In spite of the fact that I was originally asked to write an article on ‘The Developing Path of the Feminist Movement in Korean Culture and the Arts’, I wanted to go back to the present – no, to the beginning – and to develop this essay through my impressions or analyses of the respective movements, situations, and events that are happening in different places, like a relay. It was at a talk in early September organised by a certain dance magazine that I got to hear about the current state of the ‘Me Too’ movement, which was beginning to gather momentum in the dancing world. I also heard the original opinion of Na Hye-seok was finally beginning to change, after attending a public hearing in mid-September regarding a certain art museum. Although the feminist wake-up call and its corresponding movement had emerged among young females since 2015, and has been featured in prominent articles and online platforms, and although some of its more significant events have been carved into our memories while many others have been quickly forgotten – and even though such events continue to occur around us – now, there are still those instances that remain merely on the lips of an ‘inner circle’ without every entering the public sphere, or receiving the attention of the press. Instead of bringing about a revolution, these calls for change, the movement, as well as its events, are either progressively or even simultaneously disappearing and becoming quietly forgotten among political camps, realms, and communities. Perhaps there are places where such movements just began to find their footing before fading, or successful cases, completed stories, ambiguous rumours, and troubling events that have been managed or have been erased by people who have disappeared themselves. Although one might be able to tie all these things together, the situation defies classification as a singular event, such that there is now a desire to rather stay away from the convoluted and perplexing feminist movement of today in search for some ‘inner peace’.
In this era overflowing with personal opinion, to assume a universal standpoint towards feminism – across all generations, classes, genders, and others – would be either conceited or ignorant, and therefore I write this essay as a person working within the cultural arts while, at the same time, keeping my mind on that originally requested theme for this article and its keywords such as ‘Korean’, ‘feminist movement’, and ‘development pathway’. Because nowadays the position of professional opinions have declined and given way to personal viewpoints, and it seems that it is ‘worthless’ to ask for the opinions of the former – that is, of individuals who have a perspective on the big and complete picture – who speak from a detached perspective in contrast to those who are deeply involved in the scene themselves. For example, general clarifications, abstract conclusions, generalised summaries, and clear-cut classifications – ‘worthless’ things that professionals make by abstracting from and clearing out the specificities and anomalies – go against the universality and representability of my opinion. Such ‘worthless’ values would probably be useful and relevant to third-party observers who merely wish to observe a quick overview of the matter from the outside, but in those abstract terms and texts, the professionals have cut out or replaced the people who are deeply engaged with the situation in person, and as a consequence there won’t be any real descriptions of the scene. If they want words that are not based on universalised knowledge but something informed, actual and real – that is, if they want their texts to embody not mere ideas but something concrete – then they have to be faithful to the present and to remain at the presentness of the totality that denies reenactment and translation. I think that this is the linguistic function and value of art-language, body-speech, and sense-making.
The task of declaring oneself not merely as a human being or as a citizen but as a woman – and to discuss and talk about the issues of being a woman – is something relatively new here. This is even something that is unfamiliar and intimidating to the females themselves, so there is a need to keep rehearsing it tirelessly for one to become familiar and be in control of speaking of this overbearing phenomenon. Repeated training by engaging in this raw speech – that is, a pre-cognitive speech that hasn’t yet settled down as one’s bodily capacity – and making it one’s own, happens through countless failures and training exercises in the same way as newly-born infants or immigrants learn their new language. The process of digging up first-hand accounts hidden ‘deep’ inside these women and to engage them within a connected relay structure is very tedious and laborious work. To respect and listen to all stories and opinions without discrimination – the words of the people involved or words that sound repetitive – comes at first as a shock, but eventually one grows numb to it and ultimately makes one cynical. However, as how one may already associate from words like ‘victim’, ‘person involved’, or ‘testifier’, these words support and protect those who have shared their experiences with one another, and thus these words cannot but be performed always as a premiere. Such words must always be heard, transmitted, and repeated. Whether in the format of a direct conversation, or within the 140 word-limit of a Twitter post, or a diary – such sentences must be continuously used, shared, transmitted, recorded, and disseminated over the air. These words must continue to exist until the day arrives when no one will need to cry but join in laughter while giving an account like those amassing in this way. The practice of repeating such words that may not have any meaning, value, or educational significance is done simply for ‘myself’ to be free from that word-hurt-poison cycle, and to realise that it isn’t just ‘I’ who was hurt and has suffered, but that it was ‘us’, and that this experience and its corroborative words were the ‘founding source’ to make this new type of connection and communication possible.
Therefore, the task of reenacting and sharing the experiences of those who are endangered – victims, people who suffer from self-hate, and people who cannot but suppress secrets deep within them – is not primarily directed at pointing out and punishing the victimisers and realising legislative justice. This task is the practice of regaining one’s own strength, sense of value, and self-esteem against the linguistic regulations that have made one powerless, humble, and valueless – and additionally, to manifest ‘our’ femininity. As for myself, who is called to various places as a professional intellectual, I have nothing to add to this current situation. I merely support, wait, and attend scenes, conferences, and public hearings while claiming no authority as a professional. There is something that I can still say, of course, and I’m writing it now. As someone who argues that the attitudes of those who wish to wait and listen to the professionals and to their well-informed opinions do nothing but erase the event, and as someone who believes in the importance of creating more platforms for the voices of these normal, pedestrian, but involved people to be heard, I am continuing to participate in talks and so on in order to carry out my personal penance and to confess what I’ve lost and learnt as an intellectual-professional.
