. Now, you have to wear a vest or t-shirt over your bra [and under your shirt], otherwise you get punished. But only black or white t-shirts are permitted, with no prints on them”; and at another “You get punished if you don’t wear a bra or other type of underwear.”

이상한 것은, 이런 교칙이 있는 대부분의 학교에서는 남학생에 관한 속옷 규제는 없는 경우가 많았다. 여학생만이 더운 여름에도 티셔츠(심지어 프린팅도 색도 없는), 나시, 브래지어를 껴입어야 하는 상황이다. 게다가 이러한 교칙들이 존재하는 이유를 물으면 ‘성범죄 유발 가능성이 있기 때문’이라고 답한다. 성범죄의 잘못이 가해자가 아닌 피해자에게 있는 것이라고 말하는 것과 같다.

Strangely, in most schools with these rules, there was usually no underwear regulation for boys. Only girls have to wear t-shirts (even with their colors regulated), vests, and bras, even in the hot summer months. In addition, if you ask what these rules are for, the answer is they’re because of the increased possibility of sex crimes without them. It’s like when such crimes occur, that it’s the victims’ faults, not the perpetrators’.

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A quick addition to those rules:

바지교복 금지·생리공결제 미준수…학교 ‘여학생 인권’ 실종 / Prohibiting Pants, Not Provided Mandated Menstrual Leave…Schools Are Violating Female Students’ Rights

Anonymous author, Money Today, 07.03.2017.

불합리한 교칙으로 불편을 겪는 여학생도 있다. 서울 B고등학교는 여학생의 경우 무조건 검정구두에 흰 양말을 신어야 한다. 혹한기에만 한시적으로 운동화를 허용하기도 했으나 학교가 정한 디지인만 신을 수 있다. 이 학교에 다니는 한 여학생은 “차가운 구두를 신고 미끄러운 길을 걸을 때면 다칠까봐 불안하다”고 토로했다.

There are other ways in which female students suffer from unreasonable uniform requirements. At one high school in Seoul, girls could only white socks with black shoes, or, for a very limited time in winter, sneakers specially designed by the school. A girl at the school said, “I’m worried about getting hurt in my cold shoes when I walk on icy roads.” [I’m guessing she’s referring to the black shoes?—James.]

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The next section of the main article deals with rules about cosmetics, and the sexual language used and/or stereotypes raised by teachers as they punish the students that flout them. That doesn’t just happen when enforcing cosmetics rules of course, and indeed is so often mentioned by the above articles above that I may cover it in a separate post later. But for now, the article concludes:

학교는 이처럼 아주 당연하게, 청소년을 보호 또는 교육한다는 허울 좋은 명목으로 자신이 원하는 자신의 모습을 직접 결정할 권리를 앗아간다. 이러한 학교에서 여성은 누군가에게 자신의 몸이 통제당하는 것이 이상한 일이 아니라고, 당연하다고 생각할 수밖에 없다. 학생의 모습, 학생의 표본을 교사의 권력과 폭력적인 언어로 규정하는 이상하고 작은 낡고 폐쇄적인 사회, 이런 작은 사회 안에 밀어넣어지는 여성들. 그들이 “내 몸은 내가 알아서 할게!”라고 외칠 수 있게끔 더 많은 여성청소년인권에 관한 지지와 관심이 필요하다.

Schools have to decide for themselves if they want to be known for “protecting” or for educating youth. In the meantime, the young women in them can not help but think how strange it is that their own bodies are so controlled by others. This is such a strange, small-minded, old, and closed society that judges the appearance of its students so, that allows for teachers to abuse their powers to this extent, and that so readily restrains women with such rules and such violent language. We need more support for and concern about the human rights of women and youth so that they can grow to stand up as independent adults who can say, “I will be the one to take care of my own body!”.

Source: Isabel Santos Pilot, (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

It’s not all doom and gloom though. Let me end with a segment about a school where the students’ rights ordinance has been fully implemented, and what positive changes it has brought to the school’s educational culture:

“교복 위 패딩 안돼”…‘학생인권’ 관심 늘었지만 갈 길 멀어 / “No Padding Allowed in Uniforms”…Interest in Students’ Rights Has Increased But Still Has Far to go

Kim Ji-yun, Hankyoreh, 31.01.17

…조례가 교육 현장에서 잘 안착해 의미를 보여주고 있는 사례도 있다. 서울 금옥여자고등학교에는 ‘금옥인권위원회’라는 이름의 동아리가 있다. 소속 35명의 학생들은 차별금지와 의사표현의 자유, 학습에 관한 권리 등 조례 속 정신을 녹여낸 6개의 소위원회에서 활동한다. 이민혁 담당교사는 “학생인권, 장애인권, 여성인권, 아동학대예방 등 학생들의 관심사에 따라 자발적인 소위원회를 꾸려가고 있다”며 “고등 교육과정을 마친 학생들이 졸업 뒤 사회 구성원이 되어서도 조례로부터 시작한 관심을 지속하길 바란다”고 전했다.

