What provokes a sense of misogyny?
Three reasons help explain why a sense of misogyny arises.
With the Tokyo Olympics taking place from July 23rd to August 8th, Women National athletes including An San came up against cyber bullying that billed them as “male hatred” due to their short hair style. In particular, a censure was exacerbated after words that she used on her Instagram such as *“Woong-Ang-Woong” and **“5.5 trillion won” going public. BBC reported that the athlete was being criticized for having her hair cut short, online abuses involving hairstyles ensued along with anti-feminist sentiment among some young Korean men. Similarly, on April 1st, GS25, a convenience store, had apologized for male hatred. The picture of a sausage next to a hand on GS25’s poster turned into an issue in some communities, asking if it depicted testis. A cascade of affairs above substantiates that Korea has recently seen anti-feminism compounded among certain groups. BBC news has reported that 58.6% of Korean men in their 20's are vehemently opposed to feminism. According to the ‘Study on Gender Disparity and Men’s Quality of Life’ conveyed by the Korean Women’s Policy Institute in 2018, 28.4% of men harbored hostile gender discrimination and anti-feminism tendencies, and 27.7% with half anti-feminism. Why is there no end in insight for antifeminism sentiment in South Korea?
For starters, with the importance of the keyword ‘fairness’ highlighted among young people, such a sentiment can be found against the discriminating structure and from a sense of fear among men about their place being taken away. The data on “gender inequality” displayed that the men in the 20’s considered women attackers, detesting and attacking men through feminist movements, demanding the power and status more than they already have. Especially, when asked about “supportfor women’s policy,” only 39.6% of men advocate it. Here comes a big gap according to age. Solely 20% of men in their 20’s advocated the women policy; men in their 50’s 56.5%. Furthermore, a research conducted by the Hankook Ilbo in May shows that 78.9% of men in their 20’s agreed to the statement that discrimination against men is serious. “Women’s discriminations are less serious than that of men,” said they, pining the cause of discrimination on the feminism. Kwon Myung-ah (Prof. of Korean Language Literature, Dong-A University) said “Feminism is regarded as an enemy that harms fairness because some policies emphasize gender conflict theory and none of them changes the reality of young people.”
This similar phenomenon has also inundated politics beyond society, and Lee Joon-Seok, the leader of the People's Power Party, said on his SNS that "the Democratic Party underestimated the cohesiveness of men and feminist movement fueled intense anti-feminism." Mr. Lee added “The ruling party lost the 21st general election owing to the gender conflict” and pointed out GS25’s poster that sparked controversy over male hatred. In accordance with this, there are sayings that political circles instigate social vibe and air, using a sense of it. In fact, Jin Joong-Kwon, a former professor at Dongyang University, expressed criticism of them about exploiting anti-feminist sentiment to raise their approval rating. Anonymous (18, Dept. of Political Science and Diplomacy) said “Because the Party of the People driven by the victory of the by-election believed that the anti-feminism sentiment contributed to winning the election, they nominated Lee, implicitly supporting antifeminism, and fanned men in their 20’s to make them their solid advocators. As a result of this, the sentiment was forged by a discrepancy between masculinity pursued by modern society and what one has seen while growing, and a false sense of victim mentality in their 20’s from the unemployment crisis. All things considered, I can say that political party exploited it and encouraged attacks.” Kwon Myung-ah (Prof. of Korean Language Literature, Dong-A University) said, “The government, which should respond to discrimination and reform the structure of discrimination, ‘progressive groups’ are strengthening discrimination by endlessly creating and targeting problem groups based on the “approval rate.” After the by-election, the government and politicians blamed discrimination against men in their 20s and feminism, resulting in tremendous hate and attacks on women and feminism aggravated. Nevertheless, the so-called “progressive groups” is still bent on finding a new problem group that threatens approval ratings. Last but not least, the third cause of antifeminist sentiment is owed partly to reckless media coverage. According to a poll of 1,000 people conducted by the KBS Public Media Research Institute, eight out of 10 respondents believed the media had encouraged the controversy over An San player." In addition, “over-agenda that highlights some community claims” was selected as the most common problem of the coverage. 