#forced unequal COERCED

[shallowseeker]

I think it's fascinating that Jack appeared to brainwash Kelly and Cas

Regardless if it's that simple or not, this implication often gets swept under the rug even in my own unhinged brain.

It's so interesting to play with, because, one: any bystander would have been scared to watch this mind-whammy happen to their loved ones. Our sympathy for that can get a little lost in the shuffle. It's a beautiful layer to remember to add to the painful clusterfuck that is season 13. (Even if you ascribe that it isn't true and operates on faith, it can certainly look true to onlookers!)

Two: Knowing the extent of how it looked would actually shake Jack to his core. (He doesn't remember everything pre-birth. He remembers Kelly teaching him to talk, feeling safe with Cas, when the bad woman burned, and when the universe screamed.)

But the merest suggestiom that Jack made Kelly love him (right after she tried to kill them)? That he made Cas love him (right after Cas tried to assassinate them)?

No, no, no!

Crushing. This would be Jack's existential crisis--his "is anything even real?" moment.

///

No, Chuck would say. No one can love stuff like you n' me. What you see in them is just the pesky side effect of being us. We compel worship. Tough break, kid. That's just how it is.

[lawchef]

Hire the Best Domestic Violence Lawyer and Get free Legal Counseling from them in Delhi

When a member of the victim's family performs a violent act, it is considered domestic violence. This includes your husband, both present and past, your immediate family member, your in-laws, and close family friends. Domestic violence is used when there is a close relationship between the abuser and the victim. Usually, their powers differ from one another. The victim is what the perpetrator depends on. Domestic violence is defined as physical, sexual, or psychological abuse.

Domestic abuse is any act of gender-based violence against women that results in or is likely to result in their bodily, sexual, or emotional harm or suffering, including threats of such behavior, coercion, or arbitrarily denying them their freedom, whether in public or privately.

A crime against a woman is perpetrated every three minutes, according to the National Crime Records Bureau of India. Each year, up to 324,000 pregnant women endure intimate partner abuse.

To stop the violent practices against women, men and women must first modify their attitudes. The patriarchal social system, which has been in place for a long time in India, is characterized by a male-dominated society. The fundamental factor causing violent attacks is an unequal allocation of power.

Domestic abuse is still seen as an "inter-family affair" in our nation, which precludes the involvement of the state, other close family members, and strangers. Any legislation must first receive the assurance of broad popular support and democratic acceptance before it can be effectively implemented.

Officials and stakeholders are subject to the strict jail mandate; they are responsible for the act's more forceful implementation. It is essential to do away with male dominance, traditional patriarchal relationships, and gender discrimination.

Gender perspective training ought to be made legally required because it is essential for altering the attitudes of patriarchal society's leaders, including the police, service providers, doctors, and other professionals who provide protection, as well as judges who frequently advise women to put up with abuse and refrain from complaining.

The injured party must have professional counseling before filing a lawsuit to boost their self-esteem, offer emotional support, and help them decide whether to pursue legal action. They should hire a professional who will represent them in the court of Law. They should be aware of their rights as well.

Kinds of Domestic Abuse or Violence

Domestic abuse does not necessarily require repeated incidents or to be committed over a long time. One instance in particular can have significant effects and should not be disregarded.

Among the following are examples of Domestic Violence:

● Physical force used with the intent to harm the partner, such as striking, kicking, slapping, or other forms of physical violence.

● Sexual assault is when a partner is coerced into doing sexual acts against their will or when they are incapable of doing so. This covers both sexual and non-physical behaviors, such as sexting.

● Psychological aggression is the use of both verbal and nonverbal communication to undermine one's sense of self-worth, cause mental or emotional injury to the partner, or impose control or power over the partner.

● Stalking is defined as persistent, unwanted attention and/or contact that makes a victim fear for the safety of their spouse or other people close to them. Stalking is defined as non-consensual communication that may involve verbal, written, or implied threats.

Relationships that suffer from controlling tendencies, can also be a sign of more serious domestic violence. activities that restrict a partner's movement or access to friends, family, or situations outside of the home are referred to as controlling behaviors. These activities can be verbal or physical. Additionally, the sufferer could not have access to food, money, or medical care. 

Domestic abuse can take many different forms. It's critical to understand that depending on the connection, the indicators may change.

Physical aggressiveness, such as slapping, hitting, or pushing, is one of the more prevalent indicators of Domestic Abuse. Abusers might downplay their victim's emotions. They are capable of displaying unjustified envy, suspicion, and rage.

FAQ. What includes Domestic Violence?

A. Physical harm, emotional and psychological harm as well as financial harm or injury constitute Domestic Violence.

FAQ. Can a man file a complaint against a woman of Domestic Violence?

A. No, a man cannot file a complaint against a women of Domestic Violence.

FAQ. Can a husband who speaks ill of his wife can be called a Domestic Abuser?

A. Yes, if a husband always speaks I'll of his wife, it then comes under the ambit of psychological abuse and hence comes under Domestic Violence.

FAQ. Can we file an online complaint in cases of Domestic Violence?

A. Yes, we can file a Domestic Violence case online, but it is advisable to hire a Lawyer for the work.

[stephenepstein0]

Religious Freedom Under Threat: Examining Contemporary Violations

Religious freedom is a vital pillar of a democratic and inclusive society, guaranteeing individuals the right to practice their faith or belief system without persecution or coercion. However, numerous religious freedom violations persist worldwide, hindering the ability of individuals and communities to exercise their religious rights fully. This article explores additional examples of contemporary violations, shedding light on the challenges faced by those seeking to safeguard their religious freedom.

Systematic Discrimination and Marginalization

Systematic discrimination and marginalization of religious communities pose significant threats to religious freedom. Governments or societal institutions may engage in discriminatory practices, excluding or limiting the rights and opportunities of individuals based on their religious beliefs. This can manifest in unequal access to education, employment, and public services, effectively marginalizing religious minorities and perpetuating social and economic inequalities.

Forced Displacement and Refugee Crises

Religious freedom violations are often accompanied by forced displacement and refugee crises. Religious communities facing persecution may be forced to flee their homes, leaving behind their cultural heritage and places of worship. Displaced individuals often endure precarious living conditions, discrimination, and a loss of their religious and cultural identity. Examples can be found in regions such as the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims, resulting in a mass exodus from Myanmar, and the displacement of religious minorities in war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq.

Repressive Religious Conversion Practices

Repressive religious conversion practices violate religious freedom by coercing or manipulating individuals to abandon their faith or adopt another against their will. Such practices may involve threats, violence, or psychological manipulation, targeting vulnerable individuals or minority religious communities. Forced conversions disrupt religious harmony and undermine individual autonomy, denying individuals the right to express and practice their faith freely.

Denial of Religious Education and Indoctrination

The denial of religious education or the imposition of state-controlled religious education represents a violation of religious freedom. Some governments restrict or control the curriculum of religious schools, limiting the dissemination of religious teachings and imposing state ideologies. This hampers the ability of religious communities to transmit their faith traditions to future generations, eroding religious diversity and autonomy.

Stifling Freedom of Expression and Religious Dissent

Religious freedom violations often extend to suppressing freedom of expression and religious dissent. Governments may enact laws or policies that criminalize criticism of religion or restrict the right to express dissenting religious beliefs. Such restrictions curb intellectual freedom, hinder open dialogue, and stifle the growth of religious pluralism and tolerance. This violation can be seen in countries where blasphemy laws are enforced, hindering open discussions and suppressing dissenting voices.

Religious freedom violations persist as a global challenges, impeding the rights and liberties of individuals and communities. From systemic discrimination and forced displacement to repressive conversion practices and limitations on freedom of expression, these violations undermine the fundamental principles of religious freedom and human rights. Addressing these violations requires concerted efforts from governments, civil society organizations, and individuals to promote religious tolerance, protect the rights of religious minorities, and ensure that all individuals can freely practice their faith or belief system without fear or hindrance. Only through these collective actions can we create a world that respects and upholds all individuals' inherent dignity and rights, regardless of their religious beliefs.

[paterchristi]

leftists: sex work hypocrisy

i am absolutely sick of self-proclaimed anti-capitalists and marxists on social media calling anyone (almost always women) who opposes the sex industry a swerf

the social relations that sex work is built upon result in the sexual exploitation of the most marginalized groups. being anti sex work is an integral part of marxism because it inherently opposes the commodifying of women’s and other oppressed people’s bodies. there is no liberation when coercive sexual labor is being promoted as empowering. unequal sexual power dynamics are fundamental to the sex industry.

the belief that sex workers, more specifically prostitutes, are not in a position where they’re being coerced due to a lack of physical force is dishonest. as human beings our decisions do not exist in a vacuum, especially when it pertains to the difficult choices we have to make when marginalized and living under the control of poverty. the choice is to either have sex with random strangers which exposes you to all sorts of dehumanization and violence because johns view you as nothing but an object who they’re entitled to, or you starve. under capitalism women are selling the only commodity they have, which is their body. if the sex industry was truly about freedom of choice then the most privileged people in society wouldn’t be the least likely to enter it.

a key difference between sex work and other forms of labor is the sexual violence enacted on the body of the laborer. the relationship between the sex worker and the buyer is inherently antagonistic. this power struggle exists in all forms of labor under capitalism, yet only one industry seems to receive the blessings of supposed anti-capitalists.

[hunxi-guilai]

howdy!!! i love your metas makes me feel like im in a grad level mdzs seminar lol, idk if this question is too political or you dont feel comfortable discussing it, but how do you feel about that boy band that spawned off of cql, the untamed boys? its a little funny and good for the actors but it feels super soft-powerey, esp since its to share chinese culture? not a bad thing but considering chinas role in global politics esp in southeast asia where cql is also rlly popular, feels a bit uncomfy

some days I wonder how I got here, truly, but sure, I'll take a stab

first the caveats: I know maybe like, three things about 陈青少年 / The Untamed Boys, and it's like... 1) their names, 2) the fact that their acronym is TUBS, and 3) they're made of like, pure chaos? so, uh, next to nothing

I also know very, very little about reception of Chinese culture in SE Asia, though I am absolutely confident that it's an absolute mess of historical legacy, diaspora, race relations, and hegemonic neoimperialism, and I would never, on any level, deny that decolonial work (and a lot of it) needs to be done in East/SE Asia, nor do I condone or support pretty much anything the current regime in the PRC does

but let's start with a buzzword you dropped, anon: soft power. If we take its definition straight from Wikipedia, we get:

In politics (and particularly in international politics), soft power is the ability to attract and co-opt, rather than coerce (contrast hard power). In other words, soft power involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is non-coercive; the currency of soft power includes culture, political values, and foreign policies.

I think what bothers me most about the concept of soft power is that it leaves no room for non-political consumption of international media. The definition of soft power functionally co-opts genuine cultural exchange made with open eyes and open hearts into political conspiracy, such that reading culture and international content exchange through the lens of soft power makes literally any "attractive" part of another country's culture 'soft power' by definition (which is, incidentally, why France consistently ranks very high on soft power rankings).