There are cases where the students’ rights ordinance has been fully implemented and is beginning to have a real influence. For example, there is a club named “Geumok Human Rights Committee” in Geumok Women’s High School in Seoul. Of the 35 students that belong to it, there are further grouped into six subcommittees that focus on different areas of the ordinance, including such as discrimination prevention, freedom of expression, and the right to learning. Geumok Women’s High School teacher Lee Min-hyeok said of them, “We are making voluntary subcommittees based on students’ interests, such as student rights, disability rights, women’s human rights, and child abuse prevention.” I hope the students continue fighting for these causes after they graduate.”

이 교사는 “학생인권소위원회의 경우 최저시급, 근로계약서 작성법 등 청소년노동권을 비롯해 ‘휴식권’(조례 10조)을 주제로 야간자율학습에 관한 토론을 진행했다”며 “차별받지 않을 권리에 주목한 장애인권소위원회는 근처 중학교에서 ‘장애 이해교육’을 진행할 만큼 내실 있는 활동을 펼쳤다”고 말했다. “서울 남영동의 경찰청 인권보호센터(옛날 대공분실)를 동아리 학생들과 함께 방문한 적이 있습니다. 권리침해로부터 보호받을 권리, 양심·종교의 자유 등 조례 내용을 마중물로 근현대사 교육까지 진행할 수 있었죠.”

Lee continued, “In the case of the Student Human Rights Subcommittee, we recently had a discussion night on the theme of the minimum wage. Another subcommittee on disability rights was able to carry out activities that increased their understanding of disability education and came up with ideas that will be utilized at nearby junior high schools.[An unidentified student] said, “With my clubmates, I visited the Human Rights Protection Center of the National Police Agency in Namyeong-dong in Seoul, and learned a lot about my rights of protection, my rights of freedom of conscience and religion, and so on.”

인권동아리 단장으로 활동한 금옥여고 3학년 김조은양은 “보통 학생은 억압받는 게 당연하다고 여기는데, 조례 제정을 씨앗으로 삼아 우리의 의무와 권리에 대해 생각해볼 수 있었다”며 “성별, 나이, 장애로 차별받지 않는 사회를 꿈꾸게 됐고 조례 등 정책의 중요성도 깨닫게 됐다”고 전했다.

Kim Jo-eun, a third grade student at the school and former president of the club, said, “Students these days think it is normal to be oppressed. But using the rights ordinance as a spark, I began to learn about my human rights. I could dream of a society in which I was not oppressed, and I realized the importance of policies such as ordinances that could make that happen. “

조례를 통해 학교 문화를 민주적으로 바꾸는 사례도 있지만 갈 길은 여전히 멀다. 2015년 11월27일 서울시의회 교육위원회 장인홍 의원이 공개한 ‘(서울시교육청 관내) 중·고등학교 학교규칙 점검 결과’에 따르면, 중·고교 702곳 가운데 87%(609곳)는 여전히 교칙에 두발 길이·염색·파마 등에 관한 엄격한 규제를 두고 있다.

There are more cases where a school’s culture has become more democratic through the students’ rights ordinance, but there is still much to be done. According to a inquiry published by the Seoul Metropolitan City Council on November 27, 2015, 87 percent (609) of the 702 middle and high schools examined still had strict regulations on the dyeing and perming of hair, and so on.

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Let me conclude by returning to Beck’s article in the Atlantic that inspired this post. After noting that group discussions are much more effective than lectures for changing hearts and minds, she concludes herself that:

“One real advantage of group reasoning is that you get critical feedback,” McIntyre [a research fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University] says. “If you’re in a silo [like Facebook], you don’t get critical feedback, you just get applause.”

But if the changes are going to happen at all, it’ll have to be “on a person-to-person level,” Shaw says.

He tells me about a patient of his, whose family is involved in “an extremely fundamentalist Christian group. [The patient] has come to see a lot of problems with the ideology and maintains a relationship with his family in which he tries to discuss in a loving and compassionate way some of these issues,” [former cult member Daniel Shaw] says. “He is patient and persistent, and he chips away, and he may succeed eventually.”

“But are they going to listen to a [news] feature about why they’re wrong? I don’t think so.”

