microaggression
우리가 매일매일 겪고 있는 이야기
영어 글쓰기 수업에서 마지막으로 고쳐서 냈던 microaggression에 대한 글.
Identity Matters라는 주제로 개인이 가지고 있는 다양한 정체성과 그 정체성을 폄하하고 공격하는 세상에 대해 많이 배웠다. 내가 주로 썼던 주제들은 페미니즘, 몸에 대한 자유와 긍정, 가족이었다.
전공이 전공이다 보니 글쓰기보다는 말하기 위주로 학교 생활을 해왔어서 그런지 영어로 글 쓰는 것에 자신감이 많이 없었는데 이번 기회를 통해 흥미와 자신감을 다시 되찾았다.
Final revision은 예림이가 정말 꼼꼼히 봐줘서 자연스러워졌다. 내 영원한 영어 선생님 옒...
너무 좋은 수업을 졸업하기 전에 들을 수 있어서 행복하고 감사하다.
I’M NO EXCEPTION
“Happy Birthday Kaylin! How do you feel about being a Christmas cake?” For those who are not familiar, a concept exists in Korean society comparing women’s age to Christmas cake. Christmas cakes sell like crazy from December 23 to 25, but no one looks for them any longer since December 26. Comparing a woman’s age to a Christmas cake comes from the idea that women are devalued as they age and when they finally turn 26, as on the day after Christmas, no one (and especially, no man) will look for them. The idea sounds like an utter nonsense, but this expression, though meant to be a joke, is often used toward women. I was no exception. My face started to burn with embarrassment hearing this phrase from a friend. Pretending that everything was okay, I responded, “Oh wow, I’m surprised that you are using the somewhat trite expression.” It was my birthday dinner, and I didn’t want to disrupt the cheerful atmosphere.
I represent a common Korean single woman in her 20s. What I have experienced throughout my lifetime is never extraordinary or extreme. When I was nine, my classmate teased me and pinched my cheeks, and I cried. My teacher said, to console me, “There’s no need to cry. Maybe he likes you. That’s why he wants your attention.” She wouldn’t have said the same thing if I were a boy. This exemplifies how much we were trained to be unsure about the distinction between affection and violence from a young age. When I was 13, I started to question why our family should visit my father’s side of the family on the first day of Korean Thanksgiving or Lunar New Years and why my mom must wake up at dawn, get dressed and run into the kitchen to prepare food for ancestral rites of her husband’s family while my dad’s family idle about, usually sitting on the couch watching TV. We were getting used to an environment where doubts and questions about discrimination have fallen on deaf ears. Up to this day, I was a bystander. Being a bystander doesn’t stir up trouble in my relationship with others including family, friends and random people I come across.
Korea is entering its most progressive era so far where a wave of feminism is rolling across the country. A whole section for books about feminism exists in every grand bookstore and celebrities who make any comments that have sexist connotations are asked to publicly apologize on their social media accounts. Few presidential candidates rally with the slogan, “The first feminist president of Korea.” The movement, however, does not always go smoothly. This new wave of feminism goes against Confucian values that have been ruling this country for thousands of years. In addition, the country’s divided nature and the military culture that comes as a result caused a vertical hierarchy in most human relationships. Considering these circumstances, as the demand for awareness of feminism grows, it is maddening to learn how feminism is being dismissed as an “instant culture” or “the story of enlightened wannabe woman.” Such perceptions have aggravated over time. A member of a female K-pop group was condemned for just reading a best-selling feminist book while she was at the airport. Raising one’s voice in supporting human rights as a matter, of course, requires considerable courage. The pressure to pass as someone who is not a feminist in a Korean society left me silent.
Being silent about gender inequality comes from my lackadaisical state of mind to avoid possible troubles in relationships with others. While reading malicious comments on the female idol group member who disclosed her identity as a feminist by saying, “Girls can do anything,” I was also afraid that these comments could be from anyone I encountered every single day. Indeed, not many people will yell at me right under my nose if I identified myself as a feminist. But as soon as I disclose my identity as a feminist, I’m also taking risks of being imposed of a possible negative reputation. Among my parents’ generation, feminism is understood with a negative connotation with the help of countless news reports that claim how “too sensitive young women” promote a clash with men. I remained silent. I felt as if I was a 14-year-old teenager who stands by and watches the scene of bullying. However, my silence was broken by a piece of news I heard about my high school.
Police began an investigation after reports of videos secretly filmed the inside of a high school female dormitory had spread online. The videos were a total of approximately 3 hours long, and I could recognize from the blurred screenshots of the video that the dormitory was where I had lived for three years during high school. The news caused a great sensation. Unlike countless leaked videos that were filmed secretly by hidden cams, the video from my high school was child pornography, since all the girls in the video must’ve been under 18, which requires stronger punishment. The news was saying that the video was shared through Tumblr and there were more than 5000 comments asking for more. My immediate response hearing that news was to check all the screenshots to see if I was in that video. What if someone filmed me changing clothes? What if someone recognizes my face and body? My fingers scrolling down the webpage trembled with anxiety, fear, and anger. The group chat with my high school friends was flooded with anger too. I was no exception. No one was no exception.
The constant repetition of violence and discrimination has blunted my response to it. While reading countless articles about hidden cams leaked online and, hearing sexist commentary from a television show, I remained silent because I had a vague notion that I wasn’t and wouldn’t be the main character, the victim, of that story. Everyone involved had lost their patience with this crazy situation. The Facebook page was created among the alumni to sign a petition for a thorough investigation; people were asked to report any kind of sexual harassment or discrimination they experienced at school. After I signed the petition, I started to write my story and clicked the button that says “anonymous.”
Some of my friends posted on Facebook a long paragraph showing their frustration about the incident. I liked the posts but couldn’t comment on them. Everyone seemed to be hesitant about disclosing their thoughts though we were dealing with a simple matter of respecting human rights and dignity. And I was one of them. I wanted to say how women encounter countless absurd sexual discrimination since our birth. I wanted to say how gender roles are fixed with bias. But I was afraid of disclosing my thoughts and my identity as a feminist and how that might possibly disadvantage me. I kept pressing ‘like’ on the Facebook posts to show my support but couldn’t write a comment or make a post of my own. That was my first attempt to break the silence.
I’m making steady efforts to announce my identity as a feminist. Perhaps my disclosure will serve as a stimulus for people like me to proudly talk about gender inequality and promote feminism. If I could go back in time to my 26th birthday, I would confidently say to the guy who compared my age to a Christmas cake: “Thank you for your misogynistic comment on my birthday.”