So if I read an article about alternative penal models in Nordic prisons and think "oh huh that's neat," that's Scandinavian soft power at play. If YouTube recommends a song in Japanese to me and I bop along, I'm being acted upon by Japanese soft power. If I spend yet another evening in contemplation of Zbigniew Herbert's "Elegy of Fortinbras," well heck, I've fallen prey to both Polish soft power AND English soft power because it's a poem translated from Polish responding to a Shakespeare play

for the record, I acknowledge that 'soft power' in its original, academic valence is intended to be descriptive rather than normative, and that it is a useful framework through which to understand and analyze the various forms of power and influence in a globalized world of unequal power dynamics. that being said, 'soft power' in the social, colloquial sphere has taken on a negative connotation, and a particularly insidious one at that, evocative of propaganda and state-sanctioned brainwashing and international conspiracy

and so the political theory of soft power comes all the way into my home to implicate me and my media consumption, to insinuate that I, by watching, reading, and enjoying Chinese media, have succumbed to the force of Chinese soft power, which brings me to the second thing that bothers me most about the concept of soft power, which is that it strips away agency from the individual consumer

look. I can watch Chinese television shows and read Chinese novels and listen to Chinese audiodramas without being brainwashed. I have the agency, and awareness, and the critical thinking ability to enjoy a zany show about a plucky young necromancer making terrible decisions in vaguely historical ancient China without becoming a spokesperson for the current authoritarian regime in the PRC. In the end, it comes down to avoiding the equating of ‘consumption of Chinese culture’ with ‘support of the PRC’s political regime’. R.F. Kuang puts it particularly well in an interview:

“…Generally, I think people are pretty bad at unpacking the difference between regime and ethnicity. People are also pretty bad at recognizing that it’s indeed possible to celebrate the history, heritage, and culture of a nation while simultaneously recognizing all the fucked-up things it’s done... What you’re describing is essentialist, reductive logic – the equating of nation with the histories, cultures, counter-histories, and counter-cultures within it – so I think the answer to your question starts with recognizing that every polity involves a multiplicity of personal experiences.”

so like. does enjoying and supporting the merry trainwreck of TUBS make you automatically complicit in the political agenda of the CCP? of course not. but can we deny that the CCP, on some level, is leveraging the influence of TUBS (and CQL) in a way that increases Chinese soft power? also no--I can’t deny that, that’s literally how soft power works. but again, following that logic, we can’t consume any international media without extending another nation’s soft power, because appreciating another country’s culture, finding parts of that culture attractive, are inherently ways in which that country’s soft power increases

and the third reason why I am Really Over the concept of soft power is that it leaves absolutely no room for diasporic culture to exist. soft power views the various nations and cultures of the world as distinct, discrete entities, with definable and concrete areas of influence that expand and contract based on shifting patterns of cultural consumption

so where does that put me, as someone who exists in the space between cultures, whose very appearance and linguistic ability questions the integrity of borders? does the fact that I majored in ancient Chinese literature in college and write about it on the internet make me an agent of Chinese soft power? does me getting in a lively discussion about American politics with a stranger in a Shanghai coffeeshop make me an agent of American soft power? where is the Chinese diasporic identity allowed to exist, if we are constantly construed as instruments of one global power or another rather than complex individuals who move through transnational spaces?

I feel like hot takes that argue that that the act of consuming cdramas/cmedias is problematique because the CCP Exists and Is Like That are 1) Sinophobic, and 2) honestly not very well thought through, because first of all, the idea that consuming a television show is directly enabling an authoritarian regime in power is absurd, and second of all, it ignores the reality that the people who suffer most from an authoritarian regime are the ones who live under it

if you take CQL and its satellite products as a stand-in for the CCP, you are ignoring the efforts, work, and risks everyone who worked on this show took to make it happen. CQL happened in defiance of the regime, not because of it or for it. Let’s not forget state censorship and homophobia. Let’s not forget the very real dangers danmei authors face.

and like, if we want to (very legitimately!) criticize and call out the problems of the CCP, I think we should do so, but choosing TUBS as your platform/hill to die on seems to be missing the mark somewhat, and truly, there’s no need to take it out on six young men who are trying to make it as idols and working artists in a cutthroat industry

[bethanydelleman]

A Dissection of Listening

Kind of focused on the Mansfield Park proposal right now and its aftermath. Chapter 32 is one of the worst chapters Jane Austen ever wrote. Sir Thomas eviscerates Fanny. It’s difficult to even read. The thing is, I think I can understand now why it happened and why Henry went to Sir Thomas.

I often hear people blame Henry for not listening to Fanny, but he did. These are the three things she said (last in the letter to Mary, italics from author):

“Don’t, Mr. Crawford, pray don’t! I beg you would not. This is a sort of talking which is very unpleasant to me. I must go away. I cannot bear it.”

“No, no, no!” she cried, hiding her face. “This is all nonsense. Do not distress me. I can hear no more of this. Your kindness to William makes me more obliged to you than words can express; but I do not want, I cannot bear, I must not listen to such—No, no, don’t think of me. But you are not thinking of me. I know it is all nothing.

”The rest of your note I know means nothing; but I am so unequal to anything of the sort, that I hope you will excuse my begging you to take no farther notice. I have seen too much of Mr. Crawford not to understand his manners; if he understood me as well, he would, I dare say, behave differently. I do not know what I write, but it would be a great favour of you never to mention the subject again. With thanks for the honour of your note,

So yes, she said “no” and more than once, but why? Because she thought he was messing with her. She does not believe this is a real proposal. She thinks he’s trifling with her: “She considered it all as nonsense, as mere trifling and gallantry, which meant only to deceive for the hour; she could not but feel that it was treating her improperly and unworthily, and in such a way as she had not deserved…. and now he had insulted—she knew not what to say, how to class, or how to regard it. She would not have him be serious, and yet what could excuse the use of such words and offers, if they meant but to trifle?”

And what does Henry think? “her modesty alone seemed, to his sanguine and preassured mind, to stand in the way of the happiness he sought” He thinks Fanny doesn’t believe she is worthy of such a proposal, and we know he’s right. He knows Fanny didn’t believe him. 

So what Henry does is very logical and based on what Fanny said, he engages his honour. He tells a person who could actually punish him for not being serious that he wants to marry Fanny. I don’t think he had any idea how awful it would be for Fanny, because he “preassured” thinks she will say yes once she knows he’s not tricking her. He wasn’t trying to coerce her through her uncle, as far as I can tell, and I think this is backed up by what he does later in the book.

For example, he wanted “the glory, as well as the felicity, of forcing her to love him.” Not marry him, but love him. Once Henry is aware that Fanny doesn’t love him, he doesn’t want her to be forced to accept him, but love him (I know, the word “force” is not fun). Also, when Henry visits Fanny in Portsmouth, he does not ever tell her parents who he really is and why he is there. If he wanted Fanny to be forced to marry him, there would be no better method.

That said, the subtitle of Chapters 32-38 could be “Various People do Not Take Fanny’s “No” for an Answer”

[bloededhoine]

I notice a lot of fans don't really bring up how Roche uses Ves for her "feminine qualities (for lack of a better word)." I hate that in Witcher 2 he sends her to Loredo dressed as a prostitute and it is implied she does this sort of thing regularly? I do know that Roche cares for her but sometimes his behavior needs a reprimand. Do you have any thoughts on this?

i absolutely love questions like this because they really make me think. plus, this is one of the rare posts that's a system special! give @claire-verlaine your love. she's simply amazing.

first things first, spoiler warning for chapter 2 of roche's path in w2 and big trigger warning for discussions of sex work, sex trafficking, rape, war, unequal power dynamics, and brief mentions of underage prostitution. also this is really fucking long. sorry.

let's start with the geekiness: prostitution as a cover for espionage has a long and awesome, albeit poorly documented, history. it was really big with the confederacy (read: racists) during american civil war, and while their motives were undoubtedly awful, these spies were simply amazing. rose o'neal greenhow was recognized by the confederate president for her role in their victory at the first battle of bull run. belle boyd seduced a union (read: racists but more covert) general, found out the date and location of the next war council, drilled a hole in the floor in the meeting room, and sat in the crawl space and took notes of the entire thing.

although there were many successful female union spies, most of them didn't use sex. there's no clear consensus on why this was, but it's entirely possible that such enlightened progressives figured sex work to be demeaning. clearly, union men were avid consumers, but also thought women didn't know any better and needed to be protected from men who would exploit them. meanwhile, these awful southern racists had no problem with "exploiting" women, but inadvertently granted them a shit ton of political agency and prestige!

this all brings us to our next point, which is that nothing is inherently wrong with sex work, although it does put workers in incredibly vulnerable positions. for every spy that successfully used prostitution as a cover, there were likely many others that failed. without even considering the consequences of being discovered as an enemy spy, sex trafficking was (and continues to be) a very real risk for anyone in that situation*.

nearly the whole history of sex work legislation shows how little people, especially upper class men, understand it. the spies in the civil war were both lucky and unlucky in that they operated quite independently. they didn't need to take orders from someone who was entirely unqualified to give them, but they also had no safety net in case something went wrong. if belle boyd so much as sneezed while eavesdropping, there would be almost no chance she'd get back home alive.

however dangerous this job was, most lady spies during the civil war began spying before they were even recruited by the army. these women weren't doing it on anyone's orders, they were doing it because they had the skills and believed in the cause (remember that in this case that belief was not an admirable quality).

rose o'neal's (possible) handler, thomas jordan, had a huge network of spies, and all evidence points to him giving her way more independence than usual. thomas jordan wasn't who rose went to for orders, he was who she submitted her reports to. in my opinion, the sex she had to obtain this information was consensual.

ves' scenario is obviously different in regard to her chain of command. she is going into sexual situations under the direct orders of a (male) commanding officer. just writing this has the alarm bells going off in my head. what good is having someone to get you out of a dangerous situation when they were the one to put you in that situation in the first place? but this is where we get to what's special about roche. he is, as they say, not like other girls.

it's no secret how much roche loves his team. when the blue stripes are killed he says that everything he loved died. if ves dies in an eye for an eye he is absolutely devastated. the blue stripes aren't just roche's subordinates, they're his family. when you see the stripes outside of battle the camaraderie is even clearer: they fist fight their commander and each other to blow off steam, they play games, have contests, etc. ves' knowledge of roche's dark and troubled past is more proof that the trust goes both ways.

roche would never put his family in an unnecessarily dangerous situation, nor would he have them do something he personally wouldn't do. even if it's just from a morality perspective (like double crossing radovid for the man that had foltest killed), roche goes it alone.

so, we know roche is a (compratively) good guy. but we also know that intention, often, doesn't mean shit. i mentioned earlier how most of the people making decisions for sex workers have little to no idea of what they are doing. it doesn't help that their intentions are all about controlling (mostly) women and getting rich in the process, but even the best meaning legislator could unknowingly do a lot of damage. roche is way more involved in ves' missions than thomas jordan was in rose o'neal's, but i think that's a good thing.

as i'm sure you lovely witcher connoisseurs know, roche is a literal whoreson. he is very aware of what goes on in brothels, and, depending on how you read into his relationship with foltest, what it's like to not really be able to say no. if anything, roche's involvement here is a good thing, since he has years of first hand experience with exactly what ves is going through, but without the safety net of an elite team that loves him and are frighteningly good soldiers.

plus, ves is far more capable than your average soldier, even in a blue stripes-calibre group. she's an absolute badass. most women who used prostitution as a cover for spying went into it with no combat or espionage training whatsoever. they knew how to be personable, how to be seductive, and how to use men's biases to get them to spill all their secrets. clearly, this knowledge served them well, but what about the occasions when it didn't? they were not fighters. at all. ves has both the "feminine charms" and the terrifying combat skills. of course, these scenarios usually have her acting as a spy, not an assassin, so those skills are more of a failsafe, but it's still very important to her own safety and the morality of the whole situation.