I’m a woman in her fifties who has taught feminist aesthetic theory in college for many years, and for that I’ve come to translate Judith Butler’s recent publications, have frequently met with artists as an active art critic, and I’m currently working as a reviewer. The feminist theory that I’ve read and taught mostly is ‘theories’ related to post-structuralism, and hence, instead of advocating for a feminism that tries to frame the female experience within particular model-structure, I’m more inclined to a post-feminist strain that questions and thematises this framework. This has inevitably extended to reflection on how feminism is inclusive and exclusive to certain females, and how certain patriarchal premises are present and are functioning in feminism through female subjects. Simultaneously, through my personal conversations with artists, I’ve observed how developed the female experience and problem is especially in the works of these female artists. That said, they have also expressed their discomfort at my effort to translate and interpret their works through a perceived feminist narrative. Because of its marginal and minor status, to be classified as a female artist in the art world is no different from being under risk of being demeaned by the hegemony of ‘normal’ modern art, and so even when it was clear that their works embodied the female gaze, in content and composition, they refused to have their works classified and interpreted as the work of a female artist. They wanted to be a genderless universal artist, and thus isolated themselves from their work. Art colleges didn’t always teach minor methodologies or strategies such as feminism, and there were almost no teachers who would lend an ear to young students to listen to their personal stories as women. As such, many were not able to gain access to a channel to objectify and publicly discuss their private motivations and issues in their work. Instead, they had no choice but to accept the human universal – that is, male-specific aesthetic interests – as their own for survival. In an aesthetic realm that acts as the medium to express those unconscious desires that cannot be put into words, although I could already and always see a certain female style and composition in their works, I couldn’t persuade them to bear the potential risks. There were numerous female professionals working in the art world – whether as curators or critics – but exhibitions or works that had feminism as their main focus were relatively rare. Of course, there were female artists who were also feminists after the 1980s, but coming into the 2010s, this became even more ghettoized as a common movement, and only a few individual artists were maintaining the momentum and sentiments. As a consequence, whenever I analysed a work by a female artist, I critiqued it while trying not to include the word ‘female’. Furthermore, for one who thinks that art should first undergo and come to base itself upon the first-hand confessions of an artist before contending with something more communal like social interests or policies, it was often true that those works skipped over this first stage and came to me as something awkward and uncomfortable, like a shirt that has its buttons sewed on incorrectly. In my view, the art world seemed conservative. The female artists were in various ways marginalised by this version of the art world.
After the ‘Megalia’ incident, followed by the ‘Me Too’ movement, many female artists are beginning to create work based on their personal experiences and problems. In other words, there is an increase in the number of female artists sharing feminist methods and collaborating with each other, and while this may not mean much in terms of what they can gain from the art world, it nevertheless proves that through connecting and collaborating, these artists have ‘gained’ in their realisation of the possibilities of a cooperative endeavour while upholding a common problem and a common happiness as a shared premise. This is a result accomplished in daily life and from being part of the scene. This year, I have participated as a temporary member of a group that bi-annually awards cultural producers, and I had the opportunity to meet feminist cultural planners and to hear their stories. Thanks to this, I was able to learn about organisations and groups that have been working together as feminists and female cultural arts producers. The fact that I only got to know of them then was also a cause for shame. I was able to see in them how each respective struggle and dedication had come together to create a united movement. These works were collaborations based on the connections shared between these female groups, which stood in contrast to the heroic works made by male artists that I was used to seeing. They manifested anger, connection, creation, positivity, and humour through their work. They were creating their work and their artistic narratives without caring about how the adults, males, famous male seniors, or those in power saw them. They were working not for everyone but for us – and although they were a little lacking in terms of results, effect, fulfillment, and display, more importantly it was a process of self-reconciliation created by a collaborative minority.
The brand of feminism that once made headlines throughout the country with it shocks, wonder, and sensationalised events – and with a momentum that had piqued the curiosities of media and observers to a great deal – has somewhat died down, and it seems that it has now been replaced with an increasing number of smaller, less-prominent, and fewer themes, camps, and opinions that get moved around under the radar. On the social network platforms that I continue to visit from time to time, conflicting voices between those cases and controversies that exclude, distort, and oppress women, and those who find discomfort and wish to remove the feminist perspective that overly emphasise such marginal and limiting cases continue on endlessly. Those who read and classify the mediums that embody a form of so-called equal freedom of speech would be external observers like myself. Over the past years, I have seen how young females– through followers and following others – have expressed themselves repeatedly, spoken together, grown in momentum, created impact, and thereby learnt to reconstitute feminism on their own terms. Observing the charisma of these young females, teaching themselves in their daily lives by participating in the scene and their online community – on how they familiarised themselves with sensitivity and have created new aesthetic forms without a need for school or professional guidance – I came to acknowledge that it is now an era that no longer needs a ‘professional’, and that a situation where anyone can be enlightened and enlighten others has arrived. It is an era in which it is incumbent upon each individual to simply be truthful when speaking of their immediate challenges or situations, an era in which professionals may learn from amateurs, and an era in which people no longer need to follow a certain major trends that dictate how they live. In this way, feminism will take its twists and turns along the numerous side-paths ahead of it and will continue to move forward. We don’t speak of ‘the women'. There are just many women, and it will not be the observers but the insiders – that is, the footsteps of these women who have actually engaged, acted, and lived – which will testify to how women can connect, survive, and relish a creative life.