Turning Boys Into Men? The Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts, Part 4

       “Do one thing everyday, that scares you.”

My personal motto adopted from Wear Sunscreen by Baz Luhrmann (1999), without which I wouldn’t be in Korea now. Nor have had intimate relations in a lot of strange places.

Now a middle-aged parent though, it’s difficult finding scary things to do during my daily routine. So, I force myself to take photos of interesting ads in public, including those with young women in them. It’s just terrifying you see, knowing that everyone in the bank or subway carriage will peg me as a perverted samcheon fan.

Did I mention that all Korean phones have a faux shutter sound by law?

This ad however, seemed well worth my pain and shame. Much like Chou Tzu-yu’s ads for LG last year, taken when she was only 16, it can take a moment to realize she’s not actually the product being sold here:

That’s because of the red header, which reads “A special gift for Korean men.” The subheading in the center, with the black in bold, adds the Catch-22 that: “To qualify as a Korean man, you need a Kookmin Bank Korea Love Card”, which provides discounts at various cinemas, coffee shops, restaurants, language institutes, and stores.

Now that’s patriotism.

But humor aside, it would have been more accurate to say that only those with military experience qualify as “Korean men”, as the card is only available to current or former soldiers who had their physical after January 2007 (i.e., mostly 20-somethings). This link to the military is made more obvious in the following ad, the top line of which reads “Anyone Can Be a Youth That Loves Their Country!”, under which it says you can apply for a card at a military recruitment office in addition to KB banks:

(Source)

In fairness, even the most innocuous of Korean ads and government slogans often sound very much like propaganda when translated into English. Also, no-one is denying the great sacrifice made by young men doing their mandatory 21-24 months of military service. What clearly isn’t fair however, is how exclusionary ad campaigns like these effectively label women, the disabled, openly LGBTQ individuals, conscientious objectors, and (until just 6 years ago) mixed-race Koreans as incapable of “loving their country,” which only serves to justify denying them various privileges given to former soldiers later.

Starting with this bank card. There’s many more reasons why women end up so excluded from Korean economic and political life of course, with modern, democratic Korea being ranked a shocking 115th out of 145 countries in gender equality by the World Economic Forum. But examples like this one undoubtedly form part of the process.

Related Posts:

• Part 7: The Korean Conscription System Promotes a Servile, Subordinate, Sexually-Objectifying View of Women. Here’s How.
• Part 6: How does military conscription affect Korean gender relations and attitudes to women?
• Part 5: South Korea’s Invisible Military Girlfriends
• Part 3: Korean Lolita Nationalism: It’s a thing, and this is how it works
• Part 2: Male Privilege at Korean Universities
• Part 1: Turning Boys Into Men? The Performance of Gender for South Korean Conscripts
• Korean Sociological Image #92: Patriotic Marketing Through Sexual Objectification, Part 1.