South Korea's Online Feminism Movement: Megalia
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Responding to Misogyny, Reciprocating Hate Speech - South Korea's Online Feminism Movement: Megalia The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Lee, Wonyun. 2019. Responding to Misogyny, Reciprocating Hate Speech - South Korea's Online Feminism Movement: Megalia. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37366046 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Author Responding to Misogyny, Reciprocating Hate Speech South Korea’s Online Feminism Movement: Megalia A Thesis in the Field of Anthropology for the Degree of Master of Arts Harvard University November 2019 Copyright 2019 [Wonyun Lee] Acknowledgements The year in Harvard for me had been an incredibly rewarding experience. Looking back, I cannot believe how much I have learned and grown. This is, for the most part, thanks to my two advisors: Pr. Arthur Kleinman and Pr. Byron Good. I learned so much from them. I have the greatest respect for Arthur Kleinman for his academic rigorousness. His classes were intellectually insightful and resolute with political engagement. His commitment to academic integrity taught me to become a better anthropologist. I express my deepest gratitude to Byron Good, for his classes as well as many hours of our personal conversations. His penetrating wisdom shaped and refined my thesis. He taught me how I could retain my political compassion, without losing academic impartiality and coherence. He gifted me with immeasurable support and encouragement. I also thank Zoe Eddy, who helped me with structuring and refining my thesis. Her countless comments clarified and elaborated my arguments. I also thank Pr. Nicholas Harkness who took the time to read through my thesis. His astute remarks made me rewrite the whole second chapter. Linguistic analysis in the second chapter was brought forth thanks to his help. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Linda Thomas and Marianne Fritz, who were always there to help me through the administrative processes in Harvard. I thank Dr. Michael Hurt, my teacher and my friend, who was there to listen and help develop my ideas. He also helped proofread the latest edition of my thesis. I also express my sincere appreciation to many more of my friends and colleagues with whom I have dialogued. They gifted me with valuable ideas. It was thanks to them, that I was always able to bring in novel questions and perspectives to my thesis. Lastly, I would like to appreciate feminist scholars in South Korea for being the closest ally and critique for Megalian movement. Their works provided a substantial base for interpreting online misogyny in South Korea. I firmly believe that their constant dialogue with online feminist activists will help South Korean feminism move forward. I celebrate the writing of this thesis with my Megalian friends in Korea. Kim Anonym who connected us with each other during the publication of Rootless Feminism; Kuk Ji Hye, who always so boldly speak and write, and who shared with me her philosophical understanding of Megalian movement; and Sunyeung Chopark, who had the courage to publish Rootless Feminism, in which for the first time Megalians were allowed to publicly speak about our experiences; and many more innumerable Megalians who created Megalia, fought and are still fighting against misogyny. 3 Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………… 7 Chapter 1. Online Misogyny and the Birth of Megalia Introduction……………………………………………………………………….…… 13 Internet Culture ………………………………………………………………………. 14 Online Misogyny in South Korean Cyberspace ……………………………………... 15 Paranoid Misogyny: the Military, Money, and Sex …………………………………. 17 Online Construction of Strategic Misogyny ………………………………………… 27 The Birth of Megalia ………………………………………………………………… 35 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………. 39 Chapter 2. The “Mirroring” Tactic and the Megalian Fight Documenting Herstory …………………………………………………………………41 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………… 44 Discovering Misogyny …………………………………………………………………45 1) Exhibition 2) Problematization Responding to Misogyny ……………………………………………………………….53 1) Repetition: Display it 2) Reapproriation: Take it Back 3) Reciprocation: Give it Back Mirroring Speech: Reciprocation through Semiotic Inversions ……………………… 57 1) Directional Inversion 2) Attributional Inversion 3) Moral Inversion Mirroring Speech for Men: Transgressive ………………………………………… 69 Mirroring Speech for Women: Humorous ………………………………………… 76 Not Feminism, Megalianism ……………………………………………………… 79 4 March into Reality ………………………………………………………………… 81 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… 81 Chapter 3. Affective Politics in Megalia Introduction ………………………………………………………………………... 