Editor’s note: Ilda is running a series on “Living as a Young Woman in South Korea.” The series receives support from the Korea Foundation for Women’s “Funding for Gender-Equal Society.”

 

The “Smile Girl” of the Korean Filial Daughter Association

 

[*Filial Daughter Association: A organization with a tongue-in-cheek name, formed to oppose the Korea Parent Federation.]

 

▲ Early this year, my younger sister Seung-hee made headlines for the picketing of Korean Filial Daughter Association. ⓒJang Geon-seob

Last January, a photo of my sister headlined the newspaper. A girl with a familiar face was smiling and holding a picket sign saying, “Patriotism is not to being loyal to the national flag, but saving drowning children.–Korean Filial Daughter Association” It was Seung-hee.

 

Seung-hee’s picketing struck a chord with those who were outraged at the agreement between Shinzo Abe and the Park Geun-hye administration on the issue of “comfort women” and the absurd remarks of the Korea Parent Federation, which denounced groups that support the “comfort women” as “pro-North Korean forces.” Many outlets covered Seung-hee’s activity. I, as well, became the center of attention of people around me. Texts such as “It’s Seung-hee who’s on the news, right?” “Is Seung-hee okay?” from acquaintances, including those who I had not been in contact with, filled my inbox.

 

When our family saw Seung-hee’s photo in the paper, our only reaction was “Oh, she’s in the paper again.” It was a familiar situation. For the last nine years, starting from the candlelight vigils against importing U.S. beef because of the risk of mad cow disease, we’ve occasionally experienced media exposure while taking part in rallies.

 

Unless it was a mass rally, we often saw familiar faces at many rallies. The media usually put focus on us, the “young women.” As reflected in the words of other activists and reporters such as, “You guys are always in the press when you participate in rallies,” and, “The public reacts when young, eye-catching women appear in the media,” the culture of focusing on the “eye-catching” women involved in social activism was considered to be natural.

 

Furthermore, after the April 16 [2014] ferry disaster, the media exposure became a daily affair to Seung-hee, who started participating in socio-art activities and speaking out about social issues in earnest. According to [right-wing website] Ilbe or the conservatives that criticize her, Seung-hee could be considered a “professional protester.”

 

The “candle-holding college girl” of the annual unification march, the “USIM patriotic martyr” [who swallowed her SIM card rather than give it to the police] and “girl who fainted” [while being forcefully dragged to a police car] of the rally to push the Lee Myeong-bak government to keep its promise to cut college tuition in half,  “Gwanghwamun protester girl” against state-made textbooks, “Gwanghwamun pure girl” [so named for her “pure” appearance], a “straightforward girl,” part of the young house poor, the rent poor, a social artist, the Sinchon college “hand-written poster girl,” the “fine girl” who was fined for the work that satirized President Park, the “pro-North Korean girl” as labeled by conservatives, the “UPP girl” [meaning she was part of a now-banned left-wing political party]…

 

So many names have been given to Seung-hee that it’s hard to list them all. This January, another name was added to her: the “smile girl of the Korean Filial Daughter Association .”

 

The night I read the newspaper, Seung-hee contacted me. “Hey! Did you see? I became a filial daughter, haha. All sorts of associations are forming after the Filial Daughter Association.” While I was reading the countless articles pouring out as Seung-hee told me to, I detected a familiar pattern in the media and the public opinion. The media were naming Seung-hee the “smile girl,” based on her smiling picture. The culture of naming was still strong, despite the previous controversy over using “-girl” names, which broke out afterSeung-hee got named the “state-made-textbook protesting pure girl of Gwanghwamun.”

 

The comments under the article appeared to share an element with the media. The most popular comments were ones such as “She’s pretty, and she’s got a brain!” and, “Of course it’s pretty girls that have brains.” On the other hand, various “associations” (Oppa Association, Coffee Association, and Uncle Association) were arising. The eye-catchingly named “Korean Oppa Association” defined its purpose as “protecting the Filial Daughter Association*.”

 

Along with the sensational reactions to the Filial Daughter Association, Seung-hee’s activism was interpreted and assessed from many perspectives. What stood out to me was the view of society toward female activists that we have repeatedly confronted while engaging in activism. Especially because the issue of “comfort women” was directly related to women’s rights, I thought it would be problematic if the discussion continued going the way it was headed.

 

The Selfish, Jealous “Feminazi”

 

I shared my view of such problems through Facebook. I brought up the problem of people viewing the Filial Daughter Association with a “pretty face, and pretty brain” kind of perspective. I also told them to stop calling Seung-hee “smile girl,” “right-thinking girl,” or “pro-North Korean girl.” For us as women living in Korean society, the issue of “comfort women” is not to be discussed solely in historical terms. I thought it should be also connected with gender-sexuality issues such as the violence, oppression and hatred toward women that still exist.