TL;DR

to sum up, anon, i do agree with (what i assume to be) your reasoning, but not the conclusion you came to. if someone told me an older male superior was having a younger female subordinate act as a prostitute to gain intel during a time of war, i'd be ready to start cutting off dicks.

but that's not the whole story. the older male superior has a personal background in (possibly) coerced and underaged sex work. the younger female subordinate is a highly skilled soldier, and second in command of an elite unit. both of them have a very close familial relationship developed over several years. a similar relationship exists between the the other members of the unit in their command. personally, i think those factors make this a completely new situation.

that being said, i'm certain that my beliefs aren't the only ones out there. as long as we can all agree that the base scenario is unequivocally wrong, there should be absolutely no reason to (civilly) not discuss whether or not the special circumstances make it okay.

* i'll take this as an opportunity to say that the enforcement of anti-sex work laws force sex workers to be either a criminal, a victim, or dead. these laws are the problem, not the solution. the solution would be supporting unions for sex workers, giving them the same legal protections given to any other worker, and treating them like humans, not statistics.

[lepertamar]

i’m willing to be convinced at least some of my great uncharitability and suspicion for Helper personalities comes from experiencing sanism and psych abuse etc, but like......ok so

i would believe that lucifer does care about everyone, as they say. but, this fucking, it’s taken me this long to even go back to the page to quote it because it’s so awful but:

They sit down next to her, definitely smiling now. “You’re really caring about this. Figuring yourself out, that’s what you’re doing, right?” “Yes.” “Which is really all I ever wanted of you. Not sure if you’ve noticed exactly, but that’s why I made the deal with you. Because you clearly had no idea about yourself, and I wanted to help.”

[..........]

But Elīya wants clarity, and there’s something she has to know. “Why do you care?” Lucifer turns their head to her, gives her a particularly unreadable smile that lasts multiple seconds before they finally speak. They’re mostly in shadow, their eyes somehow lit by the stars. “’S really a simple answer. I care about everyone.”

Elīya blinks. “But Yenatru—”

“I care about him more, of course. But you’re someone, Elīya, everyone is, and you didn’t seem to have the slightest idea about whatever particular joy being you might bring. And there was a chance, right there, right in front of me, to help you find out. No way in fuck I wasn’t going to take that.” They pause, smiling.

the author sooooooo clearly thinks this is Good and Heroic and Poignant and Wonderful but it is perhaps the most unlikable shit anyone has done in these books, in my eyes — even though it did in fact help eliya! (stark contrast: i didn’t play you, stark contrast: yenatru’s kiss.) plus the, therapisty dishonest refusal to admit power differentials in this relationship between unequals simply becuz lucifer doesn’t want to be in a position of power, so they say they’re not while 100% being in power, using their advantage (finding tamar) to make eliya fix herself (actually worse: do the thing that lucifer didactically believes Will be the Answer that Will fix people, it cannot be Not The Answer, in their mind. (stark contrast: i want to see You.)

which like. don’t get me wrong. IS the kind of #problematicness in interpersonal damage i really like (see eliya and tamar!!) narratively i AM glad it happened. it should absolutely not have been changed or taken out. but it is NOT framed or intended that way — if it actually was intended to be ambiguously unlikable and messy, then what actually appears on paper would be a failure of craft that is nowhere to be found in the chapter immediately following it, which features the deeply un-pushy and raw sincere harshness of eliya and tamar’s interaction and self-explanations. if the author wanted this to actually be a harsh ambiguous scene about people’s strange deep complexities, it would have been successfully written so. bc they write such interactions in other contexts so successfully. so i doubt this is intended as anything but what it looks like — the author mooning over how Good and Right lucifer is.

LUcifer noticed eliya Is Miserable (which is accurate, because eliya IS miserable) and they rope themself into this whole situation of helping her and coercing her into Being Helped (without saying why until much later) by insisting eliya do theurgy in exchange for finding tamar, and insisting on not going back on their deal while long-sufferingly acting as if they are the one who was forced into it. AND acting like what they say is just Neutral Truth, not a (valid but) wildly subjective and warped by deliberate incompleteness and eliding due to trauma and....Christian, mystically so but like think william blake maybe idea of what aspects of the world Are Fake and about what The Answer To Be Found is and what People Need

.......and like. lucifer DID happen to help eliya (though not nearly as much as yenatru and tamar did) becuz the stuff they were able to give her just so happened to be a thing that eliya really needed. BUT but. but but but. BUT.

but. just fucking imagine Lucifer roping someone who didn’t need that sort of help/whose problems were nothing like eliya’s, into accepting their help lol. like imagine how much damage their imposition of Their Idea About The World and Selves would do to someone who WASN’T anything like eliya.

imagine if they Got to someone like yenatru before he started theurgy, imagine if they got to Eshva or Tamar early. they’d have ruined (or tried, under the impression they were helping) those people’s lives lmao.

and if they hadn’t tried to help eliya but just towed tamar to her and let them hash it out? that would have also been good FOR ELIYA. 

Now OF COURSE that would be a boring story. i much prefer the problematic and deeply iffy and counterproductive helping in terms of narrative!! in terms of revealing things to the reader! again my problem is not remotely ‘this shouldn’t have happened’ it’s almost the opposite -- ‘this should have happened more and gone even farther and what happened should have had more scrutiny and ripple effects’/’lucifer should have been even Worse and more interfering! it would have made the hints of story in here Really good’). but in canon, eliya DID get as much out of tamar’s Proof Of Being And Having Done Who She Is (as per the first line of the book), eliya got as much out of contemplating and struggling with the mystery of tamar -- what what what could a soul possibly be that this is a way it could be — as she did out of being kissed by Yenatru, and being kissed by Yenatru made a bigger difference to eliya’s understanding of theurgy than all of lucifer’s teaching put together. acknowledging this hypothetical + this comparative impact would work narratively with lucifer’s Messing Around even better, it wouldn’t have made it extraneous at all in terms of narrative! and also narratively.....not being messed-with by Lucifer wouldn’t have helped eliya as quickly, linearly, or revealingly as everything put together for sure. it probably would have taken her a long time (less narratively good) without lucifer’s help — but that would be just by chance, because it was her and not someone else. that’s the part that needed elucidating.

[justsomeguycore]

okay fine I WILL talk about the mfl unhinged hj. the complexity of their relationship is so delicious to me because i think it forces us to explore how blurred the lines between abuse and toxicity and dissatisfaction in a relationship can be.

like he wasn’t holding her against her will, because she had no will. she was hugely apathetic about her life, obviously dissatisfied with their relationship, but never even considered that it was a toxic unequal partnership because on the surface she was getting everything she needed and wanted. he was never cruel to her, he never hurt her, but he was extremely controlling of her. but she didn’t care because in some ways she wanted to be controlled. she was sick to death of making her own choices, having to figure out everything for herself, always being on her own, being the only one responsible and culpable for her actions. it was a relief to find someone who could just sort her out so she never had to worry about that again.

and in regards to their sex life, he was starkly different from what we typically expect from an abusive partner. he didn’t seem to ever have coerced her or done anything with/to her without her consent, but to the point that it seemed to her like he didn’t even want her at all. he was so obsessed with her pleasure that all of her pleasure became a performance for him because it was the only thing he seemed to want, thereby taking all the pleasure out of the whole thing.

something i love to consider is the different sides of his neurotic obsession - like obviously in the context of their relationship, holding someone essentially hostage (even if they are going along with it) performing experimental surgery on them and then stalking them when they escape, like, needless to say that’s abusive behavior. but he doesn’t see it at all as malicious, and looking at it from that perspective is so fascinating. he has a compulsive need to control everything all the time, and it’s just really interesting to consider “need to control” as like. something pathetic instead of something evil. he is so scared of what happens when things are out of his control. he never never never wants to lose control or let anybody have the upper hand on him.

so hazel goes into that scene probably wanting to gain leverage on him, because that had been her plan - to lull him into believing she might really love him, and then strike to take him down. but she also is genuinely hoping that somewhere in him is a real person with desires and feelings. and i think she’s starting to realize more and more that the obsessive controlling monster is simultaneously an anxious and repressed and terrified child, and that it all comes from the same place. just once she wants to make him reveal his desire like he was always asking of her. she wants to be the one in control, the one observing instead of the one observed, the subject not the object. he tries to kiss her and she denies him, and i think part of her is disgusted by him because of all he’s done, but another part of her is getting what she’s wanted out of their relationship for so long - for him to crack and admit he wants something, and only she can give it to him. he never wants anyone to have that power, but it’s the only thing she wants now.

[comrade-meow]

160 years ago on Oct 18, 1860, English and French soldiers destroyed 圆明园 (the Old Summer Palace). The act capped the Second Opium War and was designed to humiliate the Qing. 

The Second Opium War was fought by Western forces to violate China's sovereignty for the profit of imperialists. British, French, and US troops used violent force to coerce China to end restrictions on opium imports, respect extraterritorial rights in the foreign concession zones, and "open" China's market to Western corporations. Rates of opium sale and addiction exploded.

Opium dependency remained a bitter symbol of feudalism and imperialism for many decades. After the communist revolution, China under Mao Zedong led system reforms to rehabilitate 10 million opium addicts, replace poppy growers with new crops, and crack down on drug traders.

The Opium Wars have new relevance amidst resurgent US aggression on China. When the US demanded market access and mandatory purchases of U.S. exports during negotiations of the US-China "trade war," Chinese netizens likened the demands to the unequal treaties of 1840.

China's experience of Western imperialism deeply shapes modern PRC commitments to internationalism. Xi Jinping has promised that China will "never seek hegemony" or spheres of influence, and at a recent UN assembly declared China has no interest in fighting a New Cold War.

[humble-boness]

The Unequal Marriage by Vasili Vladimirovich Pukirev (1862)

oil on canvas |  174 х 137

Today I found out about this artwork through a f*cebook friend sharing a very short analysis on it. Then I looked it up through here:

https://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/collection/neravnyy-brak/

The gist of it is that it depicts a coerced marriage, which was the reality of Russian society during that period where older generals would engage with young maidens, using their money and influence to force marriages with these women. It is an exemplary artwork in openly displaying contempt to the issue, distinguished from the usual genre scenes that tend to be nostalgic or sentimental. 

I myself was especially intrigued by the faded spectre to the right of the groom, which is theorized to be the groom’s first and late bride. This also shines some light on the corrupted character of the groom, who is eyeing his grieving new bride with an air of indifference. 

When I looked up Vasili Pukirev, I found out that he was born to a peasant family in 1832. He dedicated most of his life to the teaching of art and portrait painting but succumbed to illness in 1873.  In 1879, his fellow artists got together to provide him with a modest pension, but he died in poverty and nearly forgotten in 1890. I think his background explains the extraordinary nature of the Unequal Marriage, a serious social issue that still prevails in our modern days. 

