为何一个小小手势让韩国男性大为光火
The Little Symbol Triggering Men in South Korea’s Gender War
HAWON JUNG
2021年8月3日
SEOUL — One day, she was an ordinary working woman in South Korea, married with a son and designing ads for one of the country’s largest convenience store chains. The next day, she was branded a man-hating feminist on web forums popular with men, a “cancer-like creature” among an “anti-social group” of “feminazis.”
首尔——前一天，她还是一名普通的职业女性，已婚，育有一子，为韩国最大的一家连锁便利店设计广告。第二天，她在深受男性欢迎的网络论坛上被贴上了憎恨男人的女权主义者的标签，是“女权纳粹”“反社会团体”中的“毒瘤怪物”。
The hostility centered on an ad the woman had designed for camping products. It depicted a tent, a forest, a campfire and a large hand about to grasp a sausage. The thumb and index finger of the hand image resemble the pinching-hand emoji, a symbol often suggesting something is small.
引发敌意的是她为露营产品设计的一幅平面广告。广告上可以看到帐篷、森林、篝火和一只作势要拿一根香肠的大手。这只手的拇指和食指好像那个在捏什么的表情符，通常用于暗示某样东西很小。
Many men were furious, convinced it ridiculed the size of their genitals.
很多男人对此大为光火，认为这是在嘲笑他们生殖器的尺寸。
They threatened to boycott the multibillion-dollar company, called GS25. The woman, whose identity has been withheld by the company for her safety, desperately tried to defuse the situation. “I do not support any ideology,” she said in an online statement in May. She denied that her design was a veiled “expression of hate for men.”
他们威胁要抵制这家名为GS25、价值数十亿美元的公司。公司鉴于安全原因拒绝透露这位女士的身份，并急切地试图平息这场危机。5月，她在一份网络声明中说：“我不支持任何意识形态。”她否认自己的设计是一种隐蔽的“对男性的仇恨表达”。
Nonetheless, GS25 disciplined her and publicly apologized.
尽管如此，GS25还是对她进行了处分，并公开道歉。
What happened to the woman was the latest salvo in South Korea’s war against feminists. It seems that men here need merely to express an affront to their male sensibilities, and businesses will bend over backward to soothe them. In recent months, the mob has dredged up all sorts of unrelated ads and howled “misandry!” In each instance, the ad has contained a depiction of fingers pinching some innocuous item — a credit card, a can of Starbucks espresso, even a Covid-19 vaccine. In many cases, the accused — including the national police agency and the defense ministry — removed the offending image and expressed regret for hurting men’s feelings.
这位女士的遭遇，是韩国反女权战争的最新一轮攻势。在这个地方，似乎男性只要声称他们的男性情感受到了冒犯，企业就会竭尽全力安抚他们。近几个月来，网络暴民翻出各种不相关的广告，咆哮“厌男症！”。在每一个案例中，广告都有手指捏住一些无害物品的形象，或者是一张信用卡，或者是一罐星巴克浓缩咖啡，甚至是一剂新冠疫苗。在很多时候，受指责一方（包括国家警察机构和国防部）都会删除存在冒犯的影像，为伤害男性的感情表示歉意。
There is precedent for the men’s interpretation, which they refer to in their accusations, but zero evidence of any political plot now: In 2015, a now disbanded Korean feminist group intentionally used pinching fingers as its logo. The symbol was meant, indeed mockingly, to mirror the objectification Korean women endure.
男人的解释并非无中生有，他们在指控中也提到了这一点，但目前并没有任何政治阴谋的证据：2015年，一个现已解散的韩国女权团体故意用捏东西的手势作为标识。采用这个标识是为了以嘲弄的方式反映韩国女性遭受的物化。
The animosity has intensified recently as Korean men grapple with a new wave of feminism that since about 2015 has achieved hard-won gains against a deeply entrenched patriarchy. The backlash, coupled with the ascension of a conservative political party angling to knock out its incumbent opponents, presents a serious danger to women’s rights and gender equality.
随着韩国男性竭力应对新一轮女权主义浪潮，最近这种敌意愈演愈烈。自2015年前后以来，女权主义在反对根深蒂固的父权制方面取得了来之不易的成果。这种反弹，加上一个试图击败现任对手的保守政党的崛起，对女性权利和性别平等构成了严重威胁。
South Korea may be internationally regarded as an economic, technological and cultural powerhouse, but that reputation obscures what little power it cedes to women. The gender pay gap is the widest among advanced economies, at 35 percent, and sexist job recruitment abounds. More than 65 percent of companies listed on the Korean Exchange have no female executives. And the country is consistently ranked by The Economist as having the worst environment for working women among O.E.C.D. countries.
国际上，韩国可能被视为一个经济、科技和文化强国，但这种声誉掩盖了它在女权上的吝啬。韩国两性的薪酬差距在发达经济体中是最大的，达到35%，带有性别歧视的招聘比比皆是。在韩国证交所上市的企业中，超过65%的公司没有女性高管。《经济学人》杂志一直将该国列为经合组织成员国当中对职业女性最不友善的国家。
Women have pushed back, mounting what could be considered Asia’s most successful MeToo movement. But the reckoning has thrust society into a state of high tension: South Korea ranked first among 28 countries surveyed by Ipsos this year on conflict between the sexes.
