However should you do, there’s an actual hazard you may begin pondering and performing like one…

Estimated studying time: 8 minutes. Photograph (cropped) by Raka Miftah @Pexels.

So, I lastly have the elevator pitch about what feminism is.

Pursuing equality of alternative. For all sexes and sexual orientations.

It’s crude, however I believe it’d do. Within the second, there’d most likely be so little time to work with whoever could be asking, and a lot hostility from some, that my precedence could be getting them to acknowledge any inequality even exists in any respect.

First then, I’d broach that totally different sexes paying totally different costs for primarily the identical services or products, or the identical worth for an inferior model of them, is clearly unfair.

(I wouldn’t waste any extra time on anybody who couldn’t even concede that.)

I’d wish to tread fastidiously subsequent although. Perhaps my inquirer wouldn’t know—or hadn’t deigned to know—that there are such a lot of examples of this ‘pink tax’ on the market, so named as a result of it’s overwhelmingly girls that undergo from them.

Right here the outdated me, uncertain about find out how to make that case in such a restricted time, would most likely bounce the gun by explaining how simply being indignant about that discrimination, and eager to do one thing about it, completely makes somebody a feminist in his guide.

The brand new me although, is aware of a case for that would wish to truly be made first, and likewise how poisonous that f-word is to so many individuals outdoors his circles—particularly in Korea. So, he would confine himself to offering one or two fast examples, and think about {that a} stable achievement for 2 minutes. Certainly it will be more practical to let his inquirer put two and two collectively themselves about them later, he’d motive, than beat them over the pinnacle with their apparent takeaways.

Photograph by Andy Music on Unsplash.

Take these two useful current Korean examples for example, courtesy of an April 22, 2024 contribution to the “중앙로365” column within the Busan Ilbo by Byeon Jeong-hee, standing consultant of the ‘Salim’ Ladies’s Human Rights Assist Heart (my emphasis). Each additionally occur to be about points expensive to my coronary heart, for causes I’ll clarify in a second:

얼마 전 부동산에도 ‘핑크택스(Pink Tax)’ 현상이 일어나고 있다는 기사를 읽었다. ‘여성 전용’ 원룸이나 ‘여성 안심 구역’에 위치한 부동산 매물의 월세나 보증금이 다른 매물에 비해 비싸게 책정되어 있다는 것이다. 부동산 정보 플랫폼에서 제공한 자료에 따르면 서울 주요 10개 대학 중 원룸 월세는 이화여자대학교가 월 71만 원으로 가장 비쌌는데, 대부분 여성 전용 원룸 밀집 지역이었다. 부산에서도 부산대 인근 여성 전용 원룸과 일반 원룸을 비교한 결과, 별도 보안 장치가 추가된 것이 아님에도 불구하고 여성 전용 원룸의 월세가 약 20만 원 비쌌다는 취재 결과가 있었다. 때문에 주로 여성들이 느끼는 범죄에 대한 두려움이나 안전에 대한 불안을 이용한 마케팅이자 핑크택스라는 지적이다.

“Not way back, I learn an article saying that the ‘Pink Tax’ phenomenon was occurring in actual property….The month-to-month hire or deposit for actual property properties positioned in ‘female-only’ studio flats or ‘female-safe zones’ are set at a better worth in comparison with different properties. In line with information offered by an actual property data platform, among the many 10 main universities in Seoul, Ewha Womans College had the best month-to-month hire at 710,000 received per 30 days, and most of them had been concentrated areas of studio flats solely for girls. In Busan, because of evaluating women-only one-rooms and common one-rooms close to Pusan Nationwide College, the outcomes confirmed that the month-to-month hire for women-only one-rooms was about 200,000 received costlier though there have been no extra safety units. Subsequently, it’s identified that it’s a advertising and pink tax that primarily exploits girls’s concern of crime or nervousness about security.”

This will come as a shock. For a very long time Korea has had a status as a protected nation, and in lots of respects it nonetheless is—the murder fee is extraordinarily low by worldwide requirements. Nevertheless, it has additionally lengthy been one of many few locations on the planet the place girls are literally extra probably to be murdered than males. And, for the reason that 2016 homicide of a lady in a public bathroom in Gangnam particularly, the notion that Korea is a protected nation for girls is, I think, one largely solely felt by short-term guests, counting on outdated, often sanitized (or naive) sources.

As an alternative, for girls residing in Korea in 2024: femicides by ex-boyfriends; courting violence; random assaults whereas climbing, whereas ready for an elevator, or just having quick hair; and an growing numbers of stalkers? All these contribute to a continuing feeling of hazard, that there’s an epidemic of violence towards girls, and that “nowhere feels protected.”

Photograph (cropped) by Matteo Catanese on Unsplash.

It’s no marvel then, that amongst all demographics, it’s girls residing alone who’re most anxious about these developments, so are ready to pay additional to not have to fret about them. Certainly, so anxious that their fears at the moment are being exploited by landlords and realtors, as Byeon factors out.

I do nonetheless, utterly acknowledge that she is imprecise about her sources, and supplies none of their information. Certainly, the ‘Salim’ Ladies’s Human Rights Assist Heart, which Byeon represents, is definitely an anti-sex work group, which makes me cautious of potential hyperbole in her claims (that is my unlucky expertise with such organizations). So, I’ll endeavor to seek out these sources and information myself for a follow-up put up.

