I was too young to realize what was going on, but I still remember the visit to the emergency room as my mom woke me in the middle of the night. My dad was on a business trip to Singapore so my mom had no choice but to take me with her to the hospital as I could’ve awoken while she was gone. The memory is still sheared in my mind as my maternal aunt was beaten so badly that her facial bruises nearly shut her eyes. Some of her hair was ripped out and I could see her bloody scalp. My mom was crying so profusely at seeing her little sister in this condition that she forgot to shield me from the scene.
Read More“I need to see your friend’s identification,” the concierge repeats to the older man
towering beside me. The man’s pale skin contrasts my smooth, honey brown. To the outside eye,
we make an intriguing pair: the old white guy in a suit with the little Asian girl and her overladen
backpack standing in the middle of a hotel in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab
Emirates. To the hotel concierge, we are a crime—the very image of prostitution.
Except, the white guy beside me is my father, and in my backpack are school books and
pencils.
Read MoreImagine living in a country, where nearly five-hundred women become the victims of femicide each year. Every time you sit before the TV, a gut-wrenching feeling rises from your body; a feeling you are well acquainted with. You know what’s about to come, and you give rein to your foolish hopes; maybe not today. You turn on the TV and encounter a picture of her on the big screen. She looks content and peaceful, juxtaposing the somber reporter standing right before her picture. He looks at the camera, and says “She was only sixteen.” Her friends and family do not seem to be astonished by the frightening news. They say it was her dress, her smile, her failure to be a loyal and obedient wife. It was her fate. No one deems it a necessity to acknowledge her parents who forced their young daughter to marry a grown adult, the police officer who disregarded her desperate cries for help, and the man who stole away her hopes, her dreams, and eventually her life.
Read MoreThe situation downstairs was almost surreal: my mom, balancing her laptop in one hand and a spatula in the other, calmly discussing a system failure with her manager while preparing lunch on the stovetop. As I watched this balancing act, I marveled at the grace my mother employed to manage her career and housework. However, as the pandemic continued and the effect of this double burden on her became apparent, I began to realize the hardships American society has caused her and all employed women.
Read MoreA fashion trend can be toxic. When Kendall Jenner snaps a photo of herself wearing low-rise jeans flaunting her size 00 waist on Instagram, every girl who looks at it is rarely satisfied with herself. That induces unhealthy workouts to build abs to look like hers and girls skipping lunch so they can pull off the same trendy look. It doesn’t help matters that relatives and friends offer unsolicited advice about our physique—so we continue to struggle with negative body image as the celebrities and female influencers we desire to become set unrealistic standards while we live on water diets. The biggest challenge facing women and girls in the U.S. today is body image.
Read MoreBeing the only one in class who couldn’t bring her mother to school for Mother’s Day was definitely not a joyful experience for an eight year old. My mother couldn’t come to school that day because she had to work. I watched in silence that day, as every other kid in class recited their poems while their mothers took photos and smiled proudly at them at the back of the class. When my mother returned home from work late at night that day, I let out the tears that I have been holding all day long, and screamed at her saying ‘I wish you were normal!’ Normal. Back then, to an eight year old child who knew nothing about a glass ceiling, hardworking businesswomen were not ‘normal’.
Read More“What a great opportunity! Don’t hesitate to take the chance," said my mom.
A few months ago, I happened to overhear a conversation between my aunt and my mom when they were discussing my aunt’s future career path. My maternal aunt, a former journalist and a professor at a university near Seoul, had been offered the position as the first female dean at the university. However, some of the male professors were reluctant to support her nomination, largely because she was a woman. Moreover, when my aunt received the proposal, she first and foremost thought, “If I take the position, which doubles my work, would I still be able to take good care of my young children?”
Read MoreMy childhood ran on a conveyor belt of nannies. Even with a lineup of women helping her, my working mom regretted thinking she could have the best of both motherhood and career. “Maybe I should have chosen one over the other,” she tells me now. The generation succeeding her expresses even greater disillusionment. Among increasingly individualistic Koreans struggling with modernity in a collectivist society, millennial women feel conflicted between raising a family and pursuing a career. Stuck between progress and tradition, these women see a dim future on both fronts. Consequently, the fertility rate is falling near one (the lowest OECD level), and the gender employment gap for those aged 15-64 is the fourth largest among OECD countries at 18%.
Read MoreThroughout our life as human beings, we are bound to encounter pressuring environments. In school, some may feel the need to demonstrate outstanding academic performance to please their parents; in social settings, the pressure to succeed and prosper in life with a stable career is a common struggle among many. Yet in South Korea, there exists another breed of societal duress that haunts women and girls of all ages: The pressure to become beautiful. While it is true that women in other countries are also commonly influenced to polish their appearances, the social pressure Korean women face is a whole another concept that demands attention. Those who refuse to conform to K-beauty are confronted with severe societal oppression that enforces submission to a defined idealistic appearance, thus leaving no room for diversification.
