By Lee Kyung-min
Hatred against women as well as the socially vulnerable has increased in 2015, especially in cyberspace.
Experts said that the prolonged economic slump may be one reason for such a tendency, as people suffering from hardships pick easy targets for venting their anger and frustration instead of tackling underlying fundamental social and structural problems.
Women have become one such target.
Several websites, including DC Inside, have filled with misogynistic comments, where no-holds-barred vulgarity has expanded behind anonymity.
On those sites, women were usually called, ”kimchinyeo,” a derogatory term for Korean women, and most of their acts were ridiculed, with only those with pretty faces and nice bodies being complimented.
Ajou University sociology professor Noh Myung-woo said that men’s urge to degrade women is triggered by the latter’s increasing academic achievements and better performance in general in society.
“Only a few decades ago, women did not directly compete with men at all, but the situation has changed,” he said. “Those who lost to women might find comfort by psychologically compensating themselves through degrading, finding fault with, and denying women, treating them as not having the same value as men.”
Such online users called mothers “mom-chung,” with “chung” meaning bug, referring to women who spend “the money their husbands have earned through hard work” on coffee at cafes and do not control their noise-making children.
In response, a group of women set up a website named Megalian to counteract men’s unreasonable criticisms. But the site has been turning into another source of hatred, as the members coined corresponding terms such as “hannam-chung,” comparing Korean men to bugs.
Finding someone easy to bully is a far easier thing to do than accepting one’s limits or challenging the social structure, Noh said.
“Let’s say a person wants to claim a stronger position, socially or otherwise. When such a prospect is far from achievable in real life, the easiest way to do that is to find the weaker target and lord it over them,” he said.
Such a mindset of seeking dominance stems from tacit social agreement that “only the strong survive,” he added.
Similarly, other minority groups in society, such as immigrants or sexual minorities, also face hatred.
“Most of those who justify discrimination in any form seek a sense of entitlement through persecuting other minorities,” Noh said. “It is the last thing they can hold on to.”
Those vulnerable groups have also become targets of jokes not only on the Internet but in the media.
But when complaints arose that the entertainment programs disrespected the targeted minorities, many also denounced such criticisms, saying the critics take the jokes too seriously.
Jay Sohn, a researcher at the Center for Women’s and Cultural Theory, said that people are increasingly becoming numb to the idea that they need to respect one another.
“It could lead to the idea that as long as people pay attention, the reason why they are laughing is not at all important, whether it is derogatory or not, whether it hurts others or not,” she said.
“That insensitivity results in the following reaction, ‘Why so serious? A joke is a joke.’”