, suggests women to rearrange their way of life anew. Professor Kim, who met in the lab on the 4th, is smiling during an interview. Senior Reporter Chang Chul-gyu [email protected]” alt=”Professor Hyun-mi Kim (Cultural Anthropology), a professor at Yonsei University who recently published lately <페미니스트 라이프스타일>Hyun-mi Kim, a professor at Yonsei University (Cultural Anthropology) who published the book, proposes a new rearrangement of the way of life for women. Professor Kim, who met in the lab on the 4th, is smiling during an interview. Senior Reporter Chang Chul-gyu [email protected]
Disasters deepen the valley of inequality. The changes that have come to women since Corona 19 reveal their cross-section. Between February and April 2020, at the beginning of the spread of Corona 19, the male employment rate declined by 1.8 percentage points (71% → 69.2%), while the number of women decreased by 2.7 percentage points (52.4% → 49.7%). During the same period, the number of women on temporary leave increased by 472,000, 1.7 times more than that of men (280,000). Last year, the number of employed males decreased by 82,000 from the previous year, while the number of females decreased by 137,000 during the same period. This is a number that shows that women have been eliminated faster and more often than men in the labor market. Among the employed, the proportion of temporary workers who can easily’cut’ is doubled by women (30.2%) than men (15.5%), but the reality seems to have had a big impact. The disparity in care is also revealed. The Seoul Northwestern Workplace Mother Support Center released a survey result in December last year that 48.6% of working women who retired after Corona 19 cited the’child care gap’ as the reason for their retirement. Unstable jobs with easy dismissal, disproportionate burden of care, social isolation, depression and anxiety linger around women. In particular, women in 2030, who have sparked and spread the popularization of feminism since 2015, called the’feminist reboot’, sometimes complain of helplessness and exhaustion from the slow social change. Professor Hyun-mi Kim (Cultural Anthropology), a professor at Yonsei University who recently published a book (Banbi), suggests such women to rearrange their way of life anew. From May to July 2018, this book is based on lectures at’Jummane’, a community that helps women self-sufficiency, and in this book, he travels across a wide range of areas, including patriarchy, labor, consumerism, care, masculinity, family, and digital technology. In search of how to live as a feminist inside. The’feminist lifestyle’ he refers to is not a yangbiology or dichotomy, but rather, an active task of asking yourself what is important and joyful, how to set up an attitude of life and view of the world, how to use one’s energies and for what. “It is a process of not relying on consumption, worrying about sustainability, and extending my rights to everyone’s rights”. What makes this possible is “talking to the women around me and making a relationship.” It is also necessary to create an autonomous community that shares the basis of recovery and self-esteem based on’sister love’. How can such a community be created and what changes should follow in society? On the 4th, I met Professor Kim at the Yonsei University campus in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, and asked’how to rearrange my work and life’.
Why aren’t there any feminists around me?
