Editor’s note: To begin a new feminist discourse in 2016, 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.”
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“Go sit by that seonbae”
It was April 2007, in my first year of university. I h 온라인릴게임 ad just stumbled through my first exams and was unreasonably excited for the (excuse for drinking and selling alcohol known as the) yearly campus festival. The swollen heads of my donggi [students in 바다이야기릴게임2 the same grade and department], who wanted to become a legendary class whose unprecedented sales at the festival would pay for a luxurious departmental outing, came up with an idea that can still be s 바다이야기 een at the department’s festival tent today (at least through the 2015 festival): bunny girls.
Everyone put on bunny ears and pert bunny tails, and male students put on black ties over white 바다이야기모바일 dress shirts while female students wore aprons with white spots on a hot-pink background. Some talented donggi got help from some seonbae [older students in or graduates from the same department] and 골드몽 drew perfect rabbit heads (the Playboy logo) on sparkling paper, hanging them up to make an entrance to our tent.
As selling alcohol and snacks is the main task at a tent, division of labor was necessary. Broadly, the divisions were cooking, serving, and attracting customers. The taste and price of the snacks are important, but in the end, the factor that decides a tent’s sales is enthusiastically courting customers. You have to grab someone on the street and pull them in. No one came out and said it, but we all knew that if you want to earn money, pretty girls have go outside and attract customers, and plain girls have to fry pajeon [Welsh-onion pancakes] in the kitchen.
Somehow or another, the roles were divided. A few girls that no one could deny were pretty were put in charge of attracting customers. I, as someone in a gray area (which could be known by how no one pushed me to try attracting customers) thought it seemed like I should just carry and clear away food, so I was one of the servers. That kind of thing didn’t upset or surprise me, as I also thought those girls were pretty. And I wanted us to make a lot of money.
But something that happened on the last day of the festival became my main motivation for founding the study group “Finding Feminism After High School” much later. On that day, graduated seonbae at the festival would come and there would be an after-party just for our department, so the student head of the department requested that we stay late and participate. We opened for business and when it became late, as had been announced, about four or five male seonbae, who gave off a strong vibe of being office workers, were escorted in. A few of my donggi, wearing serious expressions, quickly made a large space for them in the middle of the tent. And then someone nudged me and said, “Go sit by that seonbae”
In this way, I and a few other girls were dispatched to sit dispersed between the men, which we did, blankly. The male seonbae who had been in charge of escorting them here came into this obviously awkward situation and livened things up. After the younger seonbae flatteringly introduced the older seonbae to us, the latter started to talk to us. While at first they had only waved shyly, after a few rounds they began to tell stories from their school days. I listened and nodded, but found myself mute.
Inside I was sweating, wondering, “When this story ends what should I say? Is it enough if I just sit here listening and pour drinks?” and even, “That other girl is good at chatting and creating a pleasant atmosphere?should I be doing that?”
Ridiculous university culture?in the name of feminism, we won’t put up with you!
What if there were a picture of that scene? New students wearing bunny ears and tails, and graduates wearing suits. I didn’t really talk about it for a long time, but it kept coming back to me. I didn’t know how to describe this situation, other than as strange and ridiculous. At that time, when a topic was brought up, [as an art student] I had no language other than the technical ability to make a picture about it within four hours, and no ability to resist.
And then, after graduation, when I by chance (an descript-xion which also makes me sad) became active in a women’s environmental group in the area in which I grew up in, I found feminism. It was not the light at the end of a long and dark tunnel, but like a stone being thrown at me by someone telling me not to go farther into the tunnel in the first place. Powerfully attracted to one of the stone-throwers, I started to carry around feminist books like they were Bibles, and thought again about that scene. I started to summon up and pass judgment on not just that scene in my first year, but also the myriad of other things that had happened to me in university.
As soon as I entered school, there was the sexy dance we practiced for the talent show that was part of the welcoming events for new students, the dressing up male donggi as women and choosing one of them as “Miss X” (“X” here stands for our department’s name), the event celebrating [male] military reservists and the female seonbae who were in charge of the food for it, male seonbae making comments like “You’re so thin that there’s nothing to hold onto” like jokes... these situations flashed past, leaving me unsure even now at whom I should be angry.
The more depressing thing was that the department that I graduated from was thought to be relatively okay, when it was actually terrible. It’s always like that, but no one explains why these kinds of events exist within university departments or why they continue. It gets covered up in the name of tradition, and it gets passed down to and carried on by hubae [students in the same department or school that entered later than oneself] without a chance to realize how weird it is. In a situation where even a relationship with one’s seonbae has become a type of job qualification, those who have just tossed their school uniforms and entered university or the working world are faced with two choices: keep quiet or be excluded.
My beloved (and mostly female) dongsaeng [younger siblings or, in this case, younger friends], whom I met when I was doing local activism and we took humanities classes together, and who are now graduating from high school, are soon going to enter this culture... this thought is very upsetting. I thought about the high school students trapped in the Sewol ferry who were uncomfortable when told to stay put, but could do nothing but that. I wasn’t going to stay put.
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Proselytizing feminism to young women barely out of high school