女性已经发起了反击，进行了被认为可能是亚洲最成功的“我也是”(MeToo)运动。不过，这也将社会推向了高度紧张的状态：在益普索(Ipsos)今年对28个国家所做的性别冲突调查中，韩国排名第一。
Now, in the run-up to the March 2022 presidential election, the country’s conservative opposition party seems to be engineering a revival by exploiting the division. Last month, Lee Jun-seok, a men’s-rights crusader who amplified the charge of man hatred against GS25, was elected leader of the right-wing People Power Party. Arguing that today’s young men are targets of “reverse discrimination,” Mr. Lee is expected to wield considerable influence in the party and drum up huge support for its candidate. (Mr. Lee is 36; contenders must be at least 40.)
现在，在2022年3月总统大选前夕，该国保守的反对党似乎正试图利用这种分裂来实现复兴。上个月，男权斗士李俊锡被选为右翼国民力量党的领导者，他放大了男性对GS25的仇恨。李俊锡认为今天的年轻人是“反向歧视”的目标，他有望在党内发挥相当大的影响力，并为其候选人争取到巨大的支持。（李俊锡36岁，候选人必须至少40岁。）
Mr. Lee has tapped a deep well of resentment among young men who say they’re victims of the zeitgeist. His signature claim is that gender disparity is exaggerated and women get too much special treatment. He has dismissed young women who’ve protested discrimination as having a “groundless victim mentality,” and he wants to abolish the gender equality ministry. The toxic political climate he has created could jeopardize many women-friendly policies, such as hiring more women to senior positions and combating gender violence, regardless of whether President Moon Jae-in’s incumbent Democratic Party is dethroned.
李俊锡引爆了自称是时代精神受害者的年轻人深埋的怨恨。他的标志性主张是性别差异被夸大了，女性得到了太多的特殊待遇。他驳斥了抗议歧视的年轻女性，认为她们具有“毫无根据的受害者心态”，并希望裁撤女性家族部(gender equality ministry)。无论文在寅总统所属的现任民主党是否将下台，李俊锡所创造的有毒的政治气候可能会危及许多对女性友好的政策，例如雇用更多女性担任高级职位和打击性别暴力。
But Mr. Lee has reason to be confident: In the bellwether Seoul mayoral election in April, about 70 percent of men in their 20s and younger voted for the conservative candidate — almost equal to the conservative votes cast by men 60 and older.
但李俊锡有理由充满信心：在4月的首尔市长补选中，在20多岁及以下的男性中有大约70%投票支持保守派候选人——几乎与60岁及以上男性的保守派选票相同。
As the anti-women pushback intensifies, the excitement felt by feminist millennials powering the recent movement has been replaced by dread and despair. Women have told me they feel suffocated, anxious not to enrage the online masses. Another commercial designer, in a tragicomic attempt to avoid the pinching gesture, told me she was considering using chopsticks to point at products. A freelance writer said she removed all work related to feminism from her portfolio.
随着反对女性的抵制愈演愈烈，女权主义千禧一代从最近运动中感受到的兴奋已被恐惧和绝望所取代。女性告诉我，她们感到窒息，担心激怒网民。另一位商业设计师告诉我她正在考虑用筷子指向产品，试图避免捏东西的手势，这样的考虑令人感到哭笑不得。一位自由作家说，她从她的作品集中删除了所有与女权主义相关的作品。
Though many of the women I spoke to feel besieged and isolated, they’re determined to push ahead.
尽管与我交谈过的许多女性都感到被围困和孤立，但她们决心继续前进。
This month, a group of feminists denounced “the misogynists who attack innocent citizens” in a petition and drew more than 1,000 signatures. Their wish list includes stricter monitoring of the male-dominated online forums that are “breeding grounds” for threats of violence against feminists. They also want measures to curb misogyny on social media and YouTube.
本月，一群女权主义者在一份请愿书中谴责“攻击无辜公民的厌女主义者”，并获得了1000多个签名。她们的愿望清单包括对男性主导的网络论坛进行更严格的监控，这些论坛是对女权主义者进行暴力威胁的“温床”。她们还希望采取措施遏制社交媒体和YouTube上的厌女行为。
There’s even a beleaguered bill that would outlaw discrimination based on gender, sexual identity or ethnicity, among other things, though its passage is far from ensured, given the opposition to feminist activism.
甚至还有一项法案陷入困境，该法案将禁止基于性别、性别认同或种族等因素的歧视，但鉴于反对女权活动主义，该法案的通过还远未得到保证。
Many South Korean women refuse to return to antiquated ideals of unquestioning, uncomplaining mothers and caregivers. Our feminist awakening has given us the language to redefine our lives and name the resentment we couldn’t describe before. “We can’t go back to the past now,” said Lee Hyo-rin, who began fighting spycam-porn crimes after discovering feminism in 2016. “We will ride it out — no matter how high the tide is and no matter what these pathetic sexists say.”
许多韩国女性拒绝回到不质疑、不抱怨的母亲和照顾者身份的陈旧理念中。我们的女权主义觉醒赋予我们一种语言，让我们可以去重新定义我们的生活，说出那些以前无法描述的怨恨。“在这个时候，我们不能回到过去，”在2016年接触女权主义后开始打击偷拍色情犯罪的李孝琳说。“我们会渡过难关——无论浪潮有多高，无论这些可悲的性别歧视者说什么。”
