This is a little tangential perhaps, but I was rather delighted to read this post in parallel with a post about medieval writer Christine de Pizan's defense of women:
"The Romance of the Rose was regarded as a comprehensive guide to courtship in medieval France and Christine saw the work and the attitudes it reflected as symptomatic of an abusive culture that allowed men to act with disregard for female wellbeing. In The Book of the City of Ladies and several earlier works, Christine describes what she sees as a widespread issue with male treatment of women. She laments the number of women who she has seen fall victim to deceptive and exploitative behaviour, abandoned thoughtlessly when a more appealing romantic prospect presented itself to their lover or even husband. She extolls the innate virtues of women, who she claims are by nature faithful, loving, and gentle: "Many times women are deceived, because they are simple, and do not think to assume the worst.” She then implores men to preserve these virtues by behaving chivalrously and protecting the weaker gender."
I'm not reading along with the book club, but I do know that sometimes these things *do* happen on a mass scale in the US. Thousands of cameras at Airbnbs have been seized!
I wonder if the spycamming is particularly rampant in Korea due to its strong honor-shame culture. For men who haven't lived up to their parents' or society's expectations, the opportunity to humiliate successful women is a sick way to palliate their own shame. I say this particularly because the men's comments cited in the book often gloried in that aspect of shamefulness and humiliation, not the voyeurism itself (which sounds more like what we expect in American culture from "peeping toms").
I could see that. I feel like that could explain part of the problem, but maybe not the part where very successful men are the ones creating/consuming spycams (K-pop stars, etc.) But honestly, I've been chewing on the question for a few days and I don't have any better theories for why it's *so bad* in Korea and not elsewhere.
This is a little tangential perhaps, but I was rather delighted to read this post in parallel with a post about medieval writer Christine de Pizan's defense of women:
"The Romance of the Rose was regarded as a comprehensive guide to courtship in medieval France and Christine saw the work and the attitudes it reflected as symptomatic of an abusive culture that allowed men to act with disregard for female wellbeing. In The Book of the City of Ladies and several earlier works, Christine describes what she sees as a widespread issue with male treatment of women. She laments the number of women who she has seen fall victim to deceptive and exploitative behaviour, abandoned thoughtlessly when a more appealing romantic prospect presented itself to their lover or even husband. She extolls the innate virtues of women, who she claims are by nature faithful, loving, and gentle: "Many times women are deceived, because they are simple, and do not think to assume the worst.” She then implores men to preserve these virtues by behaving chivalrously and protecting the weaker gender."
https://open.substack.com/pub/weirdmedievalguys/p/the-coolest-medieval-woman-youve?r=6loo5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I'm not reading along with the book club, but I do know that sometimes these things *do* happen on a mass scale in the US. Thousands of cameras at Airbnbs have been seized!
Here's a 5 min clip from CNN via youtube on the investigation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqQJ2FxB988
This is truly past my normal level of disgust. Please, Lord, STOP THIS! Amen?
I wonder if the spycamming is particularly rampant in Korea due to its strong honor-shame culture. For men who haven't lived up to their parents' or society's expectations, the opportunity to humiliate successful women is a sick way to palliate their own shame. I say this particularly because the men's comments cited in the book often gloried in that aspect of shamefulness and humiliation, not the voyeurism itself (which sounds more like what we expect in American culture from "peeping toms").
I could see that. I feel like that could explain part of the problem, but maybe not the part where very successful men are the ones creating/consuming spycams (K-pop stars, etc.) But honestly, I've been chewing on the question for a few days and I don't have any better theories for why it's *so bad* in Korea and not elsewhere.