▲ One of the reading summaries for one session of “Finding Feminism After High School.” We three presenters had to study hard but also learned a lot. ⓒChoi Jeong-hui (Paeng-paeng)



Of course, discovering feminism is painful. Your everyday life becomes uncomfortable and dissatisfying. But you also experience a freedom and pleasure - whose source is at first unclear, sudden desires to talk about things, and a safe, supportive group that listens wholeheartedly to your thoughts and feelings. I wanted to give this experience to my dongsaeng. So I rounded up two strong-willed friends and suggested that we start a feminist study group. We would target dongsaeng who had just thrown away their school uniforms and were about to go to university or get jobs.
One of my two friends had majored in Women Studies, and the other one was active in a women’s group, so even though we weren’t teachers or experts, it seemed like we could pull it off. Before this study group, we had successfully worked together to run a three-class course called “Think Kindly of Same-Sex Love,” which dispelled misunderstandings and stereotypes about same-sex love. In order to enrich our learning and listen to everyone’s voices in turn, we had an activity called “writing and recitation,” and bought pretty notebooks to give each dongsaeng.?
A few of the dongsaeng that I knew had shown a lot of interest in feminism, saying they wanted to learn about it. We planned to hold the five sessions of “Finding Feminism After High School” group, including an orientation and a feminist movie-watching session, and to take the most hot-button incidents of the times and connect them with feminism. So the topics were Japanese “comfort women,” Megalian, and taljoseon [a derogatory term for the phenomenon of South Korean youth immigrating out of the country]. Each session focused on a topic like this.
First we three leaders would create a short reading summary?as a PowerPoint presentation or a handout?about the issue, and then each of us would toss out a question at the end. The participants considered the questions and jotted down their thoughts in their notebooks. And after exchanging notebooks with the person next to them, they would take turns reading the other person’s writings aloud. Then we would pass the notebooks around and write “real-time replies.” You could express your agreement, your different feelings or way of thinking, anything. Summary → questions → writing → reading aloud → replying. Three hours wasn’t enough! As an example, let me introduce an excerpt from materials for the second class, which was entitled “Is Megalian the Female Ilbe?”
“When I first saw Megalian last year around June and July, my honest response was to burst into laughter. Sure, it made some people uncomfortable, but for some reason I thought it was really funny. Endlessly and irrepressibly. The feeling that came over me after I finished laughing was a clear sense of pleasure. Why? Actually, when I think about it, it was because I had been scared, worried, and tired, even though I had pretended not to be. Because the woman who said one wrong thing, “loser man,” disappeared without a trace and is still being cursed, and (old, rich, powerful man) Park Jin Young was on fucking TV asking who your mother is, singing about how he likes girls with big butts and if your butt is small you’ll be ignored. (...) You say it, so why can’t I? I mean, there are times when I too want to express my desires in rough and coarse ways.”?Park Bo-hyeon (Dodam)
When the presentation of the reading summary ended, we three leaders asked the following questions, making everyone think about their experiences and leading to an enriching discussion. “What is a way to fight enjoyably?”, “Have you ever seen a case where violence quelled violence? How was it?”, “Among Megalian, Womad [another Internet community], inclusive feminism, etc., where do I lean?”
Finding Feminism After High School was held in the living room of the house where I live, and our circle was sometimes larger, sometimes smaller, but usually around 10 people. Having to do a reading summary every week put enormous pressure on us, but I also looked forward to that time. Gathering in the living room to listen to presentations, writing while listening to the scratching noises coming from all around, reading someone’s writing aloud, someone reading my writing aloud, passing the notebooks around and writing replies... the personal histories, feelings, and resolutions contained in the cramped writing made us look at the dongsaeng in a new way.
I didn’t tell them about this, but after the dongsaeng left I would sit in a quiet corner and read and reread the comments on my writing. The words filled with surprise, agreement, or consolation about my writing made me feel warm and comforted. After a few classes, I could tell who the writer was by their handwriting, and as their expressions, voice, and even their personality showed through, each student became a special and precious part of my heart.