When someone does change their mind, it will probably be more like the slow creep of Shaw’s disillusionment with his guru. He left “the way most people do: Sort of like death by a thousand cuts.”

And on that note, please do share this post with friends, family members, and/or coworkers that you wouldn’t usually—if just one changes their mind, then the last two weeks(!) spent on it will have been worth it. And who knows? Maybe that person’s influence will ultimately lead to a school changing its uniform rules too.

Please also note that I’ve never taught in a Korean school, and haven’t taught Korean teens in over seven years, so I would really appreciate any feedback on anything in this post, especially if you have any recent experience at/with either. Thanks!

If you reside in South Korea, you can donate via wire transfer: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Bank/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)

Korean Students Challenging Slut-Shaming and the Madonna-Whore Complex

(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

Today’s post is a collection of encouraging images and words from the incredibly woke students of the Ewha University Women’s Committee (이화여성위원회/@ewhalovewom), which were used in their 16th Feminism Festival.

I hope you’re inspired by them, and I’d love to hear of any similar examples, and/or of anything else you’d like translated. Especially if they’re related to ~~my birthday~~ International Women’s Day that is coming up in a couple of weeks, and will help spread the word about Korean events :)

The title of the festival poster reads “Becoming a slut.” (Lit. “The technology/method of weaving/making a slut.”)

(Source: @ewhalovewom)

(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

From a noticeboard at the event.

(Source: @ewhalovewom)

It reads:

A word for a “male slut” doesn’t exist. If you search for it on Google, you’ll only find “transvestite.”

“Slut”: there’s no more powerful word for criticizing women. It has the power to destroy them. In practice, it is used in so many ways to attack women.

We are going to think about that at this festival. Everyone’s situation is different, but we need to talk more about the words “slut” and “prostitute,” and to redefine them. When even the most trivial things about women are used to attack them as sluts, rather than avoiding the word shouldn’t we instead reconsider the images the word evokes?

Although what we have written is not eloquent, please enjoy reading it.

Let’s begin the 16th Feminism Festival!

(Source: @ewhalovewom)

If you don’t look naturally at the many varied forms of women’s lives, but only look at them through one twisted lens, then that is a form of misogyny. In the end, it’s not that people hate women living alone or studying abroad per se. I think it’s more that people look suspiciously at women who are not under the protection of their families, calling them sluts.

“Nobody can avoid being accused of being a slut.” (Hee-da)

How can it be convincing when you say that “The cause of sexual violence has nothing to do with women’s exposure” on the hand, but on the other hand say to women “Don’t wear such revealing clothes”?

“DON’T DO THAT. Don’t do that!” (Yeol-mae)

If you talk about women working as tenpro* by just using that label, as if they were just numbers rather than real women with real names, then you’re dehumanizing them and indirectly criticizing them. Instead, we can talk about why they became tenpro, and how come that kind of profession exists.

“Even if they are numbered, their names are not numbers.” (Bam-cha)

*This means “high class prostitute”; am embarrassed to say this was the first time I’d ever heard of this surprisingly common word.

A teacher and a prostitute. Or, a prostitute and a teacher. I hesitate at the point where these two subjects meet. But the more I hesitated, the more I thought I should write about this. This is about my fear and insincerity when I met a prostitute.

“This is about those things.” (Sung-hyeon.)

To victims of sexual violence, people commonly recommend saying that they were virgins. They have to prove that [they didn’t deserve it a little by showing that] they are not bitches, they are not women who exploit their sexual attractiveness, they are not women who just play around and don’t listen to people, and that they are not the kind of women who deserve to get raped, and so on.

“Our society’s S-line.” (Rumble.)

To a woman, labeling her a “prostitute” is like a warning to other women, which forces those other women to act modestly and appropriately. Ultimately, it functions to control women.

“A phase of the university festival.” (Yeon-o)

(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

This one, a test for whether you’re a saint, a kimchi-girl, or a slut, looks like a lot of fun, but formatting it for this post looks a little difficult sorry. But I’ll happily try if anyone asks.

Underneath, people are encouraged post about taboos and unwritten rules they’ve heard. The three examples at the top read:

“Don’t go on a working holiday to Australia, people might misunderstand [your reasons for going].”
“Isn’t that lipstick shade too slutty-looking?”
“Don’t wear that short skirt!”

(Source: ‏@smile_ystkyrk)

Apologies that the festival was actually held two years ago BTW, as eagle-eyed readers will already have spotted. But those images still resonate, which is probably why they somehow surfaced in my Twitter feed last week. So too this tweet below, which I think is speaking about stereotypes of passive Korean women, but am not sure if it’s critiquing them or perpetuating them sorry (even my wife struggled with its meaning). Hence this post, just in case in was the latter!

