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Monday Mini: Blaming Women in South Korea · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Anny and Samantha. Howcome to stuff? I
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: never told your production if I heard you.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: And for this Monday Minni, we're going to go ahead
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  Speaker 2: and put this content warning slash triggion warning at the top.
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  Speaker 2: This is a conversation about suicide, violence against women, harassment,
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  Speaker 2: and overall gender violence. Yeah, and this is actually referring
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  Speaker 2: to some of the incident that happened in June of
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. It is August of twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 2: just to put a little time stamp here, in which
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  Speaker 2: a city council member tried to blame women for an
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  Speaker 2: uptick of suicide that was happening in South Korea. And
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  Speaker 2: we've talked about it in our k Pop special about
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  Speaker 2: the fact that South Korea has one of the highest
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  Speaker 2: suicide rates at this point, or at least that they
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  Speaker 2: did when we were doing that specific episode. You can
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  Speaker 2: go back to reference it and a lot of conversations
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  Speaker 2: about women no longer wanting to have children or no
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  Speaker 2: longer wanting to get married in South Korea. We talked
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  Speaker 2: about the four B movement, which has been a debate
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  Speaker 2: in itself, but back and forth about whether or not
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  Speaker 2: a South Korean women know or are a part of this,
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  Speaker 2: or whether it's just kind of like been inflated by
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  Speaker 2: the rest of the world up back and forth. Actually
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  Speaker 2: more women are actually on board with the forur B movement,
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  Speaker 2: as in fact, a lot of the women outside of
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  Speaker 2: South Korea are like, we want that movement here as well.
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  Speaker 2: And you can reference I believe in Monday Mini. Is
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  Speaker 2: it a Monday Mini or it a Monday Mini and
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  Speaker 2: a fe minist around the world. I think it was
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  Speaker 2: about some of the feminist movements that were happening in
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  Speaker 2: South Korea. But with that, yeah, so here's a little
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  Speaker 2: bit from a Times article that wrote about it. Local
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  Speaker 2: media reported Sunday on June twenty eighth the press release
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  Speaker 2: by Soul City Council member of Kim Ki Duck that
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  Speaker 2: included data on suicide attempts made at twenty one bridges
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  Speaker 2: crossing the Han River from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty three.
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  Speaker 2: Of sixty nine attempts, twenty four hundred eighty seven were
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  Speaker 2: by men, one thousand and seventy nine by women, and
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  Speaker 2: five hundred and three by those of unknown gender. The
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  Speaker 2: report noted that in twenty eighteen, four hundred and thirty
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  Speaker 2: people were reported to have attempted suicide on the bridges,
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  Speaker 2: including two hundred and eighty eight men sixty seven percent,
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  Speaker 2: while in twenty twenty three, the total attempts rose to
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  Speaker 2: one thousand, thirty five, with seven hundred ninety eight, or
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  Speaker 2: seventy seven percent involving males. The press release quoted comps
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  Speaker 2: suggesting a cause for the trend. Unlike in the past,
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  Speaker 2: when patriarchy and the ideology of male supremacy were prevalent,
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  Speaker 2: Korea has recently begun to change into a female centric society,
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  Speaker 2: with women outnumbering men by about five percent as of
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. As the number of women increases, various
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  Speaker 2: factors are occurring, including changes in the marriage market due
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  Speaker 2: to the shortage of men's labor and an increase in
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  Speaker 2: men having difficulty finding marriage partners, as well as changes
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  Speaker 2: in the roles of men and women due to women's
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  Speaker 2: participation in society. The article continues. The solution Kim concluded
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  Speaker 2: in the press release was that quote, in order to
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  Speaker 2: overcome the expansion of female dominated phenomenon, it is necessary
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  Speaker 2: to improve gender quality awareness so that men and women
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  Speaker 2: can enjoy equal rights and opportunities.
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  Speaker 1: Kim too.