83 Affective Politics in Mobilizing Political Resistance ……………………………… 85 Affective Trajectory of a Megalian ………………………………………………… 87 1) Endorsement of Men-Fear 2) Liberation from Men-Fear: Indignation 3) Intermediary Affective State: Immersio-pathy Fine Line Between Indignation and Hate ……………………………………………. 94 Case Study 1: The Affective Trajectory of Megalian Activists ……………………… 95 Case Study 2: The Affective Trajectory as Guided by the Megalians ……………… 97 An Autoethnography of Megalian Affective Politics …………………………………99 Conclusion …………………………..……………………………………………… 102 Chapter 4. Violent, Immoral, and Unethical Introduction ………………………………………………………………………… 104 Violent Misogyny and Violent Mirroring ……………………………………………105 Rhetoric of Violence, Violence of Rhetoric ………………………………………… 107 The Making of the “Violent Megalia” ………………………………………………. 110 Between Misogynistic Morality and Feminist Ethics ……………………………… 113 Against the Feminist Ethics: Fighting Against Men vs Misogyny ………………………………………………… 115 Against the Misogynistic Morality: What Did Megalians Mean by “Discard Morality”? …………………………..…… 117 Recalibrating the Margins of Morality and Ethics ………………………………… 119 Deconstruction of Misogynistic Morality and Feminist Ethics ……………………. 121 End of the Movement ……………………………………………………………… 124 Nevertheless, Towards a Path to Reconciliation ……………………………………126 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………… 128 5 Figures ……………………………………………………………………………………… 129 Appendix …………………………………………………………………………………… 142 Reference ……………………………………………………………………………………. 149 6 Introduction Vignette A-1 “Retarded Feminism is more dangerous than ISIS”. February 2nd 2015, a column was published in a women’s magazine on a pop columnist Kim Tae Hoon. This was after a missing 18-year-old boy was identified to have allegedly joined ISIS out of hatred of feminism. On October 5th 2014, the missing boy had tweeted: “this is an era where men are reverse- discriminated,” “and I hate feminism, that is why I like ISIS” (Lee, 2015). Vignette A-2 May 17th 2016, a schizophrenic male with persecutory delusions against women murdered an unacquainted female victim in a public toilet in Gangnam. In response to organized protests of violence against women, the Seoul police department announced: “One must distinguish between hate crimes and violence by the mentally ill. This case is one of violence by the mentally ill” (Seong, 2016). The perpetrator, nonetheless, had confessed upon arrest: “I conducted the crime because women disrespected me.” Before long, another random assault against a woman occurred in Busan on May 25th. When questioned as to the motive behind the offense, the accused responded: “You should already know (why I did this)” (Jeon, 2016). Vignette B In 2015 November 26th, a female politician fundraised over 10 million KRW (approximately USD $ 10,000) within 24 hours (Singh, 2016) after urging the police department to reinforce investigation against the “revenge porn” industry. South Korean president Moon, then a candidate, pledged to become a “feminist president” on February 16th 2017 (Park, 2017). Sales of feminism publications approximately sextupled in 2017 with 63,196 copies, compared to 11,628 copies in 2015 according to Kyobo Book Center’s estimate, one of the largest bookstore chains in Korea (Kim, 2018). In 2018, a total of over 300,000 women had joined the feminism protest against the “revenge porn” industry that year (Park, 2019). 7 What happened in South Korea since 2015? A Korean woman would say: Megalia happened. An ephemeral but revolutionary movement that emerged in a corner of South Korean cyberspace that dominated social discourse between 2015 and 2017. The Megalia website has since been shut down. Yet, its aftermath still largely impacts the gender discourse in South Korea. My thesis is sort of a digital ethnography of the Megalian movement. It was a pioneering form of political resistance which completely restructured gender discourse in South Korea, demonstrating unprecedented potential in countering online misogyny that pervaded Korean cyberspace. However, there are questions around whether Megalia should be considered as part of the feminist movement or as something completely new. This is because of a peculiar tactic Megalians adopted to fight misogyny. This tactic is called “mirroring.” Megalians began to parrot back misogynistic hate speech at men. Megalia created a lexicon of mirroring language which semiotically inverted the traditional semantics of misogyny. These militant activists resisted remaining as the victim.