Related Posts:

노출이 강간 유혹?…허튼소리 말라 Wearing Revealing Clothes Leads to Rape? Don’t Be Absurd

(Revealing the Korean Body Politic, Part 11)

(Caption: 이렇게 입으면 혼난다?: 경찰청의 과다 노출 단속 지침은 그 기준이 애매해 단속 경찰관과 대상자들 간에 갈등이 생길 것으로 예상된다. If you dress like this, you’ll get a telling-off? Police guidelines for cracking down on excessive exposure are vague; disputes between the police and public are expected)

I react pretty strongly when people claim I have no place writing about Korean feminism.

Partially, simply from turning 40. Because when you do, you realize that half of your life has passed, and that you probably have less than half remaining. Suddenly, you have zero time and patience for other people’s bullshit.

It’s quite liberating, frankly.

The second reason is more personal. I’ve emigrated five times. The first time, from the U.K. to New Zealand with my family, when I was 11. Which means that for nearly 30 years now, I’ve had people lecturing me about how I couldn’t possibly ever understand some things about where I lived, simply because I wasn’t born and raised there.

So, I was already sick and tired of that before I came to Korea. Once I got my bearings, I was never going to put up with it for very long.

Where Korea differs from other countries I’ve lived in though, is that I didn’t really need to with Koreans. Not after a couple of years here, anyway. Maybe it’s just because I’m writing in English, but it’s always been more other expats and people outside of the country who would place limits on what are appropriate subjects for me to write about, solely based on my sex and ethnicity.

That’s not to say I don’t have many limitations with being a white, middle-aged, cisgender, heterosexual man working on the subjects I cover. Of course I do. When those raise legitimate issues in my writing, I can but do my best to overcome them, and to constantly remind myself of the importance of listening and research.

It’s also important to remember to sometimes write provocative and unusual introductions too, to make sure I’m actually read.

In that vein, this one, I hope, explains why I am so interested in “framing” with regards to Korean feminism, sexuality, and pop-culture, and why I chafe so much when their many gatekeepers tell me I can’t ask questions.

Which brings me to this week’s post: a magazine article from 1996(!), about a police crackdown on women’s revealing clothing that summer. Originally, I just planned to translate it for its own sake, for reasons I’ll explain later. I was also tempted to trick you by only revealing its age at the end, to highlight just how little victim-blaming attitudes have changed in 21 years. But, knowing that dominant media and governmental discourses about women’s bodies and revealing clothing would change so radically just 6 years later, and especially with the second, K-pop-led Korean wave from 2006, I realized the contrast served as a chilling reminder of how brazen and manipulative our designated authorities can be, and how quickly they can make a volte-face when it serves their interests.

What will you take away from it?

(Korean Sociological Image #92: Patriotic Marketing Through Sexual Objectification. Source: The Chosun Ilbo, August 7 2015.)

[문화현실] 노출이 강간 유혹?…허튼소리 말라 Wearing Revealing Clothes Leads to Rape? Don’t Be Absurd.

과다 노출→성충동→성범죄’ 물증 없어…경찰의 단속은 여성에게 올가미 씌우기. There is no evidence for the notion that revealing clothing leads to sexual urges, leads to sexual assaults. This police crackdown is victim-blaming.

by Seong Woo-jae, Sisa Journal, 12 September 1996

지난 여름은 여성의 노출이 그 어느 때보다 심했다. 80년대 말부터 불기 시작한 60~70년대풍 복고 바람에다, ‘육체도 패션의 한 요소’라는 새로운 인식이 덧붙었기 때문이다. 젊은 여성들의 거리 패션은 육체 그 자체와 육체의 선을 선명하게 드러내는 특징을 보였다. 광적인 다이어트 열풍도 여기에 합세해 날씬한 몸매를 과시하는 노출을 한껏 부채질했다.

This summer, women have been wearing more revealing clothing than ever before. This is because of the drive, since the late-1980s, to restore the freedom of the fashions of the 1960s to the [early-]1970s, and because of the new belief that one’s body is also a fashion item. Young women’s street fashions now emphasize and clearly display their figures. A fanatical dieting boom is also adding to this desire to display one’s body.

그런데 여름이 다 가고 가을이 오는 마당에 노출의 계절이 ‘연장’되고 있다. 국가 공권력도 복고풍의 영향을 받은 것일까. 지난 8월25일 경찰청은 70년대에 ‘유행’했던 복장 단속을 실시하겠다고 발표했다. 경범죄처벌법 제1조 제41항 ‘과다 노출’ 규정을 적용해 불특정 다수 또는 다수인의 눈에 띄는 장소에서 ‘알몸을 지나치게 내놓은 행위’등을 단속하라는 지침을 일선 파출소에 보냈다.

