The invisible gender inequality toward women, how does women fight for their rights in South Korea..
The invisible gender inequality toward women, how does women fight for their rights in South Korea..
The invisible gender inequality toward women, how does women fight for their rights in South Korea.
Introduction
Gender equality is a topic that is commonly discussed in modern society. Although almost every region states that women should have equal rights with men, there is still some invisible gender inequality that exists especially in some Asian countries. This paper will analyze some K-pop (Korean pop music) singers’ cases uses Benjamin’s theories of mass media to highlight weaknesses in earlier understandings of gender relations.
In March 2019, Korean society was shocked by the case of a K-pop sex scandal. Jung Joon-young, who is a famous K-pop star had secretly filmed himself having sex with women and then shared these videos with his friends in chatrooms without any consent. The news wasfirst reported by theSeoul Broadcasting System (SBS), which is one of the mostauthoritative broadcasting companies in South Korea(“Jung Joon-young: K-pop Star Quits” 2019). He was arrested by South Korea police shortly after, wasaccused of being part of an online group chat that shared sexually explicit videos of women without their knowledge or consent. After a few days, South Korea police alleged that K-pop idol and Big Bang star Seungri (who had been alsocharged with supplying prostitutes to potential business investors), rock band F.T. Island member Choi Jong-hoon, and boy band HIGHLIGHT member Yong Junhyungwere also in Jung’s group chat, and shared, watched or joked about those sex videos (Jeong and Robinson,2019).The scandal of Jung Joon-young made a great disturbance,the South Korea police finally found that Jung has illegally
Women in South Korea were angered Jung’s cases, but this is not the first time that they felt offened by the sex video problem. In October 2018, a famoussinger and actress Goo Hara alleged that her ex-boyfriend hadthreatened to upload footage of his and Hara’s sexual relations on the web after they broke up. “When Hara discovered that ‘C’ was in possession of video footage containing such content, she sought ‘C’ out and got down on her knees, begging him not to spread the footage online, reported ‘Dispatch’. The media outlet stated that Hara on her knees was captured via CCTV, in the clip below.”(Beansss, 2018) Thanks to thecelebrity media effects, the Jung Joon-young and Goo Hara’s casesspread quickly and wide to almost all over the world. Both two case generates large focus and
The celebrities’ privet life attracts public interest more than their achievement, discussed by Graeme Turner, celebrities perform productive social functions because they elaborate the definition of the individual. “celebrity as one of the fundamental mechanisms for constructing and maintaining the discursive linkages between consumer capitalism, democracy, and individualism”.(Turner) Then turning to the K-pop stars’ cases, their celebrity attracts public focus on gender inequality, and generate this problem to a social discussion.