 

▲ Seung-hee and I making a picket sign to support janitors of Hongik University (2011) ⓒSeung-eun Hong

“The ‘comfort women’ issue is one of the violence of men toward women, and I want to mention that it originates from misogyny and disdain for women that exist in everyday life, not particularly in the circumstances of war. It’s on a continuum with rape, sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, dating violence, domestic violence, sex slavery. Misogyny is the act of seeing women solely as ‘female,’ not as ‘human.’ And misogyny entails disdain for women and women-worship at the same time. One aspect that shows that gender-sexuality issues are related to the ‘comfort women’ issue is the existence of the facts that Korean soldiers had ‘comfort women’ during the Vietnam War, and yet it was men of the homeland that despised the female survivors who came back from Japan.” -An excerpt from a Facebook post of mine

 

As Seung-hee agreed on this interpretation of the problem and shared my post, the post was exposed to many people. I got a lot of feedback on it in a short time. “I’ve never actually said it because I knew I would be criticized if I said that the ‘comfort women’ issue is a female issue, so thank you for calling it as a female issue,” “That’s exactly what I wanted to say. Thank you for saying it,” “It’s good that you keep people from wandering away from the subject.” On the other hand, there were opposite opinions: “When we say pretty, it’s not about her face, but her brains and way of thinking,” and, “How is the comfort women issue a gender issue?!”

 

As I felt a bit of confusion due to the rush of interpretations and judgments from various quarters about my post, one of my acquaintances sent me a screenshot, saying that there was a problematic post. The screenshot showed two men mocking me. In the post, which starts with the sentence, “The younger one is the21st century activist type, and the older one is the 20thcentury black-ink type,” they referred to me as “a loser,” and “that bitch who ruined her younger sister’s activism.” And quite a lot of people were agreeing with that post.

 

At that time, I thought I was getting used to criticism because my name and post were being mentioned in many different ways by many people. However, the post in the screenshot was full of vulgar and crude expressions. My body started shaking as if I had been targeted for a random assault.

 

They were genuinely angry at me. They called me a narrow-minded feminist who ruined the future of her 21st-century activist sister pursuing an important cause. They despised me, and mocked me. Such extreme reactions drove me to even think, “Did I actually do something wrong? Am I selfish?” Previously, I had never thought of myself as a feminist. However, when I brought up the gender issue, I was given a name: a selfish “feminazi.” A person who threw cold water on a great cause, someone who deserves to be criticized. All of sudden, a memory from five years ago returned to me.

 

Five years ago, I participated in a student summer volunteer program in a farming community. The village head, who was an old bachelor at the time, lightly touched me, calling me “honey.” When I said at a student meeting that his attitude made me uncomfortable, one male upperclassman burst out in anger and tears, saying, “Do you really have to take his kindness that way? After all his attempts to achieve harmony between villagers and us, do you have to be so sensitive? Don’t you even feel sorry to him? It’s such a shame.” Everyone who was present in the situation (all of them being male upperclassmen, unfortunately) agreed with his opinion by remaining silent. In that situation, I became a petty woman who ruined the great cause of harmony by “insisting on” feeling uncomfortable and speaking out about it.

 

Even after that, when Seung-hee and I were working in activist groups such as Future Welfare Academy, Youth Alternative Institute, and Humanities Café 36.5º, and asking for a change in sexist language or attitude of organizational culture, the reaction returned to us was always, “You two are too emotional. Just too sensitive.” People tried to persuade us to organize people and join them for a “great cause,” rather than be carried away by emotion.

 

“As Long As You are Not Feminists”

 

To resume our story from January, I followed the advice of people around me to just block those who mocked me on Facebook, instead of spending my time dealing with them. What I learned later was that they were so-called “progressive macho men” with a lot of online supporters, who were engaged in activism online. As people who had a lot of complaints about feminism, they had a reputation for criticizing feminists.

 

I thought I would be forgotten if I just ignored them. However, they persistently criticized and slandered me. The criticism went beyond my post. It extended to the family relationship of Seung-hee and me, and to me as a person. The expression “jealous sister” was one the nicer expressions. Starting from “the worst sibling since Cain,” and “makes you rather not have a sister,” I was called “left-wing infantile disorder patient,” “worse than an insect,” “selfish,” and “retard.” I was shocked by the number of people sharing and “liking” their posts. It was such a shock that the perpetrators of this violence were people with yellow ribbons [signs of support for the families of the victims of the Sewol Ferry disaster], not even Ilbe.