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  Speaker 2: Local newspaper Han kiore I wrote this based on my
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  Speaker 2: own personal beliefs inferring the cause of the male suicide rate.
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  Speaker 2: The paper also cited experts who refuted Kim's analysis, pointing
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  Speaker 2: out that men have long had higher suicide rates than
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  Speaker 2: women in Korea and across the world, regardless of the
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  Speaker 2: status of gender equality. The latest World Health Organization data
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  Speaker 2: shows the global age standardized suicide rate to be more
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  Speaker 2: than twice as high for males at twelve point six
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  Speaker 2: per one hundred thousand than for females at five point
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  Speaker 2: four per one hundred thousand. So there's so much, there's
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  Speaker 2: so much, there's so much to be said about this.
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  Speaker 2: This was just one man's opinion. It made global news,
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  Speaker 2: and there's so many people who came back and was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
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  Speaker 2: This is not how the rest of South Korea believes.
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  Speaker 2: This is not what we think, YadA YadA, YadA, but
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  Speaker 2: in actuality it actually they. It may be it may
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  Speaker 2: be more on par with that. There has been an
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  Speaker 2: anti feminist movement that has happened. We know, and we
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  Speaker 2: talked about the fact that the government, the last presidency
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  Speaker 2: on the current presidency, he ran on an anti feminist
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  Speaker 2: movement and got rid of the All Women's board, like
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  Speaker 2: he was really adamant that is all women's fault when
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  Speaker 2: it comes to low birth rate and low marriage status.
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  Speaker 2: They've also blamed a lot of women for being a
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  Speaker 2: part of the careers YadA YadA, as he kind of
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  Speaker 2: already said in that conversation, and he's not the only one. Again,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if the numbers are as high as
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  Speaker 2: it seems from the outside, or it's just that they're
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  Speaker 2: the loudest, much like the US, which could absolutely be it.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm wanting to to go a little further into
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  Speaker 2: this article, which says they blame women. Blaming feminists and
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  Speaker 2: reverse discrimination for social ills, including the country's severe demographic declined,
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  Speaker 2: is not new in South Korea. Even as the country
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  Speaker 2: remains far from female dominated, South Korea's overall gender quality
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  Speaker 2: has actually regressed in recent years, particularly in the realm
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  Speaker 2: of women's political empowerment. According to the World's Economic Form's
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  Speaker 2: most recent annual Gender Gap Index, in which South Korea
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  Speaker 2: brings one hundred and fifth of the one hundred and
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  Speaker 2: forty six countries analyzed in twenty twenty three, down from
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  Speaker 2: the ninety ninth in twenty twenty two, so they went
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  Speaker 2: down another like six in its ranking, and again not
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  Speaker 2: surprising as that was part of his whole platform in
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  Speaker 2: order to be elected. And people were like, yeah, absolutely,
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  Speaker 2: and I just also want to read from the BBC
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  Speaker 2: because again it made headlines, it made world news, and
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  Speaker 2: of course it come to my attention because it's in
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  Speaker 2: my feed specifically with South Korea the BBC Rights. However,
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  Speaker 2: his comments followed a number of unscientific and sometimes bizarre
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  Speaker 2: political proposals aimed at tackling some of South Korea's most
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  Speaker 2: pressing social issues, including mental illness, gender violence, and the
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  Speaker 2: lowest birth rate in the world. Last month, another sole
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  Speaker 2: counselor in the sixties published a series of articles in
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  Speaker 2: the authority's website encouraging young women to take up gymnastics
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  Speaker 2: and practice pelthy floor exercises in order to raise the
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  Speaker 2: birth rate. At the same time, a government think tank
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  Speaker 2: recommended that girls to start school earlier than boys so
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  Speaker 2: that classmates would be more attracted to each other by
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  Speaker 2: the time they.
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  Speaker 1: Were ready to marry.