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Understanding Sun Myung Moon’s attitude to sex by taking a look at Korean history

by a Korean professor

Human Dignity and Sexual Culture: A Reflection on the ‘Comfort Women’ Issues

Chunghee Sarah Soh, Ph.D. San Francisco State University

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on a particular dimension of the complex issues involving the Comfort Women movement for redress by focusing on what I call ‘masculinist sexual culture’. For the purpose of this paper I use the term ‘masculinist’ to refer to those men and women who believe not only in the Confucian principle of male superiority but also in male ‘sex-rights’(1) to have access to the female body both inside and outside marriage. Masculinists believe that men, in contrast to women, have biologically rooted sexual needs, and consequently, concede to men their ‘natural’ right to seek sexual comfort, both premaritally and extramaritally. Masculinist sexism permeated the traditional cultures of Japan, Korea and other patriarchal societies and is still prevalent today.

The androcentric euphemism ‘comfort women’ (ianfu) is an official coinage of imperial Japan, and was used to categorically refer to young females of various ethnic and national backgrounds and social circumstances who became sexual laborers for the Japanese troops before and during the Second World War. In contrast, the soldiers came to refer to these women as the ‘pi’ (pronounced as ‘pea’), a Chinese term meaning goods or articles, which, as a slang term, stood for female genitals.(2) The estimates of the number of women used as comfort women range between 50,000 and 200,000.(3) It is believed that about 80% of them were Korean.(4) There is no documentary evidence to determine either how many women were used or how many were forced to serve as military comfort women, except for the Dutch case.(5)

Seen from an anti-Japan, nationalist perspective prevalent among activists especially in South Korea, the comfort women issue is simple and clear: Japan as a colonial power exploited Korea’s human resources by rounding up tens of thousands of young unmarried girls and women to be used as military sex slaves. Seen from a more global perspective, however, the issues involved in the comfort women case are complex, running the gamut from the problem of ‘militarized prostitution’ to that of sexual slavery based on gender, age, social class, and ethnicity. Coerced sexual labor, i.e., sexual slavery, was inflicted primarily upon lower class young females of colonial Korea by imperial Japan during the Asia-Pacific War,(6) but not every former comfort woman had been forcibly drafted by the state power. In addition, while teenage Korean maidens from impoverished families constituted the overwhelming majority, relatively older Japanese prostitutes, and primarily lower-class women of colonized Taiwan and other occupied territories were also used as comfort women during the “Fifteen Year War” of aggression pursued by imperial Japan, starting from the Manchurian invasion in 1931 to its unconditional surrender in 1945.

At the core of the contestation over the representation of the military comfort women as sex slaves versus licensed prostitutes(7) lies the issue of state responsibility in forced recruitment of comfort women and the maintenance of the comfort system. On a deeper level, however, many of the central issues around sexual violence in warfare and its relationship to the cultural constructions of gender and human sexuality--more specifically heterosexuality--in patriarchal societies, are being called into question, including the masculinist sexual culture and the perennial question concerning the proper relationship between prostitution and the state. The Rest & Recuperation program for the U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War was a recent example of a state institution looking after the physical needs of military men.(8) In fact, there still exist thousands of prostitutes in the kijich’on, the U.S. military camptowns in South Korea, and the Korean media used to refer to them as wianbu (“comfort women” in Korean).(9)

The comfort women movement formally began in South Korea in November 1990. The Korean Council for Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan (hereafter, the Korean Council), a non-governmental organization (NGO), is responsible for internationalizing the comfort women issue as a war crime and violations of women’s human rights in situations of armed conflict. With a series of hearings by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) beginning in 1992, the comfort women issue leaped to the attention of the world community nearly half a century after the end of the War. The Korean Council as a newly formed NGO has accomplished in less than a decade a level of success that went beyond the wildest dreams of the leadership in bringing the attention and support of the international community for their reparation demands against the Japanese government.(10)

As a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in gender issues, social inequality and the processes of culture change, I have followed closely the developmental processes in the internationalization of the Korean comfort women movement from the start. In addition, I have conducted ethnographic field research in Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands. As an example of ‘multi-sited’ ethnographies George Marcus discusses in his latest work,(11) this ongoing research aims to present from the perspective of critical anthropology a multilayered analysis of the complex issues involved in the redress movement. As a Korean American interested in comparative studies of the cultures of Korea and Japan, my goal is to go beyond the national boundaries and to present a balanced and nuanced analysis of once an unproblematized and almost forgotten issue of comfort women from the perspectives of cross-cultural, critical anthropology. And in order to do that, we must delve into the intersections of sex, power, and justice, not simply in heterosexual relations between men and women but also in international relations between nation-states of unequal power.

In this paper I will trace the social origins of the movement and to consider the tasks that remain to be tackled at the societal level in order to help prevent gendered violence against women from occurring not only in situations of armed conflict but in everyday life in many patriarchal societies. One of these tasks, I believe, is to start serious public debate on the ‘masculinist sexual culture’ that is at the root of diverse forms of pervasive social oppression and sexual violence against women.

Indeed, I would argue that it is masculinist double standard for sexual conduct that has contributed to lifelong psychological sufferings for an untold number of comfort women survivors because they were socialized to regard the loss of virginity as a shameful condition deserving social ostracism. Generally speaking, these survivors were socialized from childhood to regard the preservation of sexual purity (chongjol) as important as life itself. Thus, when they returned home after the war, some women were unable to reveal their ordeals even to their mothers. They gave up any hope of finding men who would accept them as legitimate wives if/when they found out about the loss of their virginity and their past as comfort women. They carefully hid their past for fear of social stigma and ostracization its revelation would bring to them and their family. Given the sexual mores of the Korean patriarchy, it is understandable that the survivors of sexual slavery for the troops of imperial Japan during WWII kept their silence for nearly half a century until the early 1990s. Some of them still refuse to reveal their past as comfort women. Others insist on using pseudonyms.

I should point out here that until the redress movement began, the Korean society generally regarded Japan’s comfort system as a military version of licensed prostitution. Koreans are justifiably angry that imperial Japan forcibly recruited young girls and women of colonial Korea for prostitution and sexual enslavement. However, they are unwilling to acknowledge the complicity on the part of some Koreans, which is amply revealed in the survivors’ testimonies. Korean men--and sometimes women as well--participated in the deceptive and/or forcible recruitment and some did so with a purpose of economic gain.

Le me now provide an historical overview of the masculinist sexual culture in Korean society and the social and political economic context that contributed to the emergence of the comfort women movement. In particular, we will examine the phenomenon of kisaeng tourism and consider the plights of the kijich’on sex workers in South Korea in order to highlight the underlying, invisible threads of masculinist sexual culture combined with the political economy of global capitalism that continue to influence the patterns of unequal power relations between the sexes and nation-states in the everyday lives of women working in the sex industry.

Korean Sexual Culture: An Historical Overview

Not many people are aware of the fact that the Korean comfort women movement grew out of feminist and nationalist opposition to the phenomenon of the so-called kisaeng tourism, which is a euphemism for prostitution tourism. The term kisaeng traditionally referred to professional female entertainers. The institution of kisaeng or kinyô was firmly established in Korean society by Koryô dynasty (918-1392) and continued throughout Chosôn dynasty (1392-1910).(12) Kisaeng were chosen from among young females of the lower classes and trained in the arts of entertainment for men, such as playing musical instruments, singing and dance. By the time of King Sejong (r. 1418-50), prostitution came to dominate the life of kisaeng. There were several proposals to abolish the institution of kisaeng by high-level Confucian scholar-officials. However, the opponents to the proposal successfully defended the institution by arguing among other things the likelihood of increased sex crimes if it were to be abolished.(13)

In the masculinist sexual culture, it is not surprising that such a biological-determinist argument would win the debate with relative ease and could continue to defend masculinist interests in satisfying men’s desire for sexual recreation by supporting the social institution of kisaeng and the customary practice of acquiring a chôp (concubine). The masculinists upheld the double standard for sexual behavior of men and women by classifying women into two types according to the main functions of their sexuality: women to marry for procreation and women to hire for recreation. The custom helped to further discriminate women according to their marital status. While married women as mothers and wives were accorded due respect for their contributions to the family life, unmarried women working as professional entertainers were social outcastes and were commodified as sexual playthings. Even when a kisaeng was taken as a concubine of a yangban (upper-class) man, she suffered legal and customary discrimination as a secondary wife. She could not participate in any formal events of the family. Her children were labeled as sôja (illegitimate offspring) in contrast to the chôkcha (‘legitimate children’ born of the lawful wife).

Typically, men in traditional Korea, especially those belonging to upper classes and working for the government engaged in recreational sex supported by the state-run system of kisaeng and the customary practice of concubinage. Traditionally, the masculinist sexual culture in Korean society rigidly controlled women’s sexuality by means of the cult of female virginity/chastity while it condoned, if not encouraged, sexual freedom for unmarried men and generally overlooked infidelity of married men. As mentioned earlier, unmarried women were expected to maintain their virginity until marriage and widows, especially of the upper classes, were prohibited from re-marrying. Regardless of the individual circumstances, women who lost their chastity were considered sullied, made to feel ashamed, and likely to be ostracized by their own families. In this cultural context, many women committed suicide after being raped or in order to avoid being raped during the two Japanese invasions of Korea in the late 16th century. Their deaths were recognized as honorable deeds of yôllyô (virtuous women), whose families were honored by royal commendations.(14)

When some widows of lower classes remarried out of economic necessity, they usually had to leave their children of the deceased husband behind, either with the late husband’s relatives or with their own natal family. In the case of Kim Hak-sun (1924-1997), who became the first Korean survivor to give a public testimony of her life as a “comfort woman” in 1991, her remarried mother left Hak-sun with a foster father. He sent Hak-sun to a training school for the kisaeng. When she finished her schooling, the foster father took her to China hoping to find her a job there since as a seventeen-year-old minor she was not allowed to work yet in Korea. It was there that she was taken by the Japanese military to a comfort station.(15) In the case of Kang Tôk-kyông (1929-1997), another former comfort woman, she lived with her maternal grandparents after her widowed mother remarried. She joined the so-called ‘Women’s Volunteer Corps’ or Yôja Chôngsindae in Korean in defiance against her estranged mother’s advice. She worked at a factory in Japan and fled from her factory dormitory to escape from hunger and hard life only to be caught by the military police and taken to a comfort station. The point here is that the tragic lives of numerous former comfort women, the great majority of whom came from poor families in rural areas, were embedded in the intersections of gendered oppression in the patriarchal marriage and family system and class inequality, as well as colonial exploitation.

Prostitution and Women’s Movement in South Korea

In the twentieth century, Japan’s colonization of Korea and its assimilation policies resulted among other things in the transplantation of some Japanese terminologies(16) and social institutions, such as the systems of family headship (hoju) and licensed prostitution, in Korean society. Thus, Japan’s modern system of licensed prostitution was firmly grafted in the soils of colonial Korea by the mid-1910s. It was formally abolished in post-colonial Korea in 1947.(17) Nevertheless, prostitution of female sexuality as a commodity has continued in South Korea in a variety of manners and places, sometimes with semi-official support, as exemplified in the development of kisaeng tourism targeting Japanese male visitors and the kijich’on sex industry catering to the U.S. military.