But the summer is almost over, and the autumn is coming. Yet still, the season for showing off one’s body seems never-ending. In response, the government’s zeal to crackdown on such fashions has also risen. On the 25th of August, the police announced that they will be invoking Clothing Misdemeanor Law, Chapter 1, Clause 41, to launch a crackdown on clothes, with guidelines sent to regional departments. (Just like in the 1970s.)

경찰청은 △여성의 신체 노출이 점점 과다해지는 추세인데, 유림 및 시민단체에서 강력히 단속해 달라는 건의가 있고 △과다 노출이 풍기 문란 및 성범죄의 원인이 되고 있는 실정이며 △배꼽 및 상반신 과다 노출에 대해 무죄가 선고되어 소극적 단속을 해왔다는 사실이 이번 단속의 배경이라고 설명했다.

Explaining the background to this crackdown, the police stated:

Women’s body exposure is increasing, and civic groups’ suggestions and requests to counter this have increased in response.
Excessive exposure is becoming a cause of excessive PDA and sexual crimes
Exposing the navel and more of the breasts have so far been considered publicly acceptable, and so the police have not actively cracked down on it. [Attitudes are hardening however.]

(Caption: 70년대 미니 스커트와 잘리는 장발: 70년대 초 사진이다. 당시 경찰관들은 30cm 자를 들고 다니며 여성들의 치마 길이를 쟀고, 짧은 치마를 입지 못하도록 무릎 위를 때려 빨갛게 만들기도 했다. 장발은 당시 젊은이들이 정권의 물리적 위협에 반발하는 일종의 문화적 저항 행위이기도 했다. 90년대 들어 남성들은 경찰관이 머리를 자르지 않아도 머리를 깎는 경찰관(위 사진 왼쪽)과 같은 머리 모양을 하고 있다.)

(A woman wearing a mini-skirt and men’s hair being forcibly cut in the eary-1970s. Back then, the police carried 30cm rulers with them and measured women’s skirt lengths; if they were too short, they hit the women above the knees until they were red. Meanwhile, young men grew their hair long as a rebellious act of defiance against the government. [Prompting the police to cut it off.] In the 1990s, however, young men tend to have the same hairstyles as the police.)

경찰의 뒤늦은 단속을 지켜보며 풍기 문란을 염려해오던 쪽에서는 잘한 일이라며 응원을 보내고 있지만, 또 한쪽에서는 ‘시대착오적인 발상’이라며 비판을 서슴지 않는다.

There have generally been two kinds of responses to this crackdown from the public. On the one hand, people are relieved that the police are dealing with the excessive exposure. On the other, that this is a big step backward, which is completely out of touch with the changing times.

한국은 92년부터 스웨덴을 제치고, 미국에 이어 성폭력 세계 2위라는 오명을 안고 있다. 성범죄를 예방하기 위한 당국의 고육책인지 모르지만, 경찰청의 단속 지침은 예방보다는 성범죄와 관련한 통념, 즉 ‘여성의 몸가짐에도 잘못이 있다’는 고정 관념을 더욱 고착화할 것이라는 우려를 낳고 있다.

Since 1992, Korea has had the second highest rate of sexual assaults in the world, overtaking Sweden [James: I think the author actually meant in the OECD. Either way, both Korea and Sweden’s high rankings beg further investigation, but unfortunately no source is given for them]. This crackdown may be a desperate response to that, but the police guidelines have more to do with laying the blame on women and their bodies than with genuine preventive measures. There is a worry that the crackdown will lead to greater victim-blaming and bias against and stereotyping of women.

문제는 과다 노출이 성 ‘충동’이 아닌 성 ‘범죄’의 직접적인 원인이 되고 있느냐 하는 점이다. 한국여성의전화•한국성폭력상담소 등 관련 단체에 따르면, 노출 패션이 성범죄와 직접 관련이 있다는 근거는 없다. 조사 자료를 살펴보면, 성폭행을 당한 여성 중 19세 미만이 50% 이상(13세 미만은 전체의 30%)으로 노출 패션과 거의 관련이 없는 학생층이 절반 이상을 차지하고 있다.

The issue here is that while greater exposure does greater sexual urges, but does it lead to greater sexual crimes? This needs to be determined. According to the Korea Women’s Hot Line and the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, there is no evidence of a relationship. A survey of female rape victims (50% of whom were under 19, 30% of whom were under 13), shows that they were not wearing revealing clothes at their time of their rape.