―The obituary of former Sergeant Byun Hee-soo, who had to leave the military for a sex change operation, was delivered yesterday (3rd). “But I drank some alcohol yesterday (I don’t like my heart). A new week, Kim Ki-hong, co-organizing chairman of the Jeju Queer Culture Festival, and Sergeant Byeon passed away one after another. They’re even the ones who (showing themselves) said,’I’ll fight for LGBT rights to the end’. It’s a social killing. I feel how painful it must have been. Many people who are determined to fight for justice in the public realm become lonely, anxious, and afraid when they face words that criticize their existence with malicious or intimidating ways. What were they like? How can a 23-year-old fight alone by defeating institutional barriers and social hatred in a society where there is no generosity, tolerance, and respect for the lives of others? When I think about the future, which is unlikely to be different, my minds that I hold countless times would have collapsed in an instant.” ―Isn’t feminism remarkable in recent years, emphasizing’biological women’ and excluding and separating LGBTI people? “Since 2015, feminism has been popularized and has grown explosively, but at the same time, there are areas where the focus has been simplified. Due to dating violence, illegal photography, and digital sexual violence, the fact that’victim’ became the main basis for feminist identity, and’feminism is fighting men’ has created a single and clear definition. As a result, there is a side where it is difficult to (discuss) progress beyond my experience.” As Professor Kim said, feminist reboots spread in connection with women’s anxiety and fear, based on their experiences of violence. He said, “As a woman in her twenties directly or indirectly experienced being photographed illegally in a toilet, restaurant, library, etc., anxiety and fear that anyone could be exposed to attacks accelerated. “I fully understand and empathize with their emotional state,” he said. “The act of deciding to cut off the sense of other forms of discrimination is not feminist because the self-damage and self-anxiety are so strong.” For him, feminism is “a generous philosophy and life that does not hierarchize other people or treat them as commodities, reach a very energetic state of emotion, argue intensely, but do not go to immediate disbelief in humans.” ―How do you see the difference between feminists who are active mainly in SNS compared to before? “I was surprised when I went to the Hyehwa Station and Gwanghwamun protests (condemning illegal shooting). It is said that it is because hierarchies should not be created according to age and position, but they did not speak to each other and shouted only according to slogans. It is said that this is because when a person is exposed, a hierarchy is formed according to age or status, and egalitarianism between women is broken. In fact, the feeling of solidarity is stronger than hierarchicalization. It doesn’t just exist on the Internet, it’s empowering to meet live feminists (around me), understand each other’s differences, and explore various solutions. Conflict will also arise, but through the process, it will become hard and the pores will build up.” ―So, did you point out that communicating with the women around you is the most important? “Yes. The reason I wrote this book is that many feminists are active on Twitter, etc., but when they are alone (offline), they appeal,’Why are there no feminists around me, and should I fight alone and be stigmatized?’ If you don’t learn or train how to live in solidarity, more women will feel anxious and isolated. The law doesn’t solve all the very subtle and persistent violence that women experience, and society’s perceptions are not changing well. I think that when you listen to and face other people’s experiences, spend time together, and understand the social structure, you have the power to create solutions.”
Everyone has a need for care
As important as this practice of women is the change in the public sphere. Professor Kim’s most important task is the transition to a’care society’ where everyone performs care, and democratization of the family by dismantling the power structure within the family. “Mainstream economics refers to numerical growth through production and wage labor as’development’. In this process, the contribution of the ecosystem and women’s care labor has been ignored.” “You have to be aware that this is the result of exploitation beyond what is possible.” ―In the Corona 19 situation, the importance of caring work was revealed, but it is difficult to find details on how to reorganize caring work in the’post-corona’ countermeasure. Telemedicine or’Digital New Deal’ is the main content. “It’s a typical neoliberal solution. The act of taking care of a patient with a person’s body and emotions is an indispensable part, and it is said that a’care robot’ will take charge of the future. If you invest in mechanical equipment for telemedicine, etc., you have to earn that much profit, which in turn promotes consumerization of patients and marketization of medical care. The climate crisis also needs to think about ways to adjust growth to the lowest possible level and reduce ecological destruction, but it is creating a huge market as a’new growth engine’. It’s a serious problem that requires long-term planning and action, but I wonder if only a plausible slogan remains.”