Kisaeng/Prostitution Tourism

It is not clear when and how the kisaeng tourism emerged in South Korea but it came to flourish by early 1970s after Korea and Japan signed the bilateral agreement to normalize diplomatic relations in 1965. The increase in the number of Japanese visitors to South Korea after 1965 has been phenomenal. In 1965, there were 5,110 Japanese visitors and 14,152 American visitors. By 1971 the Japanese visitors (96,531) greatly outnumbered those from the United States (58,003). In 1973, nearly half of a million (436,405) Japanese tourists visited South Korea, which was more than eighty-five times increase over the figure for 1965. And the 1973 figure was more than double the previous year (217,287), which was mainly due to Japan’s severing of diplomatic relations with Taiwan in September 1973. The majority of the Japanese men who visited Korea for the purpose of kisaeng party, according to a study by a Korean Christian women’s organization, came from lower classes to enjoy sexual entertainment at the one-fifth of the cost required for comparable service in Japan.(18)

In the 1970s Korean women who wished to work formally for foreign tourists staying at hotels had to acquire a license that certified their health status and the completion of required orientation education. The contents of the orientation lectures given by university professors were a modern version of those for imperial Japan’s Yôja Chôngsindae, the Women’s Volunteer Corp, emphasizing the importance of their work in earning precious foreign currency for the nation’s economic development.(19) I should mention here that in the 1970s the Korean government was also engaged in the surveillance and authoritarian control of the prostitutes servicing the US military. At the request of the latter that complained of the unhealthy conditions of the kijich’on sex industry, the Korean government started a clean-up campaign in 1971 that included infrastructural improvements and enforcement of regular medical examinations of prostitutes, detaining infected women at special centers.(20)

Women’s Activism: Linking Kisaeng Tourism to Wartime Comfort System

The first organized protest by women in Korea and Japan against kisaeng tourism took place in December 1973, both in Seoul and Tokyo.(21) Ewha Womans University students staged a demonstration at Kimpo Airport confronting Japanese tour groups with a placard reading, “Stop Sex Tourism”. Representatives of women’s organizations in Japan demonstrated at Haneda Airport in Tokyo in front of Japan Air Lines office aiming at Japanese tour groups and carrying placards reading, “Don’t go to Korea for sex tourism.” As of 1979, an estimated 100,000 women worked as tourism kisaeng.(22) In some cases, tourists at kisaeng houses/restaurants could choose their partners among those gathered in the waiting lounge. A Japanese tourist who contributed an essay to a magazine published in Japan compared figuratively his experience of kisaeng party to that of going to a slave market.(23) By late 1970s sex tourism spread to Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines and Thailand. By early 1980s Japanese businessmen started running kisaeng houses in Japan by importing Korean women. In 1988 the Korean Church Women United sponsored the International Conference on Women and Tourism in South Korea. It was there that Professor Yun Chông-ok of Ewha Womans University first presented her research on Korean comfort women issue, which helped the participants from Korea and Japan see the underlying linkage between the issues of the comfort women in colonial Korea and kisaeng tourism in contemporary Korea. (24)

In January 1989 when the Korean government sent an emissary to the funeral of Emperor Hirohito, women’s organizations in South Korea protested to the government for not taking up against the Japanese government the unresolved issues of the latter’s postwar responsibilities including the comfort women issue. Feminist activists raised the same issues during the state visit of President Roh Tae Woo to Japan in May 1990. The comfort women issue was first raised in Japan’s Diet in June 1990 when a government official flatly denied any involvement of the state in the recruitment of comfort women. This denial angered women activists in Korea to an action that resulted in the formation of the Korean Council in November 1990. And the rest, as they say, is history.

I should also mention here that until the 1980s, when the Korean and U.S. troops regularly conducted the joint military exercises called “Team Spirit,” the kijich’on sex workers became camp followers.(25) Calling themselves “the blanket brigade,” they would follow the soldiers’ move during the exercise and each would offer sexual service to twenty to thirty soldiers a day. In the 1990s, the joint military exercises were curtailed but the camp following prostitution for the U.S. military continues, generating the coinage of the ‘second generation of military comfort women’. The activists working for the kijich’on sex workers point out that the historical legacy of Japan’s comfort women continues in Korea’s kijich’on serving this time the U.S. military. The atrocities of Japan’s imperial army in violating women’s human rights have been revealed in recent years, but few people in the United States are aware of heinous sexual crimes committed by American military men, most of whom go unpunished due to the unequal Status of the Forces Agreement (SOFA) contracted between the superpower United States and the newly industrializing Republic of Korea in 1967.

Let me mention one murder case that prompted an unprecedented mass demonstration of 3,000 people in a kijich’on called Tongduch’ôn in 1992.(26) Kenneth Markle (twenty years old at the time of the crime), a private of the U.S. Army stationed in South Korea, murdered Yoon Keum-I, a twenty-six-years-old sex worker, by battering her with a Coke bottle and stuffing it into her womb. He also shoved an umbrella into the anus of the bleeding, dying woman and stuffed matches into her mouth. He then sprinkled soap powder over her body, apparently to eliminate evidence of the murder. The cruelty of the crime enraged the residents of the kijich’on to stage a series of mass demonstrations, and eventually contributed to the formation of an NGO, “The National Campaign for Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea,” in 1993. According to them, an average of two crimes were committed daily by U.S. troops from January 1993 to June 1996 and that on average the Korean government exercises jurisdiction in 0.7 percent of cases. The above-mentioned murder case is one of the very few cases in which the criminal is serving his sentence in a prison in South Korea.

Concluding Remarks

In the Korean media and official discourse, prostitutes are referred to as yullak yôsông, literally ‘ethically fallen women’. Yet men who purchase sexual service from these ‘fallen women’ are not called ‘ethically fallen men’, reflecting the fundamental bias against women sex workers in masculinist sexual culture. It is in this social and cultural context that some survivors have chosen not to reveal their past, and I am sorry to report that some of those who did had to suffer ostracism from their relatives and friends after their coming out. The survivor I interviewed in April 2000 was most bitter about it.

If we are serious about our commitment to the enhancement of life conditions of humanity, we must confront the global realities of predominance of men’s sex-rights over women’s human rights,(27) be they sex workers, single or married women. Many women and children who work in the sex industry whether willingly or forcibly are predominantly from poor families in search of livelihood. Prostitution is regarded as the world’s oldest profession and no society has gotten rid of it. If this new century is to be a century of human rights, we cannot avoid the issue of human dignity of sex workers in the booming international sex industry in which consumers of sexual service belong to richer classes and/or more powerful nation-states that not only exploit providers of sexual service economically but also demean them socially and psychologically.

Although there are various signs of significant change in the patterns of gender power relations, masculinist sexism that permeated the traditional sexual cultures of Korea, Japan and other patriarchal societies is still prevalent today. More than a quarter of a century after women began fighting against sex tourism, Japanese men’s sex tours flourish discreetly in South Korea. In December 1998, the police in Seoul arrested fifteen people including the bosses and employees of five sex trade organizations. What shocked the public was that the women involved in the sex tours included not only professional women working in the entertainment industry but also television and theater actresses, fashion models, foreign flight attendants, department store employees, and graduate school students.

The sex crimes of the U.S. servicemen in South Korea continue. The latest murder of a Korean woman working at a bar for foreigners in Itaewon by an American soldier that came to my attention was first reported in a newspaper on March 29, 2000. The soldier, a twenty-two-year-old corporal, fled from the 8th U.S. Army compound after a consultation session with a lawyer in the morning of April 28, 2000, when the first hearing on his murder charge was scheduled at Seoul District Court.(28) The Korean police arrested him several hours later but had to hand him over to the U.S. authority due to the SOFA terms.(29)

To conclude, human rights activists for the comfort women issue in Korea and elsewhere, whose representation of comfort women as military sex slaves has focused on Japan’s postwar responsibilities, must acknowledge that masculinist sexual culture was at the root of the comfort system, and address a fundamental social and political reality that the gross violations of human rights of comfort women originated from power inequity between the sexes, classes, and nation-states. One of the social implications of personal ordeals former comfort women had suffered both during and after the war is that similar tragedies will befall many more women unless patriarchal societies change their sexual culture. Prostitution is conventionally defined in terms of unethical behaviors of ‘fallen women’ while many men commonly depend on the sexual labor of socially despised women. We must move away from the mentality of blaming the victims to that of according full humanity to the downtrodden and search new ways to deal with old problems in order to help improve life conditions for all humankind. The masculinist sexual culture must give way to a humanist sexual culture in which each person’s humanity is respected regardless of sex, race, and social status.

Acknowledgements: I acknowledge with gratitude the financial support from the Northeast Asia Council for the Association for Asian Studies, San Francisco State University, the Japan Foundation, and the International Institute for Asian Studies of the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, which funded field research in Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands. The research time to write this paper was supported by a grant from the Research and Writing Initiative of the Global Security and Sustainability Program of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, for which I am thankful.

Endnotes

1. See Pateman 1988. 2. Nishino 1992:46. 3. See Yoshimi 1995:79-80. 4. Hata (1998) asserts that Japanese women, not Koreans, constituted the majority ethnic group at comfort stations set up for exclusive use of the military. 5. See Soh 2000a for a further discussion of the Dutch case. 6. In this article I add Asia to the term “Pacific War” (which Ienaga [1978:xiii] uses to cover the “Fifteen Year War,” from the Manchurian Incident in 1931 to Japan’s defeat in 1945) with a purpose to highlight human sufferings experienced by the peoples in Asia during that war. 7. See Soh 2000a. 8. For more details see Enloe 1990, 1993; Sturdevant and Stoltzfus 1992. 9. See Soh 1996. 10. Interview with Yun Chông-ok, a co-representative of the Korean Council, January 7, 1995. 11. Marcus 1999. 12. Kwon 1999. 13. Ibid., pp. 215-217; Chang 1986. 14. See Kim et al. 1972. 15. For Kim’s testimony, see Chôngsindae Yôn’guhoe and Chôngsindae Munje Taechaek Hyôpûihoe 1993. 16. Korean automobile mechanics and many drivers use the Japanese term, jôshi, to talk about the condition of the engine. For example, engine jôshi ga chotta (The engine is in good condition) uses the Japanese term, jôshi, as well as the English term engine. 17. Licensed prostitution was abolished in postwar Japan in 1946 (see Garon 1997). 18. For more details, see Korean Church Women United (KCWU) 1983. 19. Ibid., p. 24. 20. See Moon 1997. 21. See KCWU 1983: 55-56. 22. Han’guk Kyohoe Yôsông Yônhaphoe 1983:23. 23. Ibid., p. 16. 24. For more details, see Soh 1996. 25. See H. S. Kim 1997. 26. The National Campaign for Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea, n.d. 27. See Soh 2000b for a discussion of the meaning of women’s human rights for the survivors. 28. Han’guk Ilbo (April 29, 2000, B11). 29. KBS TV evening news, April 28, 2000.

References

Chang, Sa-hun. 1986. “Women Entertainers of the Yi Dynasty.” In Women of the Yi Dynasty, ed. Park Young-hai. Seoul: Research Center for Asian Women, Sookmyung Women’s University.

Chôngsindae Yôn’guhoe and Chôngsindae Munje Taechaek Hyôpûihoe, eds. 1993. Kangje-ro Kkûllyôgan Chosônin Kunwianpudûl (Forcibly Recruited Korean Military Comfort Women). Seoul: Hanul.

Enloe, Cynthia. 1990. Bananas, Beaches & Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

______. 1993. The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Garon, Sheldon. 1997. Molding Japanese Minds: The State in Everyday Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Han’guk Kyohoe Yôsông Yônhaphoe (HKYY). 1983. Kisaeng Kwan’gwang (Kisaeng Tourism). Seoul: HKYY.