Read MoreAs marriages are put off by young adults and the total fertility rate has dropped to the lowest in the world at 0.84 in 2020, South Korea’s population has begun to naturally decline with the number of deaths exceeding the number of births for the first time since records have been kept. In response to this existential crisis, the government has enacted a myriad of measures to encourage both marriage and childbirth, which unfortunately have failed miserably. However, one measure that has had success is international marriages which accounted for 9.2% of total marriages in 2019 and has risen every year since local municipalities started to subsidize private matchmaking agencies and rural areas such as South Jeolla Province have made welfare payments of $5,000 to Korean men over the age of 35 who marry foreign brides. The average age of husbands is 43.6 and the average age of foreign brides is 25.2.
Read MoreIt is no secret that many women feel conscious about the way they look. However, is it necessary for society to extend their vulnerability to the job market? Oemo jisang juui, a Korean term for ‘look-ism’ is a standard practice in the employment process for Korean women. A 2016 survey from Saramin, a Korean online job portal, found that more than 60% of Human Resources Personnel feel that one’s appearance does influence the applicant’s candidacy, especially for females. Thus, many Korean women find themselves in a situation where they are pressured to change their appearance to seek employment. The Korean job application process is already stressful, but the pressure for women to physically look good in their resume and interview adds a new dimension of stress. Over time, many Korean women became ‘numb’ to the discriminatory employment system and decided to take matters into their own hands by turning to professional photographers and even plastic surgery.
Read MoreBeing a feminist is to be a person who changes society by claiming that women and men exist equally. I represent myself as a feminist, with pride, since my parents have carefully nurtured me not to internalize the gender stereotypes inside. Since childhood, learning the identity which was being discriminated, such as gender, I recognized that women take the largest number among minorities, and that gender discrimination spreads both in public and private sector.
Read MoreAm I beautiful enough to be liked?
The high expectations and unrealistic standards teenage girls have to face daily
“Mirror, mirror on the wall…”
Read MoreDecember 8, 2020. I thought it was just another lazy Tuesday afternoon at home as I scrolled through the news feeds of my different social media accounts. It was apparent that 9 months of COVID-19 lockdown had taken its toll on me as I stared, glassy-eyed, at my phone’s screen. Suddenly, a news headline jolted me out of my boredom-induced trance.
Read MoreTo quote the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself.”1 Making the decision to bear and raise a child is not an easy task - it requires great amounts of effort, perseverance, and determination, if one wants to do it well. Mothers often struggle through sleepless nights and have to deal with the responsibilities that come with properly raising members of the next generation. This being said, while motherhood is an honorable thing, one problem arises within the Philippines - the rising number of women who have the unwanted responsibility of becoming mothers thrust on them.
Read MoreI am a constant reminder of my mother’s mistake. There have been many incidents wherein she’d tell me, out of anger, that I am worthless and that I should just pack my bags and live elsewhere. But the most striking times are when she would not have heightened emotions at all. My mother would tell me casually, “You are the root of my suffering. I wish I never had you.” My eyes would lock onto her and I would nod slowly, and walk away as I let the words of rejection fragment the foundation of my childhood, bearing fruit to insecurity and self-hatred.
Read MoreAs someone who grew up on the internet, I’ve always been aware of the underlying risks and dangers of using the internet, let alone how anonymity can give people the courage to persecute and full-on disrespect others online. This is evident especially in the Philippines, wherein it is almost an obligation to have a Facebook account. However, deeply rooted in online Filipino communities is a pattern of significantly male behavior that deprives women and girls of their online freedom and safety.
Read MoreRagged breaths echo around the room, the musky scent of sweat accompanied by the constant banging of the headboard to the adjacent wall. Cries of pleasure resonate throughout the four walls of the dilapidated bedroom. Two beings synchronized in an unpredictable yet rhythmic pattern, naïve to the possible consequences. Yet nine months later, she holds a miniature hand in her palm, but no one to hold hers. She’s only fifteen.
Read MoreAs I stood precariously on my desk, I reached for my copy of Filipina author Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo’s Catch a Falling Star, which was tucked into the very side of my upper-wall bookshelf. What possessed me to revisit the short story collection from my Grade 7 English class, I’ll never know. Surely it wasn’t for escapism, as the stories are undeniably realistic. When I first read “Beautiful Beth,” (96-110) my memory was already saturated with news of women kidnapped and raped and murdered. A high school sophomore being married off to her rapist after her being abducted was, however, shockingly novel to me.
Read MoreImagine that you have to marry because all you desire in life is going to university. You’re the biggest child of five, dearth of mother, and of a father who is mentally absent. You’re caring, yet you also want to have a chance in life, enough to be independent of the shackles that enroot you at home. So you make the biggest bid of your life and you marry a man who assures you education in exchange for being a loyal “wife.” This is one of the instances, an innocuous one, of a girl from Turkey’s rural skirts, who exchanges her life for illusory escapades, one that bears beatings, insults, and invisible scars.
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