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  Speaker 2: They have some odd ideas. Unfortunately, I can't ignore the
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  Speaker 2: fact that some of the violence against women in South
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  Speaker 2: Korea has only increased. There's an article written by Koreapro
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  Speaker 2: dot org talking about dating violence, and they wrote the
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  Speaker 2: National Police Agency has reported a sharp increase in dating
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  Speaker 2: violence cases from about forty nine thousand and twenty twenty
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  Speaker 2: to a record high of more than seventy seven thy
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, with more than nineteen thousand reports so
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  Speaker 2: far this year, and this was written in May twenty
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  Speaker 2: twenty four. However, out of nearly fourteen thousand alleged perpetrators
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  Speaker 2: of dating violence in twenty twenty three, only three hundred
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  Speaker 2: and ten individuals two point two two percent were arrested
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  Speaker 2: specifically for such crimes, the National Police Agency confirmed to
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  Speaker 2: Korea Pro. The Korea Women's Hotline has reported that at
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  Speaker 2: least one hundred and thirty eight women were killed by
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  Speaker 2: their husbands or boyfriends in twenty twenty three, and additionally,
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  Speaker 2: three hundred and eleven women survived attended murders. According to
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  Speaker 2: the hot line, a woman faces the risk of being
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  Speaker 2: killed by her husband or mel partner every nineteen hours
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  Speaker 2: in South Korea. The data reveals that twenty percent of
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  Speaker 2: perpetrators claimed the crime was accidental or occurred in the
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  Speaker 2: heat of the moment. Other reasons perpetrators cited included demanding
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  Speaker 2: divorce or separation that was eighteen percent, suspecting the victim's
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  Speaker 2: relationship with another man fourteen per and feeling ignored four percent.
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  Speaker 2: And the Korea Women's Hotline emphasizes that violence against women
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  Speaker 2: within intimate relationships is a continuum of violence. It is
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  Speaker 2: never truly accidental. So I've seen more and more. I
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  Speaker 2: feel like there's a constant rise and things that are happening.
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  Speaker 2: These things are not getting questioned again. Two point two
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  Speaker 2: to two percent have been actually arrested for these crimes,
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  Speaker 2: and even more so. The Human Rights Campaign had a
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  Speaker 2: little more data about different things, including digital sex crimes,
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  Speaker 2: so they wrote this. The government struggles to address digital
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  Speaker 2: sex crimes, including widespread posting of pictures of women and
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  Speaker 2: girls without their consent. According to a report released in
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  Speaker 2: March by the MOGEF, digital sex crimes targeting children increased
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  Speaker 2: between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one. In June, the
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  Speaker 2: government's Sexual Violence Safety Survey found that fifty one percent
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  Speaker 2: of seven five hundred and five women surveyed worried about
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  Speaker 2: becoming victims of sexual violence while using public bathrooms or
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  Speaker 2: taking taxi alone. Again, there's been a huge conversation and
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  Speaker 2: a huge uptick of crimes of like upskirt cameras and photos,
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  Speaker 2: and very little has been done about that. In February,
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  Speaker 2: South Korea's Ministry of Justice shut down the mogef's plans
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  Speaker 2: to revise the legal definition of rape to include non
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  Speaker 2: consensual sex. South Korean courts have interpreted the penal code
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  Speaker 2: very narrowly, often ruly in favor of the perpetrator when
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  Speaker 2: there are mitigating circumstances such as an abreation. So they
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  Speaker 2: are so far behind in conversation about sexual violence, domestic violence,
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  Speaker 2: all of those stalking, against digital sex crimes or any
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  Speaker 2: of that. But they really want to blame women for
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  Speaker 2: all these other conversations, the low birth rate, the low marriage,
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  Speaker 2: the loss of jobs, men's suicide. Is honestly, really really
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  Speaker 2: blatant about how no one's really seeing the root of
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  Speaker 2: this problem.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, it is really upsetting because it
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  Speaker 3: is so many times I feel like, well, why do
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  Speaker 3: you think women don't want to have kids? Why do
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  Speaker 3: you think women don't want to be with men? Like
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  Speaker 3: what I can show you all of this data, I
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  Speaker 3: can tell you stories.
