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POLL & COMMENTS
COREAN MALE/ COREAN FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 05:23:18 PM
to reflect the 100 most recent valid responses.)
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
ka,
Thank you for clarifying the rape issue. Yes, I would agree with you that rape statistics are ultimately skewed. What I reported was from having watched a Korean special on rape, hosted by a woman who was raped. It was really interesting because she had actually made an attempt to make Koreans more knowledgeable about it, and that it ultimately wasn't a woman's fault if it occured. I think her trying to reinforce that rape wasn't the victim's fault was important, because individuals tend to perceive the victim (most likely a woman) in a more negative fashion after rape occurs. Thus, a woman would begin to think, "something is wrong with me" and transfer the guilt onto herself. If people were more open and understanding about it, things would run so much smoother.
And yes, the conservative way it is approached does nothing but cover up an issue that is waiting to explode. The whole intimacy thing between males and females is strongly discouraged like you've mentioned. Ah, yes...I remember when my parents used to say "you can't sleep over at your friends house." And then I'd ask why my brother could. And then they'd reply, "Because he's a boy. No more questions!" I think the basis for that is that parents think that if the society was more open and liberal about male/female relationships, more kids at a younger age would be having sex and creating more problems. And of course, they would probably think that because of those "totally accurate" U.S. movies that portray junior high schoolers, feeling each other up on both sides of the hallway in front of the principal, making babies left and right.
I just find it funny that, once Koreans enter college, a lot of Korean parents expect their children to automatically meet a boyfriend/girlfriend just like that--as if college is the "rite of passage". I just picture these kids standing at the start line of a race for 18 years of their life, and then the parents shoot off the starting gun at college--"Wait for it, wait for it...ready, set,....,go!" *Sigh*
so_it_goes
Thursday, April 18, 2002 at 19:55:47 (PDT)
so_it_goes--
I wanted to follow up on the rape statistics in Korea. By government figures, reported cases of rape is less then 10X for places like Canada or Australia in some years. Of course, there probably is SEVERE under-reporting in Korean rape. If you compare this figure to Japan or Singapore, it is very high, the rate of report in those countries are even lower. However in Japan, there is a common prejudice that rape goes on rampant in Korea. But to put things into perspective, there are about twice as much murders that goes on in Japan then Korea, population adjusted. Do Japanese people worry less that they might be murdered in Korea when they visit? Probably not. They probably, like all people in the world, thinks that these types of problems are endemic to poorer regions of the world, while their own backyard is somehow immune. The funny thing is, while Japanese people think that Korea is littered with rape cases, many Koreans think the same thing about Japan based on sexually violent Japanese pop-culture. The point is, often we come to conclusions based mainly on images in media rather then fact.
Right here in the United States, we think that the rate of rape and murder in South Africa is ghastly, meanwhile we don't think twice about the number of children killed by daddy's firearms, number of people killed by drunk drivers, number of people killed by tobacco, and number of American men who travel abroad to illicit underage prostitutes, etc.
Not too long ago, an African American military service man was accused of rape in Okinawa: later the accuser recanted, and said that she was very embarrassed that she was "caught in the act." Unfortunately, this type of false accusation greatly undermines the countless number of women in asia who are the "silent victims." (not to mention, how it blatantly endorses racism) More over, because of the issue of date rape, sometimes a woman who was raped do not acknowledge it as being rape. (the type of women who were raped, but then feels guilt afterwards and asks herself, "may be I ASKED for it.) So what is the true figure for rape in Korea? Nobody knows. But it's probably higher, but the problem is, we can't really know how much higher it is in places like Japan, China, or Taiwan in order to compare the figures in Korea.
I think the Korean approach to this problem has been extreme conservatism. In a sense to implement the old confucian belief that boys and girls over the age of seven, shouldn't sit in the same room. Essentially to reduce the interaction between man and woman, thereby eliminating the chance of rape--this is the same reason why your Korean parent's will say, "Don't go over a guy's house, that's scandalous!" I think the opposite approach is far more constructive. If we Koreans were more sexually liberal, then women would feel less shame in reporting the crime, and furthermore if we were less concerned about old traditions and values of patriarchy, we might succeed in taking the violence out of love-making. Just some ideas here.
ka
Tuesday, April 16, 2002 at 11:50:32 (PDT)
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