▲ Answers of dongsaeng to questions from the leaders, and others’ replies ⓒChoi Jeong-hui (Paeng-paeng)



This time it’s finding feminism during high school!
The study group ended. Some of the dongsaeng entered university. I was curious about how they were all doing, when I happened to do some work with one of them for a short time. It was around March of this year. Telling me that she wanted to complain, she spilled out all of the embarrassing things that had happened to her at the new students’ orientation.
“The really ridiculous thing is that on the first day, each group had to pick a leader and a mascot. But because the group leader had to drink a lot and the mascot had to flirt a lot, they had to be a man and a woman, respectively. And at night when we were sitting in our groups, drinking, we ran out of snacks. So we sent the mascot to headquarters to get some. But she didn’t come back for a long time. It turned out that the male sunbae at the headquarters had made her put on a talent show and given her snacks according to how well she performed. And if a male student went to get snacks, they would yell at him.”
“The second time, I couldn’t stand to send the mascot alone so I went with her. When we got to the headquarters, they were like, “One snack is 3,000 won, but you can get one free for each talent demonstration.” Sitting there drinking, like, “Go on, do it.” It was really uncomfortable, and when I got the snack I wanted to throw it in their faces. Who do they think are? This was the first way I was treated in university. This kind of thing really needs to be gotten rid of. So next year I’m going to go along and protect the new female students, no matter what.”
University culture is the same, but listening to my dongsaeng talk made me unreasonable proud. She went on, with force.
“Really, everyone should study feminism. Because when I didn’t know about feminism, I didn’t know about discrimination, either. Because I was used to it. But after waking up to it, I see it everywhere. And a big change in myself that I’m feeling these days is a rebellion against others’ standards. When I was a student, I was caught up in grades and teachers’ orders. But now I try to live a little more for myself and the things that I think are right. And I feel more sure about the things I like and dislike. I feel more confident talking about those things. The more that happens, the more I remember that I have to keep my ears and my mind open.”
I started with the wish to give to my dongsaeng, but instead January was packed with lessons for me. Perhaps because my heart missed the stimulation of these lessons and touching moments, I became the organizer for the fourth year of a local youth humanities lecture series. This time, I plan to sit down with people who are still in high school. It’s “Finding Feminism During High School.” We have a budget, so I’ve recruited two teachers, I’m going to bring a ton of snacks, and we’re going to have fun, while even learning some self-defense.
And the people who took the earlier class are participating in the planning and carrying out of this one. So much strength! We have to preach feminist thought to our sisters with twice as much power. When I imagine my dongsaeng’s dongsaeng, and then their dongsaeng, sitting in a circle with our knees touching, my heart feels full. Finally, I’d like to end this essay with a prayer for my sisters and to the goddess of feminism.
“Goddess of feminism, who art in our cells. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in Korea as it is in Northern Europe. Give us this day the language to resist, and forgive us our anger, as we understand those who discriminate against us within the system. And do not let us fall into the trap of trying to become alpha girls, but deliver us from patriarchy. For thine and our sisters’ is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.” [Translated by Marilyn Hook]
*Original article: http://ildaro.com/7472 Published: May 19, 2016

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