Hawon Jung

THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD. It immediately jumped to the top of my TBR when it arrived in the mail, and that decision was entirely vindicated. This book filled in so much of the context I had been yearning for, covering not just the explosion of South Korea's feminist movement in the last five years, but tracing a lineage of women's movements going back to the late Joseon Dynasty.

I think this walked a fine balance between exhaustive and accessible, and I would wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone who has ever watched a k-drama or read a Korean book, anyone who has ever noticed the differences around gender expectations between Korean and other industrialized nations, and wondered how they got that way, or how women feel about them today.… (meer)

“The title, Flowers of Fire, was inspired by the Korean word bul-kkot, which literally translates to “fire flower” and refers to flame. In South Korean society (and elsewhere), women are often treated like flowers: pretty objects of desire to be seen and not heard. But these women have found ways to flare against the everyday sexism they experience, so I chose Flowers of Fire as a metaphor of their ongoing struggles—and their indestructible hope.”

In this fascinating and inspiring portrayal of the modern feminist movement in South Korea triggered by the phenomenon of #metoo, author Hawon Jung explores the legal, social and cultural changes in its wake, and the women who fought for them.

Jung credits the courage of lawyer Seo Ji-Hyun with starting the national conversation about #metoo when in 2018 she went public about her experience of sexual assault. A highly commended and well respected solicitor, Seo had lodged a complaint about been groped by a senior prosecutor in 2010. The investigation went nowhere and Seo reluctantly let the matter go until several years later that same man was promoted into the justice ministry and deliberately set out to ruin her career in revenge. In January 2018 a devastated Seo went public and her statement sparked a revolution.

Whereas South Korean women rarely made formal complaints about sexual harassment and/or assault, knowing that they would routinely be labeled a “flower snake”, and face both private and public shaming, in the weeks after Seo’s interview, nearly a hundred accusations of sexual misconduct were made against prominent men, exposing a similar pattern of misogyny, objectification, and abuse in nearly all corners of society, and women from all walks of life began to share their #metoo stories. A public event was organised in March 2018 in Gwanghwamun Plaza to allow ‘everyday women whose voices don’t make it to TV news’ to speak up and to listen, and ran for 2,018 minutes.

Hawon Jung explains how the ensuing movement stimulated some changes in government, law, workplaces, schools, and every day life. Seo, who feared the end of her legal career, was assigned to handle gender equality–related policies at the justice ministry and helped usher in several major reforms, including raising the age of sexual consent from thirteen to sixteen. The man who assaulted her was convicted of ‘abuse of power’, and was sentenced to two years jail but he was later acquitted in the Supreme Court.

Unfortunately, progress is continually challenged by men who prefer the status quo of the patriarchy. Jung examines the practice of revenge ‘counter accusations’, the ubiquity of ‘molka’ and other digital sex crimes, and the rise in conservative men decrying ‘kimchi girls’—a widely used slur defining a woman as selfish and unreasonable. Conservative politicians rant about the country’s falling population rate, ignoring the fact that gender inequality is the most consistently cited reason for women shunning marriage and childbirth.

The book also touches on a number of related issues such as the fight for compensation for the ‘comfort women’ forced into the system of camps during World War II to supply sexual services to soldiers, the high rate of cosmetic surgery among South Korean women, as well as the open discrimination against homosexual and transgender individuals. South Korea, which still lacks an act formally banning discrimination in the public sphere despite several attempts, still has a way to go in the pursuit of gender equality, as do most countries.

Insightful, thoughtful and engaging, I found it really interesting to learn how South Korea’s feminist movement and issues echoes and diverges from those in west, and recommend Flowers of Fire.… (meer)