 

People who used to say that they respect Seung-hee completely changed their attitudes when she said, “I am a feminist. The comfort women issue is part of an ongoing gender-sexuality issue. Please do not fixate on a common foreign enemy, but let us engage in introspection together.” They denounced Seung-hee as a dependent person who only listens to her sister even at the age of 26. According to them, “a good girl was corrupted by bad women.” And this is the kind of attitude they actually had when they were talking about “respect”:

 

“The attitude of oppas toward Korean Filial Daughter Association: We will protect you, because you have pretty faces and minds. We will protect you, because you are right-thinking girls who are engaged in appropriate social movements. As long as you are not feminists, LOL.” – A satirical signboard in front of Humanities Café 36.5º

 

The Facebook page “Kimchi Girls” [named after a misogynistic slur for Korean women] also publicly condemned Seung-hee for defining herself as a feminist by using the caption “the disgusting real face of Filial Daughter Association,” and calling her “kimchi girl” and “mettaeji” [a term used to insult the members of the feminist website Megalia] Many people besides them also expressed a sense of betrayal. They were sincerely grieving over Seung-hee’s transformation from a “social activist” to a “feminist.” What distinguishes feminist movements from social movements, and what on earth is so selfish about being involved in feminist movements?

 

“Laudable” for a Woman, or “Insufficient” Because She is a Woman

 

Since when I was little, I always disliked the roles and responsibilities that came to me against my will. Starting from my mom scolding, “A woman must keep her legs together when sitting,” there are millions of qualifications for women I have been hearing, such as “A woman must have clear skin,” “A woman must behave well,” “A woman must be easy-going but still sexy.” To be honest, I hated all such rules, including, “A student must study, make a fortune, build a career, and challenge herself,” “A child must perform filial duties,” and “A worker must endure with patience.”

 

I continuously asked why. And then, I started participating in social movements. What came before the pursuit of a great cause of making it possible for everyone to live freely was an urge to free myself. I did not want my life to be unjustly judged or assessed. I chose social activism because I wanted to live independently by fulfilling the roles and responsibilities I gave myself.

 

Thinking back, despite my motivation for social activism, what I often heard from people around me was, “Wow, women are interested in social issues? That’s laudable.” It was the same when we first participated in the candlelight vigil back in 2008. Although countless girls spoke out to the public as proven by the creation of the byword “candlelight girl” by the media, people continued saying, “Women are not interested in social movements. Aren’t they only interested in personal things, such as relationships?” Therefore, the “unexpectedness” of Seung-hee and me was what always stood out when we entered organizations. We were called the “Hong sisters.”

 

This unexpectedness was probably a good feature for media to focus on. As reflected by the labels given to Seung-hee for past few years, a woman is always stuck with labels such as “pure girl” and “smile girl” no matter what political picket she is holding. What a surprise it is. A pure-looking girl with a pretty smile is interested in social issues. What people want to say is “She is pretty, and she also has a brain.”

 

▲ “I am involved in social movements because I want to live independently.” A Humanities Café 36.5º Art Communication Meeting (2014). The author is on the right. ⓒSeung-eun Hong

Ironically, the “unexpectedness” that made women receive attention was an extension of condemning evaluations such as, “You are a woman after all.” My ex-boyfriend, who I met doing social activism, used to tell me, “I like you because you understand me, and you’re interested in social issues, unlike other girls.” However, he tended to denounce me at crucial moments, saying, “You have that emotional side peculiar to girls. You can’t make rational judgment about the situation like I do.”

 

Various men I have met doing social activism also thought of me as a potential girlfriend or as a deficient woman whom they should teach, instead of as a fellow activist. Even while endlessly reciting about history and philosophy, the indifference they have toward gender sensitivity are much the same now as then.

 

Since January, many people began to pay attention to us as word about our activities spread. There were people who came to Humanities Café 36.5º to support us, and brought fruits and books as gifts. The interesting trend among them is that most of their reactions fall in one of two categories: “What you are doing is laudable for young women,” and, “You guys are insufficient because you are young women.” I get an ambivalent feeling, stuck between the compliment and the criticism that are as alike as two sides of a coin. Although the personal attacks and violence targeting us seem to have abated, we still run into such views.

 

Nowadays in Korean society, young women are categorized as either “kimchi girls” or “right-thinking girls.” Lately, more labels such as “ginger girl” [a kind of “Superwoman” who does everything right] and “soy sauce girl” [cheapskate] have been created. Even in the area of social activism, which they joined to reject categorization and objectification, young women are considered decorative flowers and required to play certain roles. Just like how Seung-hee became a “right-thinking girl” when she performed the role of social activist and then a “traitor” when she spoke out as a feminist, our will to live as ourselves is always oppressed, regardless of where we are. I just want to be completely myself, but it is so difficult.

 

Published: April 2, 2016

Translated by Jumi Ha

*Original article: http://ildaro.com/7423

 

◆ To see more English-language articles from Ilda, visit our English blog(https://ildaro.blogspot.com).

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