Hata, Ikuhiko. 1998. “‘Ianfu densetsu’ o minaosu” (Rethinking the ‘comfort women legend’). In ‘Ianfu’ mondai to azia josei kikin (“Comfort Women” and Asian Women’s Fund), ed. Onuma Yasuaki, Shimomura Mitsuko, and Wada Haruki, pp. 197-199. Tokyo: Toshindo.

Ienaga, Saburo. 1978. The Pacific War: World War II and the Japanese, 1931-1945. Trans. Frank Baldwin. New York: Pantheon Books.

Kim, Hyôn-sôn. 1997. Kijich’on, Kijich’on Yôsông, Honhyôladong Silt’ae wa Sarye (The status and cases of Kijich’on, Kijich’on Women, and Children of Mixed Blood). Seoul: Saeumtô.

Kim, Ok-gil et al. 1972. Han’guk Yôsôngsa (History of Korean Women). Seoul: Ewha Womans University Press.

Korea Church Women United (KCWU). 1983. Kisaeng Tourism. Seoul: KCWU.

Kwon, Sun-hyông. 1999. Koryôsidae Yôsông i Kyubôm kwa Saenghwal (The norms and lives of women of Koryô). Pp. 135-162. Uri Yôsông i Yôksa (History of Our Women). Seoul: Han’guk Yôsông Yôn’guso Yôsôngsa Yôn’gusil.

Marcus, George E. 1999. Ethnography through Thick and Thin. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Moon, Katharine H. S. 1997. Sex among Allies: Military Prostitution in U.S.-Korea Relations. New York: Columbia University Press.

National Campaign for Eradication of Crime by U.S. Troops in Korea (NCEC). N.d. Cases of Crimes Committed by U.S. Militarymen. Seoul: NCEC.

Nishino, Rumiko. 1992. Jugun Ianfu: Moto Heishitachi no Shogen (Military Comfort Women: Testimony of Former Soldiers). Tokyo: Akashi Shoten.

Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Soh, Chunghee Sarah. 1996. Korean ‘Comfort Women’: Movement for Redress. Asian Survey 36(12):1227-1240.

______. 2000a. From Imperial Gifts to Sex Slaves: Theorizing Symbolic Representations of the ‘Comfort Women’. Social Science Japan Journal 3 (1):59-76.

_____. 2000b. Human Rights and the ‘Comfort Women’. Peace Review (In press).

Sturdevant, Sandra P., and Brenda Stoltzfus. 1992. Let the Good Times Roll: Prostitution and the U.S. Military in Asia. New York: The New Press.

Yoshimi, Yoshiaki. 1995. Jugunianfu (Military Comfort Women). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

http://www.icasinc.org/2000/2000s/2000scss.html

______________________________________________

Psychological Terrorism by The Unification Church at Cheongpyeong

Excerpts from Korean comfort woman Mun Ok-chu’s memoir

Almost all these Comfort Station managers / owners were Korean

Koreans who experienced the Japanese annexation of Korea explain some facts

Sun Myung Moon: “Women have twice the sin”

“About 100 Korean women were abducted by Korean prostitution brokers but were rescued by the Japanese military police.”

Japanese woman recruited by the Unification Church and sold to an older Korean farmer

6,500 Japanese women missing from Sun Myung Moon mass weddings

[emerald-studies]

The pioneer, Thurgood Marshall

Early Life and Family

Marshall was born on July 2, 1908, in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, William Marshall, was the grandson of a slave who worked as a steward at an exclusive club, and his mother, Norma, was a kindergarten teacher.

One of William's favorite pastimes was to listen to cases at the local courthouse before returning home to rehash the lawyers' arguments with his sons. Thurgood later recalled, "Now you want to know how I got involved in law? I don't know. The nearest I can get is that my dad, my brother and I had the most violent arguments you ever heard about anything. I guess we argued five out of seven nights at the dinner table."

Education

Marshall attended Baltimore's Colored High and Training School (later renamed Frederick Douglass High School), where he was an above-average student and put his finely honed skills of argument to use as a star member of the debate team. The teenage Marshall was also something of a mischievous troublemaker. His greatest high school accomplishment, memorizing the entire United States Constitution, was actually a teacher's punishment for misbehaving in class.

After graduating from high school in 1926, Marshall attended Lincoln University, a historically Black college in Pennsylvania. There, he joined a remarkably distinguished student body that included Kwame Nkrumah, the future president of Ghana, poet Langston Hughes and jazz singer Cab Calloway.

After graduating from Lincoln with honors in 1930, Marshall applied to the University of Maryland Law School. Despite being overqualified academically, Marshall was rejected because of his race. This firsthand experience with discrimination in education made a lasting impression on Marshall and helped determine the future course of his career.

Instead of Maryland, Marshall attended law school in Washington, D.C. at Howard University, another historically Black school. The dean of Howard Law School at the time was the pioneering civil rights lawyer Charles Houston. Marshall quickly fell under the tutelage of Houston, a notorious disciplinarian and extraordinarily demanding professor. Marshall recalled of Houston, "He would not be satisfied until he went to a dance on the campus and found all of his students sitting around the wall reading law books instead of partying."

Marshall graduated magna cum laude from Howard in 1933. He briefly attempted to establish his own practice in Baltimore, but without experience, he failed to land any significant cases.

Court Cases

In 1934, Marshall began working for the Baltimore branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1936, Marshall moved to New York City to work full time as legal counsel for the NAACP. Over several decades, Marshall argued and won a variety of cases to strike down many forms of legalized racism, helping to inspire the American civil rights movement.

Murray v. Pearson

In one of Marshall's first cases — which he argued alongside his mentor, Charles Houston — he defended another well-qualified undergraduate, Donald Murray, who like himself had been denied entrance to the University of Maryland Law School. Marshall and Houston won Murray v. Pearson in January 1936, the first in a long string of cases designed to undermine the legal basis for de jure racial segregation in the United States.

Chambers v. Florida

Marshall's first victory before the Supreme Court came in Chambers v. Florida (1940), in which he successfully defended four Black men who had been convicted of murder on the basis of confessions coerced from them by police.

Smith v. Allwright

Another crucial Supreme Court victory for Marshall came in the 1944 case of Smith v. Allwright, in which the Court struck down the Democratic Party's use of whites-only primary elections in various Southern states.

Brown v. Board of Education

The great achievement of Marshall's career as a civil-rights lawyer was his victory in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group of Black parents in Topeka, Kansas, whose children were forced to attend all-Black segregated schools. Through Brown v. Board, one of the most important cases of the 20th century, Marshall challenged head-on the legal underpinning of racial segregation, the doctrine of "separate but equal" established by the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal," and therefore racial segregation of public schools violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

While enforcement of the Court's ruling proved to be uneven and painfully slow, Brown v. Board provided the legal foundation, and much of the inspiration, for the American civil rights movement that unfolded over the next decade. At the same time, the case established Marshall as one of the most successful and prominent lawyers in America.

Circuit Court Judge and Solicitor General

In 1961, newly-elected President John F. Kennedy appointed Marshall as a judge for the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Serving as a circuit court judge over the next four years, Marshall issued more than 100 decisions, none of which was overturned by the Supreme Court.

In 1965, Kennedy's successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, appointed Marshall to serve as the first Black U.S. solicitor general, the attorney designated to argue on behalf of the federal government before the Supreme Court. During his two years as solicitor general, Marshall won 14 of the 19 cases that he argued before the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Justice

In 1967, President Johnson nominated Marshall to serve on the bench before which he had successfully argued so many times before the United States Supreme Court. On October 2, 1967, Marshall was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, becoming the first African American to serve on the nation's highest court. Marshall joined a liberal Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, which aligned with Marshall's views on politics and the Constitution.

As a Supreme Court justice, Marshall consistently supported rulings upholding strong protection of individual rights and liberal interpretations of controversial social issues. He was part of the majority that ruled in favor of the right to abortion in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade, among several other cases. In the 1972 case Furman v. Georgia, which led to a de facto moratorium on the death penalty, Marshall articulated his opinion that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances.

Throughout Marshall's 24-year tenure on the Court, Republican presidents appointed eight consecutive justices, and Marshall gradually became an isolated liberal member of an increasingly conservative Court.

For the latter part of his time on the bench, Marshall was largely relegated to issuing strongly-worded dissents, as the Court reinstated the death penalty and limited affirmative action measures and abortion rights. Marshall retired from the Supreme Court in 1991; Justice Clarence Thomas replaced him.

Personal Life

Marshall married Vivian "Buster" Burey in 1929, and the couple remained married until her death in 1955. Shortly thereafter, Marshall married Cecilia Suyat, his secretary at the NAACP. The couple had two sons together, Thurgood Jr. and John Marshall.

Death

Marshall died on January 24, 1993, at the age of 84.

Legacy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X

Marshall stands alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X as one of the greatest and most important figures of the American civil rights movement. Although he may be the least popularly celebrated of the three, Marshall was arguably the most instrumental in the movement's achievements toward racial equality.

Marshall's strategy of attacking racial inequality through the courts represented a third way of pursuing racial equality, more pragmatic than King's soaring rhetoric and less polemical than Malcolm X's strident separatism. In the aftermath of Marshall's death, an obituary read: "We make movies about Malcolm X, we get a holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, but every day we live with the legacy of Justice Thurgood Marshall."

Movie

In 2017, the biopic film Marshall was released. Starring Chadwick Boseman, Josh Gad and Kate Hudson, the movie focuses on an obscure 1941 rape case brought by Eleanor Strubing, a 32-year-old white woman, against her 32-year-old Black chauffeur, Joseph Spell. While Spell initially confessed to the crime after 16 hours of interrogation, he later said the encounter was consensual. During the trial, the judge allowed Marshall to assist his white co-attorney but banned him from speaking a single word. Following 12 hours of deliberation, the jury of six men and six women came back with a not guilty verdict. (source)

[and-then-there-were-n0ne]

This was a movement that defaced objectifying posters. It marched, it petitioned, it organized, it hexed Wall Street and levitated the Pentagon, it sued, it used whatever it could get its hands on. In the words of Monique Wittig, failing that, it invented. 

Why did we do all of this? We did it, I think, because we were a movement that valued women. Women mattered. We were not defensive about it. When women were hurt, this movement defended them. Individually and in groups, it organized and started shelters and groups of and for all women: battered women, incest survivors, prostitutes. We did this not because those women were thought "bad" by society or considered outlaws or shunned. We did it because what was done to them was a systematic act of power against each one of us, although they were taking the brunt of it. This was not a sentimental identification. We knew that whatever could be done to them could be, was being, would be done to us. 

We were them, also. This was a movement that took women's side in everything. Of everything, it asked the question: "Is it good for women?" Each woman was all women in some way. Any woman who was violated was our priority. It was a deeply collectivist movement. In this movement, when we said "women, we," it had content. It didn't mean that we all had to be the same in order to be part of this common condition. That, in fact, was the genius, one of the unique contributions of this movement: it premised unity as much on diversity as on commonality. It did not assume that commonality meant sameness. This was a movement in which people understood the need to act with courage in everyday life, that feminism was not a better deal or a riskless guarantee but a discipline of a hostile reality. To say that the personal was political meant, among other things, that what we do every day matters. It meant you become what you do not resist. The personal and everyday was understood to be part of the political order we organized to change, part of our political agenda. To see the personal as the political did not mean that what turns you on grounds the policies you promote. We also felt and understood, I think, a responsibility to all women. We opposed women's invisibility, insisted on women's dignity, questioned everything that advanced itself at women's expense. Most of all, this movement believed in change. It intended to transform language, community, the life of the spirit and the body and the mind, the definition of physicality and intelligence, the meaning of left and right, right and wrong, and the shape and nature of power. 