다음은, 성폭력이 계절과 관련이 있다고 보는 인식의 문제이다. 노출의 계절이라고 해서 성폭력이 증가하는 것은 아니다. 성폭력 발생 빈도는 계절과 관련이 없다. 게다가 성범죄에서 가해자와 피해자의 관계를 보면, 친인척•직장 상사•데이트 상대•교사•동네 사람 등 아는 사람이 70% 이상을 차지하고, 모르는 사람의 경우도 대부분 계획된 범죄를 저지른다. 노출 패션이 성 충동을 불러일으킬지는 몰라도, 성폭력과 직접적인 관련이 있다는 근거는 없는 것이다.

Next, the notion that sexual violence is related to the season is also problematic. In fact, they are completely unrelated; so, just because it is the summer, it doesn’t mean there will be a spike in sex crimes. Moreover, if you break down the statistics of sex crimes based on the relationship between the perpetrators and victims, more than 70% are relatives, coworkers, dates, teachers, neighbors, and so on. Also, in the cases of perpetrators unknown to the victims, their crimes tend to premeditated. In other words, they are planned and executed regardless of the clothing of the victim at the time. So, there is no evidence for a direct relationship between exposure and sex crimes.

“경찰력 과다 노출이 노출 패션보다 심각” “The Excessive Use of Police Power is a More Serious Problem then Excessive Exposure”

성충동, 곧 성욕이 성폭력을 낳는 것도 아니다. 한국여성의전화 정춘숙 부장은 “성폭력은 여성을 성적 대상으로 삼아 지배하는 행위이지, 성욕과는 별 관계가 없다. 성폭력의 대상이 반항하지 못하는 어린 연령층으로 자꾸 내려가는 추세는 이 때문이다”라고 말했다. 일반적으로 성폭행은, 자기가 처한 환경에 대해 분노나 소외감을 갖는 이들이 자기보다 약한 사람을 지배하거나 통제력을 행사하는 차원에서 이루어지는, 철저한 권력의 문제인 것으로 알려져 있다.”

Sexual desire doesn’t a role in sex crimes. Jeong Choon-sook, the director of the Korean Women’s Hot Line, said, “Sex crimes are a case of dominance targeting women sexually; they are little related to sexual urges. This is why the targets of sexual crimes are getting younger over time.” In general, sex crimes are known to be power games. So those who have feelings of loneliness or anger about their situation, they want to control those [they consider] weaker than themselves.

경찰청이 단속의 근거로 내세운 ‘과다 노출→성충동→성범죄’화살표 공식은, 단순한 심증만 있을 뿐 확실한 물증이 없다. 경찰청의 단속은, 노출 패션을 성범죄의 원인으로 간주함으로써 1차적 책임을 가해자가 아닌 피해자에게 돌릴 개연성을 안고 있다. 또 과다 노출을 성범죄와 연관시킴으로써 여성뿐 아니라 남성들마저 모욕하고 있다는 비판을 받고 있다.

There is little evidence to support the police’s logic that excessive exposure leads to sex crimes. Consequently, their crackdown has a strong possibility of victim-blaming, based solely on the victims’ clothing. The police have also received complaints that men can not control themselves in the face of excessive exposure belittles men also.

“경찰이 여전히 ‘여성 유발론’이라는 통념을 갖고 있다는 사실을 보여주는 단속이다. 여성에게 1차적 책임을 묻는 것은 가해자인 남성에게 면죄부를 주는 일이자, 피해자인 여성에게는 또 하나의 올가미를 씌우는 일이다.” 한국성폭력상담소 최영애 소장의 말이다.

According to Choi Yeong-ae, director of the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, “This crackdown clearly shows that the police still subscribe to the conventional wisdom that women can be partially responsible for their rape. This indulges male perpetrators, and frames women.”

패션, 그 가운데서도 거리 패션은 한 시대의 정치•사회•문화 환경과 그로 인한 심리를 민감하게 반영한다고 알려져 있다. 신경정신과 전문의 신승철씨(광혜병원 원장)의 분석을 들어 보자. “정신분석학으로 보면, 노출 패션은 단순해지는 인간 관계에서 말미암는 것으로 보인다. 인간 관계에서 자꾸 소외되다 보면 몸을 통한 자기 표현 욕구가 극대화한다.”

Considering fashion, street fashion represents people’s feelings and thoughts about the politics, society, culture, and environment of its era. Neuro-psychologist Shin Sung-cheol, head of Gwanghye Hospital in Seoul, said, “According to psychoanalytic research, wearing revealing clothing comes from a need for relationships. People experiencing loneliness and/or who feel left out a lot experience an increased urge to express themselves through their bodies.”