37.7% of them said that the place where they learned about it at first was in the media report. Journalistic ethics including “Guidelines for Gender Equality Reports” state that if there is room for amplifying hatred, quoting a passage is prohibited. On July 24th, two online media, on the other hand, reported by citing and dragging comments “Why do you have your hair cut?” on An San’s SNS. With the posts on the Internet community gone reported, a stream of articles associated with An San poured out of the internet. Having completed the analysis of articles with keywords such as An San player feminists, shortcut, and controversy, KBS Public Media found the amount of it drastically increased since July 27th, half of the newspaper associated with An San were about feminist. The GS25 incident went reported less than two hours after initial news titled “GS25 Misogyny Controversy” at 3:41pm released. Kim Woonk-Yum (Prof. of Social Studies, Pusan National University) said “The indiscriminate media coverage can cause greatly to foster and exaggerate the antifeminism more than what the men think or feel. Taking words from the male-biased community to their article exemplifies this trend, this seems to have originated from the structure of the internet media which make the money thorough a click”. Kim Eon-Kyung (Director, Media Human Rights Research Institute) “In the case of An San, reporting sensational issues and carrying negative words gave rise to emotional reactions which was onerous for readers to have rational processing of information.
Kim Bo-Myung (Prof. of Social Studies, Pusan National University) said, “To alleviate anti-feminist sentiment, in principle, public sphere and education is a must. Over the course of the discourse should follow changes that can revolutionize the composition of issues. Take an example. It is way pivotal for us to have fruitful discuss over why the link of social system is of a need and how to generate it rather than thinking of who benefits more and takes advantage of.”
*Woong-Ang-Woong: It is a sort of SNS memes, signifying muttering anything in Korean. * 5.5 trillion won: It is aword means ‘a lot of’ in Korean
By Yoon Seo-Jin, Desk Editor dbstj71@pusan.ac.kr
With the Tokyo Olympics taking place from July 23rd to August 8th, Women National athletes including An San came up against cyber bullying that billed them as “male hatred” due to their short hair style. In particular, a censure was exacerbated after words that she used on her Instagram such as *“Woong-Ang-Woong” and **“5.5 trillion won” going public. BBC reported that the athlete was being criticized for having her hair cut short, online abuses involving hairstyles ensued along with anti-feminist sentiment among some young Korean men. Similarly, on April 1st, GS25, a convenience store, had apologized for male hatred. The picture of a sausage next to a hand on GS25’s poster turned into an issue in some communities, asking if it depicted testis. A cascade of affairs above substantiates that Korea has recently seen anti-feminism compounded among certain groups. BBC news has reported that 58.6% of Korean men in their 20's are vehemently opposed to feminism. According to the ‘Study on Gender Disparity and Men’s Quality of Life’ conveyed by the Korean Women’s Policy Institute in 2018, 28.4% of men harbored hostile gender discrimination and anti-feminism tendencies, and 27.7% with half anti-feminism. Why is there no end in insight for antifeminism sentiment in South Korea?
For starters, with the importance of the keyword ‘fairness’ highlighted among young people, such a sentiment can be found against the discriminating structure and from a sense of fear among men about their place being taken away. The data on “gender inequality” displayed that the men in the 20’s considered women attackers, detesting and attacking men through feminist movements, demanding the power and status more than they already have. Especially, when asked about “supportfor women’s policy,” only 39.6% of men advocate it. Here comes a big gap according to age. Solely 20% of men in their 20’s advocated the women policy; men in their 50’s 56.5%. Furthermore, a research conducted by the Hankook Ilbo in May shows that 78.9% of men in their 20’s agreed to the statement that discrimination against men is serious. “Women’s discriminations are less serious than that of men,” said they, pining the cause of discrimination on the feminism. Kwon Myung-ah (Prof. of Korean Language Literature, Dong-A University) said “Feminism is regarded as an enemy that harms fairness because some policies emphasize gender conflict theory and none of them changes the reality of young people.”
