One of the reasons this term is actually an attack upon women, and is seen by feminists here in this way, is that the image ostensibly describes the “bad girl” — the one who has has the wrong values, uses money for her own selfish consumption, is sexually powerful/promiscuous, and whose very existence is a threat to male power itself.

If you think about the image of the girl who saves her money during the day by buying 3,000 won bean paste soup (된장찌개) and then saves the difference to buy herself a Gucci bag or whatnot (the origin of the term), one might see a financially independent woman who 1) has a job, and 2) control over her consumption and does what she sees fit to do. She has the ability to pick and choose among men, and she’ll throw a “scrub” back into the pool. She’s the average joe’s ultimate nightmare, and her very existence is hated.

But she’s a straw woman, and a product of rapidly changing gender roles and the backlash of men who don’t like women stepping outside of their former roles. Just like the “dog poop girl,” the additional heat of societal anger with the woman who wouldn’t clean up after her little doggie and used the tissue an ajumma gave her to wipe its ass comes from the fact she WAS a woman. There wold be no “dog poop man” — because there’s no public discourse or rage about “snotty” young MEN, who have little white dogs that are the very symbol of excess, who symbolizes the type of person who sets aside money and mental energy to raise a useless pooch and sasses one’s elders, who breaks just about every social norm, who pushed every cultural red hot button that she could push related to being “bad.” It’s only women who are on the firing end of this loaded term — not men.

The same is true for the Korean woman who was cyberstalked for having appeared dancing with two white guys in the Hongdae clubs, which spurred another round of “social disciplining” of Korean women, with Korean (male) netizens warning Korean women to stay away, lest they share that woman’s fate.

In the end, all these cases, these public images of the “bad girl” — point to sensitivities and fissure points in the culture, surrounding women’s increasing financial, sexual, and general social power. With that, divorce rates has risen to nearly 50% in Korea, since the economy requires two incomes now, and Korean society has grudgingly come to accept that. The roles of women and the family are being rocked now, and this is reflected in such images. Don’t take the “bean paste stew girl” image at face value — it’s a loaded image that itself reflects a social backlash against increasing women’s power.

Similar things happened in the US in the 1970’s, when women were essentially forced into the workforce by the weakening power of men to financially back their being the social head of the household (spurred by inflation and the weakened economy), and one had already seen major battles over the meaning of women’s roles in society as spurred by the civil and women’s rights movements. But I place more stock in the economy than active agents of social change, and one must remember that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) never passed in the US, at the very time when it probably had the best chance to. No, as Slick Willie Clinton said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

By the time the 80’s roll around, you get the “backlash” style image of the “sexual bitch” that Susan Faludi talked about in her book of the same name, with the iconic image of Glenn Close’s character — the beautiful, single, financially independent woman who sexually tempts otherwise good men and destroys their nuclear family. If you think back to all the movies of this trope — Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct, Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Single White Female, and all the imitators — the pattern is pretty clear, and identifies a point of worry and stress (esp. on the part of men) in the culture.

A similar thing is happening in Korea right now, I believe, and the image of the “bad girl” as juxtaposed against the “good, traditional girl” is definitely being made all around. There’s kind of a cultural war going on right now over where women should fit in as women’s incomes rise, the average age of marriage has shot way up, divorce rates increase, and women start to claim the right to sexually assert themselves.

Just on a personal anecdote, from someone who came here in 1994 — women could only buy tampons and men condoms in a PHARMACY, since only “sluts” had any reason to use them, and no decent woman would dare be caught buying them, anyway, had they been available. Before coming to Korea, my program’s handbook explicitly told women to bring several months’ supply of tampons.

Or asking for a condom meant you were a “playboy,” or the present fact that even today, many gynecologists still only recommend the first exam at marriage (which today, could be in the 30’s, long past when people should have gotten an exam), and any record of gynecological care as a single woman in Korea may be taken as a record of being a “bad girl.”

After all — why would a single woman ever need to see a gynecologist, right? Unless she’s “bad.”

That’s where “bean paste stew girls” fit into the picture. It’s part of the straw man image of the “bad girl” that is part of a backlash response to the many women these days who are bucking their formerly defined gender roles. There’s a lot of contestation and cultural battles being fought over these roles, and such images are part of that whole thing.

That’s the way I’m thinking about it, and how I was talking about the issue in my comments.

I don’t think you need to take a few pictures and make generalizations that support other generalizations that people shouldn’t have in the first place. For those who are familiar with Seoul party culture, events such as Spektra’s are a big change.

If we’re just going to compare everything in Korea to LA, well, then LA wins, right? Big parties, real glitzy stars, the ground zero for many kinds of world trends and fashions; HOWEVER, if we take Seoul for what it is — SEOUL — and look at it in context, this kind of open partying is new, and considering the ways women have been attacked in Korean culture for stepping outside their rigid gender norms and roles (the cyberstalking of “dog poop girl”, the image of the “된장녀”, or the way several women were cyber-attacked online for being seen dancing lasciviously with white guys), these are brave steps, and I give much respect to the woman who decided to take off her shirt and dance around.

Was it the wisest thing in the world to do? Or the best way to represent all of womanhood? Probably not. But one should at least acknowledge that things happening in a Spektra party shouldn’t be just compared to LA as a standard for everything.

And I wonder about your own assumptions in even assuming that the girl in the picture must have been “western” in the first place. Using that logic, are all Korean women hookers, then? Obviously not. You should be offended by either assumption, rather than take it as evidence for their truth, I think.

We’re in touch with divine Sarah and when Club Spektra is set to happen again, we’ll be sure to let FMS readers know