The Grand Narrative

( “You can’t always save face” by qwurky)

Recent Focus on Korean Women’s Body Images

This was originally only going to be an introduction to another post, but then I noticed that it had been five days since the last one, and finishing the (now) next one may take almost as long again. So I just thought I’d let readers know what was happening.

I’ve started a new job recently, and although it doesn’t involve much more actual work per se, it does confine me to a wi-fi and power socket-less desk from 2:30-9:30pm five days a week. Previously I’d just written posts when I’d felt like it, but now with afternoons and evenings away from the computer, and mornings wisely spent with my daughter rather than the blog, then I’m going to do more planning, confine my writing to weekends, and arrange to stagger posts throughout the week. I would have started last weekend, but my Korean test distracted me.

But readers can be forgiven if they thought I already do formulate and stick to plans. For instance, if you look closely at what I’ve written in the past five weeks, you’ll find posts about:

• The increasingly sexual imagery used in soju advertisements (and then here and finally here)
• The relationship between Neo-Confucianism, Consumerism, and modern Korean women’s body images, in three parts (here, here and here)
• The Wondergirls phenomenon here and here
• What Lee Hyori’s breasts tell us about Korean celebrity culture
• Korean Women’s prevailing opinions on dating and dieting, exercise and cosmetics, and now this post.

In hindsight, it does seem like I’ve been steadily and dogmatically analysing, say, certain aspects of the objectification and commodification of women in Korea. I certainly wish I had been. Instead, I’ve merely written after being inspired by, respectively:

• Seeing soju advertisements on the street
• Digging out old journal articles from my MA notes
• Seeing a pizza advertisement on the TV
• Stupid promises to translate articles
• And finally reading things like this about Korean women’s attitudes to obesity.

So, although I have indeed written a lot about Korean women recently, approaching all of those individual topics on a whim and with a blank slate as it were has meant that it’s taken me a lot longer to see their connections than I might have otherwise. But still, you don’t write about related topics for five weeks without beginning to see some connections and make conclusions. And I did a lot of work on them years ago as part of my MA too, which writing recent posts has both helped me to remember and to see in a new light.

( “Allegory of the Cave” by sparkleice)

Finally then, I feel like I’m on the cusp of being able to provide my own grand narrative of events. Or in other words, I dare to suggest that there is some sociological macro-theory that underlies the objectification and commodification of modern Korean and Northeast Asian women, and endless discussions about how provocative the Wondergirls’ dancing is or isn’t, or if Korean women get double-eyelid surgery to look Caucasian or not, or if Korea’s abysmal Gender Empowerment Measure is related to the numbers of “Narrator Models” (나레이터모델) here somehow…they’re all such minutiae. Such hot air.

Epiphany

In a nutshell, I think that certain aspects of the objectification and commodification of women found in (primarily) Northeast Asian countries rely much more heavily on their shared Neo-Confucian notions of women’s “subjectless bodies” than previously thought.

Sorry if you were expecting something more revolutionary-sounding. But it is to me. To be more specific, I’ve realised how much the practices of using women’s bodies to sell everything from tuna fish, new stores, washing powder and, in the supreme irony, the sending of the first Korean woman into space, epitomise the pervasiveness of these notions in this part of the world, and ultimately the high prevalence of cosmetic surgery amongst those East Asian populations rich enough to afford it (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, HK, some Chinese coastal regions and Singapore) and, yes, the increasing acceptance of the sexual commodification of teenagers too, are both symptoms and causes of the same ethos too.   

(Source, found via Scribblings of the Metropolitician)

But while I say “Northeast Asian countries”, this idea of mine is based on observations I’ve made about primarily Korean women, and extrapolating those to the whole region and beyond obviously requires many caveats and qualifications. And of course, correlation doesn’t imply causation either. Still, I do know enough about Northeast Asia to boldy assert my claim, but rather than mere vibes from books and travels, now I need to do some basic fact-collecting before continuing.

(Source)

Research Plans

On top of all that, there is the 4th World Congress on Korea Studies calling for papers, to be held in September in Fukuoka. I have no illusions of a paper of mine on any subject being accepted (recently having to abandon my MA due to the expense, I’m still only a mere BA graduate), but everything I’ve written recently does make me want to forge ahead and write a 1000 word abstract on that above hypothesis of mine. If nothing else, it’ll provide me with a useful framework for the above research, so my blogging and pretentious and naive academic plans will nicely doevtail. But with the deadline for submitting papers only being 17 days away, I will have to work (and post here) much more quickly than I’m used to.

That’s the plan for the next 3 weeks or so then. Meanwhile, the post after next will be about the evidence that Minjeong Kim and Sharron Lennon provide that demonstrate the extent to which Korean women have indeed now incorporated a Western cultural ideal of beauty into their own body images. I’ll discuss some aspects of their article ”Content Analysis of Diet Advertisements: A Cross-National Comparison of Korean and U.S. Women’s Magazines” (Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, October 2006) much more directly than I did parts one and two, and will also address some counter-arguments that readers have made in comments too.

Until then!

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