[James: This is just as bizarre as the notion that revealing clothing is a cause of rape, and it hardly advances the author’s argument. Nevertheless, I don’t think it’s a mistake with my translation.]

경찰청의 단속 발표를 시대착오적인 발상이라고 비판하는 정유성 교수(서강대•교육학)는, 문제는 결국 여성의 노출이 아니라 성을 지배하고 소유하려는 남성들의 음험한 눈이라고 말했다. 어떻게 보이느냐가 중요한 것이 아니라, 어떻게 보느냐가 중요하다는 지적이다.

Education professor Jeong Yoo-seong of Sogang University, who criticized the police’s crackdown, described it as outdated, and that the problem is not women’s exposure, but rather an insidious desire of men to control and police women’s bodies. The issue is not with attracting the male gaze, but with the male gazers.

(Caption: 모호한 단속 기준:‘지나친 애정 표현’도 경찰의 단속 대상이다. Vague crackdown guidelines; public displays of affection are also a target.)

경찰청이 정한 단속 기준은 대부분 모호하다. ‘알몸을 지나치게 내놓은 행위’ ‘보는 사람으로 하여금 수치심을 느끼게 하는 행위’‘불쾌감을 주는 행위’등 단속 경찰관의 주관적·개인적 판단에 맡길 수밖에 없는 기준들이다.

The majority of the police’s guidelines are rather vague. Things like “revealing one’s body excessively,” “acts which make people feel embarrassed and humiliated,” “acts that cause discomfort among others,” and so on are extremely subjective.

(Image not in original article. Source: KLAWGURU)

“70년대의 장발 단속이 지금은 웃음거리가 된 것처럼, 이번 경우도 나중에 웃음거리밖에 안되는 단속이 될 것이다. 데모대에 총기 사용을 불사하겠다, 고무 총탄을 쓰겠다는 발표와 더불어 민주화 이후의 개방 분위기에 역행하는 조처로 보인다”라고 전상인 교수(한림대·사회학)는 말했다. 전교수는 시민 사회에서 숨어 있어야 할 경찰의 ‘과다 노출’이 ‘패션 노출’보다 더 심각한 문제라고 지적했다.

Just like crackdowns on long hair in the 1970s are now considered laughable, this one will be too. Sociology Professor Jeon Sang-in of Hallym University said “This crackdown is an anti-democratic step backward, on a par with statements like ‘We will shoot protestors.'” He pointed out “Police excessive use of power is more serious than excessive exposure. Police are supposed to blend in seamlessly into civil society.”

“과다 노출이 비록 눈살을 찌푸리게 하는 일이더라도, 그것은 개인이 결정하는 자기 표현의 한 방법이므로 그 나름으로 존중해 줘야 한다. 성폭력을 방지하는 길은, 이런 유치한 수준의 단속이 아니라 성 태도 교육을 비롯해 사회 전체가 성문화에 대해 공개적이고 진지하게 성찰해야 가능하다” 라고 정유성 교수는 말했다.

“Even though excessive exposure can be something to frown upon, it is an individual’s decision to make as well as a way of expressing oneself. This is something to be respected,” continued Jeong Yoo-seong. “In order to prevent sex crimes, the public should be educated about sexual attitudes and public sex culture. Not endure childish crackdowns like this.”

경찰청의 노출 단속은 촌극으로 끝날 가능성이 많다. 일간지의 독자투고 난과 컴퓨터 통신을 통해 반대 여론이 거세지자 ‘주의를 환기하자는 뜻에서 발표했다’고 경찰청 관계자가 밝히고 있거니와, 무엇보다 노출의 계절이 지나갔기 때문이다. 게다가 패션 주기가 급격하게 짧아지고 있는 만큼 내년 여름이면 또 다른 유행이 거리 패션을 휩쓸지도 모른다.

The police’s crackdown is more likely to end in comedy than anything else. Because, as opposition has increased among the public, the police have since responded that “The announcement of the crackdown was just intended to make people more cautious.” The season of excessive exposure is almost over, and fashions change rapidly. Maybe next summer, even modesty might come back in style. (End.)

https://twitter.com/ssuerm/status/694726668741529600

That extra reason I just wanted to post this translation just for the sake of it? Simply because it came from one of many popular tweets I’ve saved, from my Hootsuite Twitter feeds for “페미니즘,” “여성주의,” and so on, where I’m constantly finding interesting new stuff to read instead of writing. Whats more, unlike gender studies as an academic discipline here, which my professor friends lament is still grappling with second-wave feminism, I’ve found the Korean feminist Twitterverse to be really quite vibrant and progressive. I highly recommend following it, even if your Korean isn’t fluent enough to follow the links—just the tweets themselves provide convenient, bite-sized Korean practice.