Professor Kim explained the reason for writing the book, saying, “Many feminists are active on Twitter, etc., but when you are alone, you can feel anxious and isolated.” Senior Reporter Chang Chul-gyu [email protected]
―As many women quit their jobs for caring during Corona 19, women are always faced with a dual duty of’work and care’. “As women’s desire to become competent workers grows stronger, women also have a strong tendency to’all-in’ to the workplace. I think this is the road to gender equality. But if men don’t share their family or social care obligations, women work two or three times more to fill the gap. Then, as they are exhausted, they fall into self-pity and are forced to choose to give up either. Everyone has a desire to be cared for and a desire to engage in economic activities at the same time. In other words, they have a dual identity of being a worker and a’carer’ at the same time. I think that the role of politics, law, and society is to encourage the exertion of both desires (in balance) without sacrificing one of them excessively. I am not asking individuals to do it on their own, and they do not consider the care work as a woman’s work as it is now and buy it with money.” ―Why don’t men participate in caring? “In fact, the need for men to be cared for and the amount they actually receive is enormous. The problem is, you have to think that other people have the same need and acknowledge the’mutuality’ of care. I can’t just satisfy my need for care with the work or emotions of others. For a long time, society has treated caring or caring work as insignificant and inexpensive. Men have no obligation to care and have no opportunity to learn since childhood. Especially in a situation where the number of single-person households increases, I think that regardless of gender, we need to change the attitude of our lives so that we can learn to care for ourselves, the people around us, and even nature.” ―What do you think the’care society’ should look like? “Caring is not a woman’s essential role, and it is not something that care workers should do. When it comes to socializing caring, the state has soon solved it by expanding the caring market, but I don’t think this is the shape of caring society. I think a caring society is a society that promotes the right to live in a social environment in which anyone must practice such care for a lifetime and continue to learn and train the meaning of good care. I think that if there are a large number of individuals who take good care of themselves and take care of others and natural life, gender inequality, excessive consumerism and the climate crisis can be solved.” He believes that it is necessary to introduce the’one-person work-care citizen model’ that exists in Northern Europe such as Norway. This defaults to the fact that an individual is a worker who works and is in a position to care for someone, including himself. If you need to play a caring role in your life, you have a flexible system that allows you to receive a basic wage and switch to a’carer’ and then return to work. “In order for such a system to be introduced, a stable position in the labor market is essential. In Korean society, both becoming workers or taking care of them are insecure, precarious, and economically vulnerable, with neoliberal flexibility in labor. Can you live like this?” he asked.
‘Men who are afraid of’the price is cut off’
―In addition to the transition to a caring society, he emphasized that’democratization of the family’ is really important. “I have interviewed single male households in their 40s. When I asked what the biggest fear was, they said in common,’I can’t leave behind the next generation, so the cost is cut off’. None of the single-person households women have ever said that. I felt that men really value the’paternal lineage myths’ that make their existence permanent. Even in Confucian countries, there are not many places where the patriarchal system has been announced like Korea. Compared to the pace of economic growth and democratization, the family system, which constitutes a person’s affiliation and identity, is the most unequal. The family is also a place where people of different sexes and ages do relationship training. However, not learning how to communicate and understand through the most important family members in my life, but learn power, dependence, suppression, instrumentation, consumption behavior, etc., so that customs that have been imbued with the body will not change easily even when they come to the public realm.” ―The Korean patriarchy has had a great influence on men too, hasn’t it? “Since the 1970s, militarism and capitalism have been combined in the public sphere. Paternal capitalism was a development strategy, so those who benefited from that strategy are still in positions of politics or entrepreneurs. A generation has to change. The patriarchal system is a system that continuously humiliates many men and makes them obedient in order to create a hierarchy between men as well as gender and age. There are also many men who have been victims of patriarchal families and workplaces, but in some ways, women who are shouting equality and human rights are playing proxy wars. Men also have to think about a lifestyle that doesn’t settle for patriarchy so that they can preserve their personality.” Through his book, Professor Kim examines the causes of the isolation that women feel, socially and historically, while guiding the ways in which women can create solidarity and intimacy in a way free from patriarchy. In particular, it is said that let’s imagine a community where women break out of the frame of’feminine less women’ and establish a lasting relationship with each other, play, share and talk with men, strangers, and non-human servants, and seek recovery and self-esteem. The starting point for this is not to browse through social media, but to meet. “I have to ask a lot of questions about whether I am living well against a familiar convention. Understand what tacit rules my existence is driven by within the workplace, family, online space, and ecosystem. In a society prone to exploitation, it is necessary to take the center of myself, to talk about how I want to live, to seek relationships, and to meet and interact with similar people.” By Park Da-hae, staff reporter