It was not all roses, this movement that we had. But it did mean to change the face of this earth. It knew that this was necessary. Most of all, it knew that we did not yet have what we need and believed that we could get it. 

I learned everything I know from this movement. 

Then something happened. Or started to happen, or maybe it had been happening all along and some of us had overlooked it. [...] Everything some of us had started to notice exploded in the discussion on pornography. As many of you may know, Andrea Dworkin and I conceived and designed a law based on the politics of the women's movement that we thought we were part of and fielded it with others who were under the same illusion. It is a sex equality law, a civil-rights law, a law that says that sexual subordination of women through pictures and words, this sexual traffic in women, violates women's civil rights.

This was done in feminist terms: as if women mattered; because we value women; because it wasn't enough only to criticize oppression, and it wasn't enough only to engage in guerilla activities of resistance, although they are crucial. We wanted to change the norm. To change the norm, we looked for a vulnerable place in the system. We looked for something that could be made to work for us, something we could use. We took whatever we could get our hands on, and when it wasn't there, we invented. We invented a sex equality law against pornography on women's terms. 

To no one's surprise, especially ours, it was opposed by many people. It was opposed by conservatives who discovered that they disliked sex equality a lot more than they disliked pornography. It was opposed by liberals, who discovered that they liked speech— i.e., sex, i.e., women being used— a great deal more than they liked sex equality. Then came the opposition from a quarter that labeled itself feminist: from FACT, the Feminist Anti-Censorship Task Force. At this point, for me, the women's movement that I had known came to an end. 

In an act of extraordinary horizontal hostility, FACT filed a brief against the ordinance in court as part of a media-based legal attack on it. [...] Pornography, they said, is sex equality. Women should just have better access to it. [...] A woman who enjoys pornography, even if that means enjoying a rape fantasy, is, in a sense, a rebel." From what is she rebelling? Their answer: "Insisting on an aspect of her sexuality that has been defined as a male preserve." Now who can't tell the difference between rape and sex? Rape has been a male preserve. But to insist on being defined by what one has been forced to be defined by is, to say the least, a rather limited notion of freedom. And choice. And a women's movement that aspires to inhabit rapist preserves is not a women's movement I want any part of. 

You might be wondering what the FACT response to all the knowledge, data, understanding, and experience of women's sexual victimization presented in support of the ordinance was. What their response was to all the women who wanted to use the law, the women who had the courage to speak out so it could exist, who put their lives, their reputations, and, yes, their honor on the line for it. Mostly, FACT did not even mention them. They were beneath notice. Coerced women, assaulted women, subordinated women became "some women." In fact, the FACT brief did what pornography does: it makes harm to women invisible by making it sex. It makes harm to women into ideas about sex, just like the right-wing male judge did who found the ordinance unconstitutional. [...] FACT does not deserve all the credit for this, because their power comes from fronting for male supremacy. Nor do they deserve all the blame. That belongs with the pornographers, their legitimate media cohorts, and the ACLU. [...]

What is the difference between the women's movement we had and the one we have now, if it can be called a movement? I think the difference is liberalism. Where feminism was collective, liberalism is individualistic. We have been reduced to that. Where feminism is socially based and critical, liberalism is naturalistic, attributing the product of women's oppression to women's natural sexuality, making it "ours." Where feminism criticizes the ways in which women have been socially determined in an attempt to change that determination, liberalism is voluntaristic, meaning it acts like we have choices that we do not have. Where feminism is based on material reality, liberalism is based on some ideal realm in the head. And where feminism is relentlessly political, about power and powerlessness, the best that can be mustered by this nouveau movement is a watered-down form of moralism: this is good, this is bad, no analysis of power or powerlessness at all. In other words, members of groups, like women, who have no choice but to live life as members of groups are taken as if they are unique individuals. [...] The way this gets itself up in law is as gender neutrality, consent, privacy, and speech. Gender neutrality means that you cannot take gender into account, you cannot recognize, as we once knew we had to, that neutrality enforces a non-neutral status quo. Consent means that whatever you are forced to do is attributed to your free will. Privacy protects the sphere of women's intimate oppression. Speech protects sexual violence against women and sexual use of women because they are male forms of self-expression. [...] Liberalism makes these results necessary, in part because it cannot look at sexual misogyny. This is because misogyny is sexual. To be clear, it is sexual on the left, it is sexual on the right, it is sexual to liberals, and it is sexual to conservatives. As a result, sexuality, as socially organized, is deeply misogynist. [...] Equality law cannot apply to sexuality because equality is not sexy and inequality is. Equality cannot apply to sexuality because sexuality occurs in private and nothing is supposed to interfere in the private, however unequal it is. 

[tonitoni77]

assign current affair

The “nth room” case is an online sexual violence crime against women, involving the alleged coercion and blackmailing of them in South Korea since late 2018 (Nguyen, 2020). According to the news, there is about 260000 participants in the chat rooms on Telegram, where they paid about 1200 US dollars and had to upload sexual abuse content in order to receive the premium memberships in the nth room case. Many of them claim that they are innocent and should be treated as victims because they paid for those illegal videos, but they are not able to access to them now. The case has drawn widespread public attention and sparked public outrage in South Korea. A noticeable number of victims are particularly vulnerable since they are underage students in schools. Many women gather for protesting against hidden camera pornography and sexism under the slogan “My Life is Not your Porn”, and a lot of Koreans signed petitions to ask the police to disclose identities and information of the operators and all the participants. The long-standing problem of gender inequality in patriarchal society, influenced by both Christianity and Confucianism, in South Korea has become even more problematic in this crime case. This article shall discuss why all participants should be viewed as accomplices in the case against what they claim for previously and reveal the causes of silence and collective actions behind this abominable crime case.

The nth room case reveal the severe issue of sexual exploitation and abuse in South Korea. The entertainment industry there inevitably suffers from scandals of sexual abuses. A former K-pop star called Lee Seung-Hyun was running a nightclub named “Burning Sun” and women were assaulted and drugged at the nightclub while being filmed unconscious without their consent and knowledge by using illegal drugs, such as methamphetamine. These sexually explicit videos of unconsciously abused women were soon shared on chat room and labelled with prices. The nth room case and 260000 participants involved had been lasting for almost two years and was finally made public because of efforts made by two university students. Similarly, the “Burning Sun” scandal was covered up by the police and finally exposed by a women journalist. Some of the participants in nth room case claim they are innocent and are victims by arguing that they were just paying for watching normal pornography as customers and they didn’t coerce the victims. They argue that watching and processing pornography should not be taken account into criminal offences and even blame those “slut women”, the victims, for uploading sexually explicit videos. However, these explicit sexual and violent videos were illegally obtained by disguising themselves as police officers and also lurking women and girls to collect their personal information, threatened them to produce increasingly dehumanising sexual content with posting images online and sending them to victims’ friends and families. These cruel footage include victims were forced to carve the word “slave” on their bodies and post certain gestures to proof they “belonged” to certain people (Guardian, 2020); they were forced to cut off nipple, put objects into vagina, etc, according to the reports. These claims reflect the fact that South Korean men disrespect, othering women and disregard law and morality. Silence and the men’s repeatedly accusation of women being slut could easily be found in these sexual abuse scandals. The claims that is women’s faults and to deny that women are victims of sexual abuse scandals expose culture of toxic masculinity, the typical and systematic structure of discriminating against women (Son, 2018), and idea of misogyny related to the objectification of women and treating them as sexual goods (Ueno, 2012).

Those claims of being innocent made by participants are not sounded for several reasons. First, participants had to be invited via links to the chat room and had to pay in cryptocurrency. The anonymous characteristic has been highlighted here. For accessing to some premium, they had to film or upload sexually abusive videos as well. The chat rooms operator would immediately kick out anyone suspicious. The trust is built upon trading and exchanging explicit sexual, and sometimes violent footages of women and girls being filmed. These facts suggest that participants were aware that the videos they purchased are illegal and are not “normal”. Purchasing illegally obtained sexual content linked to sexual exploitation and abuse is actually encouraging and sponsoring industries of sexual exploitation and abuse. According to the reasons stated above, participants in the nth room case are not innocent and victims. Many participants appear to be ignorant on women’s disadvantaged situation in such a patriarchal society and are not able to be empathetic to it. They always presume that women voluntarily take part in sexual industries for economic interests without considering that the coercive situations they have to face and are fear of. MacKinnon (1983, p.636) provides valuable accounts for these phenomenons, arguing that a non-situated objectivity as universal standpoint is to not acknowledge the existing or potency of sex inequality and participates in constructing reality from dominant’s perspectives. Here, the men play the dominating role. So, it is not surprising that the standpoint from their points of view enforces definition of women, description of their women’s life, over-stresses on their speech, and encircles their bodies (MacKinnon 1983, p.636.). These accounts can somewhat explain why victims in the case had kept silence and continuously to comply with those inhumanly predators’ cruel commands because of the fear. In those context, women and girls might not be capable to clearly present what they experienced of because of the men’s dominating perspectives and narratives in the unequal gender system. Participants in nth room acquire a morbid point of view of women body and sex, and this echoes MacKinnon’ s explanations.

MacKinnon suggests that “It is a methodological expression of women’s situation, in which the struggle for consciousness is a struggle for world: for a sexuality, a history, a culture, a community, a form of power, an experience of scared”(MacKinnon 1983, p,637). In “Toward a Feminist Theory of The State” (1989), She argues that sex is the major reason of women being suppressed, exploited, and intimidated. Treating women as objects and goods to exchange and trade in men’s society allows the mainstream gender system, which women are subordinate to men, to function (MacKinnon, 1989). Women are classified as either slut or chaste and innocent by men to manipulate them for suppressing their subjectivity and to achieve the purpose of maintaining both their collective interest and as an individual’s interest (MacKinnon, 1989). The nth room case is arguably to be a simplified model since elements and spheres(age, social status, class, etc.)in traditional society have been eased by the Internet but male remains as the prominent socially constructed unchanged/eternal identity.

Limitation: western liberal value/philosophy

[ridchard]

Racism in the time of Coronavirus- A familiar experience with new stereotype and same hatred towards Indigenous People with Mongoloid Feature in India

In the year 1832, the British first came into contact with the Naga tribes while exploring the region to construct road between Manipur and Assam. Since that contact, the Nagas were slowly overwhelmed by the expansion of British colonialism. As a part of colonialism, the colonisers brought in diseases and medicines along with them. Uncontacted Naga tribe barring its periodical interface with the Ahoms, the Kacharis and the Manipur Kingdom got exposed to new diseases. The medicines they brought along with them among other factors and colonialism processes, convinced Naga tribes to accept their unsolicited presence in their lands. The British see to it as a part of the beginning of civilising the savages. Almost two centuries later in the last week of March, 2020 during lockdown in regards to pandemic spread of Coronavirus, Naga youth living in Mysuru, Karnataka were denied access to a More departmental store on the ground that they were suspected as potential carrier of coronavirus simply for bearing Mongoloid features. Today, indigenous people have come a long way by coming out of their villages and they are studying or working in cities, yet the blatant racism in this time conveys that they are still unwelcome and unwanted which continue to reduce their existence as an unequal being. The colonial rule under the garb of civilising project initiated in the past to present is littered with violence, ethnic tension, acculturation, loss of lands, dilution of identity, assimilation etc. These experiences left behind a scar in the memories of indigenous community and for them, racism remains a familiar enemy since the time their villages were compelled to open up to outside world.