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  Speaker 1: And yet instead you are like women, why or why
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  Speaker 1: won't you just go along with it? Why won't you
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  Speaker 1: do this?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and again like they're literally doing a punishment system,
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  Speaker 2: like when the birth rate of like, okay, women, we
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  Speaker 2: need you to have less jobs. So what we're going
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  Speaker 2: to do is like try to see if we can
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  Speaker 2: talk you out of working, or we're gonna try to
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  Speaker 2: at the same time, and knowing these families cannot actually
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  Speaker 2: sustain without both of them working. The amount of demand
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  Speaker 2: and about amount of power of corporations in this area
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  Speaker 2: and very little power for the employees, the level of
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  Speaker 2: nepotism that could happen within this industry. Again, the amount
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  Speaker 2: of stressed, like the competition and getting a job has
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  Speaker 2: been pretty pretty intense. Like again, one of the higher
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  Speaker 2: causes of suicide is the economics and that type of status.
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  Speaker 2: And we've talked about that before. And they're not being
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  Speaker 2: able to meet these standards. That is the actual conversation,
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  Speaker 2: and no one was willing to have it. The amount
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  Speaker 2: that you have to pay in having a home does
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  Speaker 2: not meet the amount that you're being paid by your employee,
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  Speaker 2: which is also in the US as well, but I
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  Speaker 2: think it's even significantly more in South Korea the differentiation.
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  Speaker 2: But with that, we talked about the education system before
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  Speaker 2: and how how much money they have to pay for
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  Speaker 2: a kid to get ahead, and because it's so competitive,
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  Speaker 2: if you don't have money, these kids will not make
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  Speaker 2: it onto the university or make it onto the secondary education.
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  Speaker 2: They have to have tutors. They have to have specialized
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  Speaker 2: tutors who are seen as gods in some aspects because
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  Speaker 2: they have so much control when it comes to helping
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  Speaker 2: children educationally move forward. So again, why would you want
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  Speaker 2: to put your child through that if you can't afford
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  Speaker 2: to give them that opportunity? Such an odd like cyclical
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  Speaker 2: conversation and like constant pushback that the question is why
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  Speaker 2: would we again? And the fact that there's so much
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  Speaker 2: stress that to a lot of people, suicide is the answer,
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  Speaker 2: which is so upsetting in itself, and giving the blame
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  Speaker 2: to a specific gender is an odd next step, like
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  Speaker 2: it's not an odd like this is obviously answer.
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  Speaker 1: What it feels very in cel like the right it does.
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  Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense like we were doing fine when
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  Speaker 2: were just men doing the you know, being the main
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  Speaker 2: focus of society and you're like, no, you weren't. The
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  Speaker 2: suicide was still high.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just that whole idea of like when men
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  Speaker 3: blame women for like their own violence or their own
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  Speaker 3: whatever it is, it's often against women.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, wait, wait, wait, what, let's let's hold
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  Speaker 1: up here.
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  Speaker 3: This is not correct, but we've seen it has massive
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  Speaker 3: implications on anxiety and has led too h violence. So
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  Speaker 3: it's something we have to talk about and keep an
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  Speaker 3: eye on.
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  Speaker 2: Happy Monday, everybody.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, I was just thinking about this today. It's interesting
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  Speaker 3: to me how many things we're talking about with cults
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: this month. It wasn't intentional, but cults and in cels
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: and things like that. Yeah, so look out for more
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  Speaker 3: of that content. But in the meantime, if you have
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  Speaker 3: any thoughts about this, any resources, any updates, please write
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: in and let us know. You can email this stuff
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: at your mom stuff at i heeartmedia dot com. You
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  Speaker 3: or Instagram and TikTok at stuff I never told you.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We are on YouTube.
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• 14:07
  Speaker 3: start a super producer Christina or executive user for my
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: intercntruper Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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