I highly recommend following KLAWGURU too, who wrote about a change that has actually been made since 1996. In November last year, Korea’s exposure law was found unconstitutional, because its wording was too vague and subjective (see above). Ironically and perhaps tellingly however, it was a man contesting his fine for being half-naked in public that led to it being re-examined:

Thoughts?

The Revealing the Korean Body Politic series:

“It was there for literally 0.1 seconds! And drawn by a guy! And…and…WHY THE HELL DO YOU FEEL SO THREATENED BY IT ANYWAY??”

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes. Photo by Timur Weber @Pexels.

“I am very interested and concerned about hatred and discrimination, which hang as prevalent and thick in Korean society as air.”

Source: John Marcotte.

Left: the offending gesture, which is visible for precisely 0.1 second. Full screenshot source: 원정상 @YouTube. (For the record, I just thought it was too good a screenshot not to steal—I don’t know the YouTuber’s stance on the controversy.)

너 페미니? Are You a Femi?

Source: Twitter/@KNKNOKU via BBC.

Image sources: 스포츠하국, Pixabay (edited).

Sources: MLBPark (1; since deleted); 2)

Source: Hankook Ilbo.

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(Also available as an in-person lecture at 6PM, Monday, November 13 at The Institute of Fine Arts, 1 East 78th Street, New York.)

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes. Image source (cropped): NYU The Institute of Fine Arts newsletter. NSFW images follow.

Sources: NYU Institute of Fine Arts Instagram & Newsletter.

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“Musicians’ experiences of dis/comfort, im/mobility, security and threat, as well as their coping strategies, are all gendered.”

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash.

Photo by Victoriano Izquierdoh Barbalis on Unsplash.

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Turning Boys Into Men? The Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts, Part 8

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Photo (cropped) by Jim Flores on Unsplash.

Photo by Valentin Fernandez on Unsplash.

(page 51; italics in originals)

The Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts Series:

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Estimated reading time: 12 minutes. Photo above by Chris Yang, below by Jennifer Marquez. (Both on Unsplash.)

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Kim Jiyoung: Born 1982 scores points for its raising of numerous feminist issues, but its treatment of them is frequently quite superficial. Here’s how one scene should have been handled differently, shattering stereotypes and suggesting solutions in the process.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes. Photo by Gabe Pierce on Unsplash.

Image source: The Fact.

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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes.

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Estimated reading time: 4 minutes. Source left, Namu Wiki. Source right, Joshua Gandara on Unsplash.

Source, all images: Insight @Instagram.

Source: Insight

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Estimated reading time: 3 minutes.

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Universal male conscription and rampant discrimination against working mothers will always grab headlines, but a recent ruling against segregated seating in study rooms is a stark reminder of the pervasive homosociality behind the friction

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Photo by cottonbro from Pexels.

“This is a study café, which can easily be found in any neighborhood.”

“You’ll notice there is free seating, with no designated areas for men and women.”

“[However], if men and women sit together in [study rooms], the owners will be subject to administrative sanctions and penalties.”

Update:

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Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts, Part 7

Estimated reading time: 9 minutes. Source, right (cropped): Streetwindy via Pexels.

Screenshot, SBS News.

Professional entertainment group Waveya (not a K-pop group) performing at a middle school in 2012.

Sources: left, right.

Turning Boys Into Men? Girl-groups and the Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts:

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The #MeToo era may be the first time that older models and actors have ever been able to open up about their own experiences. When they do, the media should listen.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Source: YouTube.

Source: Extreme Movie (left, right).

The MV for Spring Girls by Sunwoo Jung-a is replete with headless, ostensibly objectifying imagery. Yet it remains “both feminist and as sexy as hell.” Source: YouTube.

Source: @UnseenJapanSite

Source: YouTube.

Jeong So-yeong, MoneyS, 21/01/2020.

Jeon In-hwa in 2016, reminiscing about being a reporter at 20 before she got her break as an actor and model. Source: Seoul Economic Daily.

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Estimated reading time: 9 minutes. Source: Remark Vill.

Pose like Lee Min-jung on the left, and it’s difficult even just to keep your balance. Stand more naturally like Gong Yoo instead, and you’re much quicker to spring into action.

Source: @koryodynasty

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Government inaction on Korea’s ubiquitous, sexually-explicit internet advertising undermines claims that its citizens need protecting from pornography, and has helped shape the Korean #Metoo movement.

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes. Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels. One NSFW image later.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes. Photo by co ttonbro from Pexels.