This similar phenomenon has also inundated politics beyond society, and Lee Joon-Seok, the leader of the People's Power Party, said on his SNS that "the Democratic Party underestimated the cohesiveness of men and feminist movement fueled intense anti-feminism." Mr. Lee added “The ruling party lost the 21st general election owing to the gender conflict” and pointed out GS25’s poster that sparked controversy over male hatred. In accordance with this, there are sayings that political circles instigate social vibe and air, using a sense of it. In fact, Jin Joong-Kwon, a former professor at Dongyang University, expressed criticism of them about exploiting anti-feminist sentiment to raise their approval rating. Anonymous (18, Dept. of Political Science and Diplomacy) said “Because the Party of the People driven by the victory of the by-election believed that the anti-feminism sentiment contributed to winning the election, they nominated Lee, implicitly supporting antifeminism, and fanned men in their 20’s to make them their solid advocators. As a result of this, the sentiment was forged by a discrepancy between masculinity pursued by modern society and what one has seen while growing, and a false sense of victim mentality in their 20’s from the unemployment crisis. All things considered, I can say that political party exploited it and encouraged attacks.” Kwon Myung-ah (Prof. of Korean Language Literature, Dong-A University) said, “The government, which should respond to discrimination and reform the structure of discrimination, ‘progressive groups’ are strengthening discrimination by endlessly creating and targeting problem groups based on the “approval rate.” After the by-election, the government and politicians blamed discrimination against men in their 20s and feminism, resulting in tremendous hate and attacks on women and feminism aggravated. Nevertheless, the so-called “progressive groups” is still bent on finding a new problem group that threatens approval ratings. Last but not least, the third cause of antifeminist sentiment is owed partly to reckless media coverage. According to a poll of 1,000 people conducted by the KBS Public Media Research Institute, eight out of 10 respondents believed the media had encouraged the controversy over An San player." In addition, “over-agenda that highlights some community claims” was selected as the most common problem of the coverage. 37.7% of them said that the place where they learned about it at first was in the media report. Journalistic ethics including “Guidelines for Gender Equality Reports” state that if there is room for amplifying hatred, quoting a passage is prohibited. On July 24th, two online media, on the other hand, reported by citing and dragging comments “Why do you have your hair cut?” on An San’s SNS. With the posts on the Internet community gone reported, a stream of articles associated with An San poured out of the internet. Having completed the analysis of articles with keywords such as An San player feminists, shortcut, and controversy, KBS Public Media found the amount of it drastically increased since July 27th, half of the newspaper associated with An San were about feminist. The GS25 incident went reported less than two hours after initial news titled “GS25 Misogyny Controversy” at 3:41pm released. Kim Woonk-Yum (Prof. of Social Studies, Pusan National University) said “The indiscriminate media coverage can cause greatly to foster and exaggerate the antifeminism more than what the men think or feel. Taking words from the male-biased community to their article exemplifies this trend, this seems to have originated from the structure of the internet media which make the money thorough a click”. Kim Eon-Kyung (Director, Media Human Rights Research Institute) “In the case of An San, reporting sensational issues and carrying negative words gave rise to emotional reactions which was onerous for readers to have rational processing of information.
Kim Bo-Myung (Prof. of Social Studies, Pusan National University) said, “To alleviate anti-feminist sentiment, in principle, public sphere and education is a must. Over the course of the discourse should follow changes that can revolutionize the composition of issues. Take an example. It is way pivotal for us to have fruitful discuss over why the link of social system is of a need and how to generate it rather than thinking of who benefits more and takes advantage of.”
*Woong-Ang-Woong: It is a sort of SNS memes, signifying muttering anything in Korean. * 5.5 trillion won: It is aword means ‘a lot of’ in Korean
By Yoon Seo-Jin, Desk Editor dbstj71@pusan.ac.kr