A battle between genders is sizzling online. Men and women are fighting each other through replies on the internet. (Image : Pixabay)
SEOUL, Dec.3 (Korea Bizwire) – A battle between genders is sizzling online. Men and women are fighting each other through replies on the internet. Against the men who disparaged women on the internet as ‘Kimchi B**ches’, women who remained silent have started to raise their voices, resulting in a war without firearms.
The firepower of both sides is tremendous. According to big data analysis, replies attacking members of the opposite sex are re-edited and spread through internet communities and SNS.
According to Daum Soft, a big data analysis company, the reply war between men and women worsened in the latter half of the year, after events which took place from June through August.
The number of new words created to express hatred towards men showed a steep increase in June, as the total number was tallied as 7,596 words. The number is indeed a surprising leap considering the number of man-hating words in May was only 2. The new words included ‘HanNamChung’, ‘GangDenJangNam’ and ‘SoomSilHan’.
In the background of the sudden increase in new man-hating words stands ‘Megalia’, which is a group of women who started a counterattack after enduring the violent verbal attacks of men for a long time.
‘Megalia’ started in the ‘MERS’ forum (BBS) of the largest online community DC Inside in June. It grew so big a separate forum was made in August. The name ‘Megalia’ came from putting together the word ‘MERS’ and ‘Daughters of Igallia’, the Norwegian novel. They fight against misogyny on the internet.
Keywords related to Megalia are ‘misogyny’ (mentioned 23,970 times), ‘hate’ (mentioned 22,375 times), ‘dislike’ (mentioned 7,773 times), and ‘curse’ (mentioned 7,501 times).
However, men have more verbal weapons, according to data. There are more mentions of misogyny than mentions of misandry.
Analyzing blogs (649,926,092 blogs) and twitter (7,819,476,137 tweets) from January 2011 until last month, the number of times hatred was expressed towards women was an average of 80,000 a month from January to November this year, which was eight times more than the 10,000 per month expressions of hatred towards men.
The reply battle between the two genders even took place on BBSs not related to gender. The replies written on a weather report on Naver had nothing to do with the weather.
The replies that gained the most likes from netizens all criticized and mocked Korean men in general. The term ‘HanNamChung’, meaning Korean men are all bugs, frequently appeared, and replies mocking men’s genitals were also abundant.
Terms such as ‘Megal Pig’, which diminish women, were also common. The term, meaning ‘fat and ugly’, showed an aggressive attack from men on women’s appearances.
Psychology professor Hwang Sang-min of Yonsei University explains that people are reflecting their despair and anguish on the opposite sex, which they set as an enemy. “This is a similar situation to children making fun of the opposite gender. Though it is natural, the act is immature.”
Sociology professor Kim Yoon-tae of Korea University suggests solutions. “The only fundamental cure for the phenomenon is to make men and women realize that both genders are not enemies. Instead, they have to realize that they should respect and care for each other and cooperate as members of society. Education that could change the ‘male-culture’, which consists of gender discriminative ideologies, should be started at earlier stages of learning.”
By Francine Jung (franince.jung@kobizmedia.co.kr)