Racism and its constructions

A magnitude of racism with the emergence of Covid-19 or commonly known as coronavirus, is a continuity and manifestation of existing racism towards indigenous people from northeastern states, Ladakh, and Northern part of West Bengal in India. The rise of racism aligns with experience of people of Asian origins where they are being subjected to racism in various countries across the world after the outbreak of coronavirus in China. They are being racially discriminated on the ground that they could be potential carrier of coronavirus for bearing Mongoloid features. In India too, people with Mongoloid features are repeatedly taunted and intimidated by calling them, coronavirus. One Manipuri girl was spat on in Delhi, some beaten up in Kolkata, a female from Meghalya was coerced to leave restaurant in Delhi, a student from Nagaland was hounded as Chinese and suspected for coronavirus in Mumbai etc. These are some of the many racism cases coming out in recent time as early as February with a common slur in coronavirus. This new label is one of the many racist slurs directed against people from northeastern states and Ladakh, and Northern part of West Bengal. More than not often only an outrage on social media catches the attention of media and concerned authority leading to condemnation from civil societies and intervention. Incidences of racism have become so rampant that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on March 23 released an advisory to all the States to take stringent action against harassment and racial discrimination against people of northeast in the backdrop of linking them as potential carrier of coronavirus.  

Racism in India is beyond ignorance and socio-cultural gap. It is structural in nature which enable people in power positions to racially discriminate the other. The Other here is people from northeastern states. In the words of Robin DiAngelo in his book, “What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy”, published in the year 2016, wrote, “Racism encompasses economic, political, social, and institutional actions and beliefs, which sys-tematize and perpetuate an unequal distribution of privileges, resources, and power between whites and people of color.” He takes it further on the notion that the targeted group in racism can also be discriminatory towards the dominant group. He discussed this aspect by dissecting ‘reverse racism’ by stating that “Racism does not move back and forth, one day benefiting whites and another day (or even era) benefiting people of color. The direction of power between whites and people of color is historic, traditional, and normalized in ideology. The critical element that differentiates racism from individual racial prejudice and racial discrimination is the historical accumulation and ongoing use of institutional power and authority to support the prejudice and to enforce discriminatory behaviors in systemic ways with far-reaching effects. People of color may hold prejudices and discriminate against whites, but do not have the social and institutional power backing their prejudice and discrimination that transforms it into racism; the impact of their prejudice on whites is temporary and contextual. Whites hold the social and institutional positions in society to infuse their racial prejudice into the laws, policies, practices, and norms of society in a way that people of color do not.” This holds true to existing relation between people of northeastern states and the rest of India where existing system like Armed Forces Special Powers Act, the terminology ‘northeast’ devoid of different states and diverse characters of inhabitants, and the history of the formation of states like Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, are indicative of looking at them from top down approach. Protective provisions like Inner Line Permit, Sixth Schedule etc are steps taken to ensure autonomy and value diverse identities and differing background of communities from the states of northeast region. It is in institutional mechanism and socio-cultural factors that privileged people from outside northeast region to attain the position of power, and provide a sense of superiority in relation to indigenous communities from northeast region, and treat them as unequal beings through the process of othering. This is structural in nature and the gap here provides a ground for racism and racially discriminate them.

The Politics of Naming

The coronavirus label being given to people with mongoloid features in India, adds to existing racist slurs directed towards indigenous people from northeastern states, Ladakh, and Northern part of West Bengal. Naming things are inherent in any society as a way to simplify complex order around us. When there is interface and intersection between two communities, the naming is not without politics and its ramifications adds more ground to widen unequal power relation. Here, Jean-Jacques Weber in his book, Language Racism, published in the year 2015 argues on the politics of naming, “…such categories are useful to help us cope with the complexities of our social world. At the same time, however, we need to make a conscious effort to resist and deconstruct stereotypical categorizations and attributions. Categories such as ‘black’ and ‘white’, or ‘foreign’ and ‘native’, as with all binary oppositions, are socially constructed, and the most important question is perhaps the one of power: who has the power to impose his or her categories? who defines where the boundaries between categories lie? This brings us back to the important point…that the process of identity construction always involves a negotiation between how I see myself (achieved identity) and how others see me (imposed identity).” The politics of naming is often loaded with stereotypes which adds injury to targeted people with consequences beyond one’s control. It is in this that racism as an outcome of social construction need to be brought in to indicate that the construction is possible with institutional structures which empowered certain historically dominant communities to define and name the others. While exercising this authority, the unknown, especially indigenous people are usually stereotyped with negative connotations to remind them of their positions in the everyday world. In the same way as dominant communities, the racially oppressed people also have labels and names for people who do not belong to their community. There is a distinction in naming here between the historically dominant people and indigenous people which lies in power and institutional support.

To illustrate the politics of naming, an example of Manipur state is considered where different communities like Meitei, Naga, Kuki, Marwari, Bengali etc inhabit the state. One common label commonly used by Meitei community is mayang which is meant towards Hindi speaking people. The word ‘mayang’ is used to identify people who are not either Naga, Kuki, other tribes or Meitei. Considering the power equation and history of the region overwhelmed by waves of colonialism and post colonialism, this label is not a counter or equivalent to racist slurs given to indigenous people. Just like 'mayang', Rongmei Naga in Manipur have terms like 'taimei' for Meitei; 'panganmei' for Manipuri Muslims; 'khongsaimei' for Kuki; 'tajongmei' for Hindi speaking people etc. The operational word 'mei' (people) attached in them means people and Rongmei Naga tribe address them by attaching 'mei' to identity people on their own terms in the past when literatures of outside world were yet to seep into their villages, hills and nation. Yet they give a dignified name by attaching people in contrast to how people from mainstream societies with access to almost everything in knowing different societies across the world, label them with names of food, virus, stereotypes, and other derogatory names. A distinction existing in this form rarely finds in popular discourse, and they rather superimpose their belief, notion, and ideological stance on indigenous people by disregarding their agencies and aspirations. The refusal to see indigenous tribal people as people can be inferred from the stereotypes and labels they have been given. In literature and academic too, there is an effort to homogenise the lifeworld of tribal communities into universal values and often portray them as ahistorical community including the unacknowledgement of their rich oral histories in the same status which written form of history enjoys. Epistemic violence or say ‘epistemic racism’ is a challenged faced by indigenous tribal people in academia.

Taking it further on the politics of naming in the case of mainstream societies, one can state that a position as such has a tendency to mischaracterise context happenings in tribal communities, and perceived any ill treatment towards people from outside as racism. These terms synonymous in Meitei, Rongmei Naga and other indigenous communities in northeastern states of India, are in no way can be equated with derogatory terms emanating from communities privileging from power positions, like 'naked people', 'savage', 'barbaric', 'uncivilised', 'unthinking', 'jungli', 'jingalala', etc and another set of racist slurs in present time, coronavirus as the latest addition to this, which all continue to define indigenous people from northeastern states of India. Likewise, even the name ‘Naga’ is given to several tribals inhabiting in the present Nagaland and Manipur, parts of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, and Myanmar. One must note that indigenous people take to only one name in identifying the dominant community unlike how dominant community takes to multiple names and stereotypes to define indigenous people. It is clear that power plays a key role in determining which name gets to define the other with unprecedented consequences unlike the names constructed by indigenous people which is contextual and in contingent with their lifeworld, and without the support of power structure and mainstream culture. Even in the case of mainstream societies in India, they turn to names like ‘firangi’, ‘gora’, ‘angrezi’ etc to label and identify the white people.

This reality points toward the fact that racism is not just about discrimination and ignorance, it is more than that. Power structure and sense of cultural superiority, and historical basis of dominance are central to racism and its perpetuation in various forms. It is on this regards that as much there is nothing as such as 'reverse sexism', 'reverse casteism', or 'reverse homophobia', there is also nothing like ‘reverse racism’. This is not to say that a form of ill treatment towards the other (non-local) doesn't exist in Manipur or adjoining states. It does exist which is contextual and specific to particular circumstances. We must discuss that as well, but not by cancelling out racism experiences of people from northeastern states which has its historical basis and power dynamics. This kind of balancing by inventing concept like reverse racism does equal harm and gives an impetus to racism to thrive and continue to perpetuate without holding people accountable for its existence and practice.

 Existing crisis and new label, Coronavirus

Racism issue in regards to Coronavirus is happening since early February in India, and no one bats an eye till today. It is disturbing and extremely worrying to think the extent of racism happening to people from northeastern states living in various parts of India. Existing provisions are meant to undo injustices meted to tribes and to preserve and practice their socio-cultural identity. However, this move is also a way to have their representation in decision making bodies, and the larger goal in power sharing still remains a distant dream. The non-recognition of UN declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, and non-ratification of ILO Convention no. 169 - Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989, in India deny indigenous people to fulfilment of their rights and living with dignity. Add to it, there is no legal mechanism or a law to address racism in India. Even in existing SC/ST Atrocities Act, racism is nowhere mentioned in it, discrimination practised against tribes is largely counted under caste discrimination. The lack of mechanism to identify racial background in the SC/ST Atrocities Act and how racism affects people from northeastern states get subdued and diluted by legal language which sees discrimination from the point of caste discrimination. A situation here puts indigenous tribal people in precarious situation where experiences of racism based on their social and historical location and cultural location are replaced by an episteme which is alien to them. This gap does disservice and obliterate them and deprive their rights and the path to fulfilment of rights is filled with obscurity. It is precisely on this non recognition that the existing structure enable people from upper caste, upper class, and minority group and lower caste to practice racism against indigenous people from northeast region. Even if racial discrimination gets included in the SC/ST Atrocities Act, other indigenous communities from northeast which do come under ST category will be without protection from racism. A specific legal remedy is required to address and curb racism in India, possibly in the form of specific law pertaining to racism. A framing of law must happen with active participation and decisive take from indigenous communities of northeastern states, Ladakh and northern part of West Bengal. In the same wavelength, community effort must also be initiated to be sensible and respect differences and imbibe a conducive space in cultural practice. This can be a start to tackle racism with active support from civil societies and the state authority.

The prevailing situation of racism in India is indicative of how a label coronavirus easily gets manifested into societies subjecting people with mongoloid features to go through humiliation, intimidation, trauma, and violence. In the case of women, they are more vulnerable and face multiple discriminations- racism and sexism. At current junction, the concerned authorities must take it further from advisory from MHA and see to it that every perpetrator of racism is put to task with stringent action and penalty. Every authority must reach out and work closely with civil societies including student bodies representing northeast communities, Ladakh etc to streamline and identify racism cases and take strict actions effectively, and ensure that people from northeastern states, Ladakh and Northern part of West Bengal are getting basic essential items and other access in this time of coronavirus. A move in this manner can instil a sense of security and trust in the system, and find means to maintain social and physical distance to contain the spread of coronavirus.