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A review by emergencily
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
3.75
Had been wanting to read this for a while because I remembered the book causing a huge controversy and violently misogynistic, anti-feminist backlash when it came out in Korea. It was to the point that a female celebrity seen reading the book was harassed en masse, and the actress who played the MC in the film adaption had a hate campaign launched against her.
The book tells the story of an ordinary Korean woman and the everyday misogyny she faces in her day to day life in multiple settings: her childhood, at school, in the workplace, as a mother and wife, in the medical system. It's not 100% fictional because it also throws in some actual facts and statistics at times about things like the Korean population's imbalanced gender ratio due to son preference and abortion of female fetuses, the gender wage gap in Korea, sexual harassment rates, spycam crimes, etc. The book's chapter on Korean workplace culture & spycam sexual violence was particularly harrowing. It's such a perverse & voyeuristic violation of privacy & bodily autonomy.
Frankly in terms of feminist analysis it really doesn't go very deep or critical, but that's what makes the context of the book's controversy even crazier. Making the most basic statements such as "there is a gender wage gap," "women are disproportionately victimized by sexual violence" was enough to cause such a national uproar and backlash.
A fun fact I learned about the book is that "Kim Jiyoung" is one of the most common names for women in Korea, chosen by the author to represent that the MC could be any Korean woman, and that her experiences are the same as regular Korean women.
The book tells the story of an ordinary Korean woman and the everyday misogyny she faces in her day to day life in multiple settings: her childhood, at school, in the workplace, as a mother and wife, in the medical system. It's not 100% fictional because it also throws in some actual facts and statistics at times about things like the Korean population's imbalanced gender ratio due to son preference and abortion of female fetuses, the gender wage gap in Korea, sexual harassment rates, spycam crimes, etc. The book's chapter on Korean workplace culture & spycam sexual violence was particularly harrowing. It's such a perverse & voyeuristic violation of privacy & bodily autonomy.
Frankly in terms of feminist analysis it really doesn't go very deep or critical, but that's what makes the context of the book's controversy even crazier. Making the most basic statements such as "there is a gender wage gap," "women are disproportionately victimized by sexual violence" was enough to cause such a national uproar and backlash.
A fun fact I learned about the book is that "Kim Jiyoung" is one of the most common names for women in Korea, chosen by the author to represent that the MC could be any Korean woman, and that her experiences are the same as regular Korean women.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny and Sexual harassment