Supply: Comment Vill.

Mother, you’re bringing that up once more?

I’m caring for issues myself now!

I can get lightbulbs modified if I must, and the bathroom unblocked too.

I don’t must name Dad!

However I additionally acknowledge I don’t actually have any doubts about their veracity, based mostly on my deep dive into Comment Vill serviced flats’ promoting marketing campaign with then 32 year-old Im Se-mi in 2020 above. As a result of, though it first drew my consideration by way of the cloying, conventional, initializing gender roles it portrayed (Might my interlocutor within the elevator critically think about a person being requested to say these issues? Might anybody?), it additionally left me with a heavy sense of simply how unsafe girls felt even again then, the grim, newer statistics in all these hyperlinks above being simply the tip of the iceberg of these I outlined in that earlier put up.

Plus, in an equally deep follow-up the following yr, I recounted what I discovered from two must-read books about how including security options for girls, actual or in any other case, had been usually applied fully for monetary causes (giving the impression of gentrifying a neighborhood say), so often didn’t substantively enhance girls’s security in any respect. Additionally, I discovered how varied Korean authorities insurance policies usually financially discriminate towards single feminine households particularly.

No marvel Korean girls are pissed.

However in fact my new elevator buddy and I’d by no means get that far. And I’d wish to save them the embarrassment too, of entering into knots arguing that Korea’s persistently horrible gender hole…is due to Korean girls selecting to have infants. We’re solely speaking about how a lot cash girls could or could not must spend on security options in comparison with males, and why, I’d remind them, not how a lot cash they could or could not have within the first place. And, as a substitute of quibbling about both, we may certainly agree that could be very not cool that girls must pay additional for the privilege of security males take as a right, not to mention be scammed over it (I’d wish to keep away from that scary ‘p-word’ although). We may then speak subsequent about what women and men ought to do to treatment that. In different phrases, be feminists, though I wouldn’t wish to say that phrase but both—I wouldn’t need them to appreciate they’ve been tricked but.

Or, we may simply transfer onto the following instance (my emphasis once more):

우리나라에서는 2018년부터 이러한 핑크택스에 대한 문제 제기가 있었다. 한 유명 아웃도어 브랜드에서 여성용 패딩의 충전량이 남성용의 절반밖에 되지 않지만 같은 가격에 판매되고 있다거나, 유명 패션 온라인 스토어에서 뒷주머니와 밴딩 처리 등을 없앤 여성용 슬랙스가 남성용보다 비싸게 판매되어 논란이 일었다. 같은 가격의 옷임에도 여성용으로 출시된 옷은 주머니가 너무 작거나 옷의 마감 처리가 허술하게 되어 있다는 취재가 이어졌다. 미용실에서 머리 커트 가격이 성별에 따라 다르게 책정되어 있는 것도 꾸준히 지적되어 왔다. 한국소비자원 사이트에 따르면 서울 지역 여성 커트 1회 평균 가격은 2만 1308원으로 남성 1만 1692원에 비해 약 1.82배 비싼 것으로 나타났다.

“In Korea, points concerning the pink tax have been raised since 2018. Controversy arose when a well-known outside model mentioned that girls’s padding had solely half the quantity of padding as males’s however was bought on the similar worth. And, at a well-known trend on-line retailer, girls’s slacks with no again pockets or banding had been bought extra expensively than males’s. Regardless that the garments had been the identical worth, there have been continued experiences that the garments launched for girls had too small pockets or poor ending. It has additionally been persistently identified that haircut costs at magnificence salons are set in another way relying on gender. In line with the Korea Client Company web site, the common worth of 1 haircut for girls in Seoul is 21,308 received, which is about 1.82 occasions costlier than 11,692 received for males.”

Supply: Newsis.

This final one is significant to me, as a result of I recall listening to on the radio as a pupil in Auckland, New Zealand within the late-Nineteen Nineties, that hairdressers had been complaining about having to cost the identical costs for women and men. Which made full sense to me then—girls tended to have longer hair, and so took extra time.

I’d stress this primary. That this opinion was affordable, based mostly on the knowledge I had obtainable on the time. That it wasn’t silly in any respect, and that I’m not about to evaluate somebody for having an opinion that I as soon as did.

(Solely now, in my 40s, have I lastly learnt it’s simpler to steer folks by praising their intelligence and customary sense first quite than by implying they’ve neither. Who’d have thought??)

Solely then would I clarify that when I truly requested girls about haircuts a lot later although (one other secret technique to trick folks into changing into feminists, I hear), did I understand how unfair differential pricing could be to them. As a result of have girls ever actually been utterly “free” to get quick hair cuts, and males lengthy ones? How about proper now then, after an assault on a lady in Jinju in November 2023, focused as a result of her quick coiffure made her seem like a feminist to her attacker?

Maybe that would result in a dialogue about every part else appearance-wise girls are anticipated or required to spend their money and time on?

Maybe. However the brand new me is aware of when to finish when the going’s good 😉

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If you happen to reside in South Korea, you possibly can donate by way of wire switch: Turnbull James Edward (Kookmin Financial institution/국민은행, 563401-01-214324)