Decades ago when Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world, eating an egg on the dinner table was considered a rare treat. When there was an egg, a housewife didn't give it to her children. She saved it for her husband who returned home after a long day's hard work.
The fried egg symbolized the respect the society attached to the Korean men, who were the pillar of the family and the backbone of the Korean workforce. In fact, that was how Korean men had been treated in a society where men called the shots. Perhaps not any more.
It all started when a female college student guest on KBS2 TV's talk show, ``Misuda,'' (Beauties' Chatterbox), dropped a bombshell, by saying a short man is a ``loser,'' adding she wouldn't date a short male.
A mountain of furious letters stormed the broadcaster that aired the popular TV show. The Internet forums were enraged by angry males.
Kim Jeong-woon who teaches cultural psychology at Myongji University in Seoul thinks the enraged response on the Internet on her remark and protest letters to the broadcaster reveals something more than the men's objection to the girls' apparent "prejudice" against short male.
In fact, the "loser" remark was beginning point of a larger social paradigm shift. That means, Kim wrote in Dong-A Ilbo on Saturday, "The fried egg now won't be reserved for a loser any more."
Kim also views that the outrage by men on the remark reveals the universal "trauma" of insecure Korean male.
"Think about this way. A Korean woman, and it was a very pretty woman, stamped on the Korean men's self-esteem. Worse, it was done right in front of tall foreign beauties.
"Anyone bristles when his most vulnerable part was attacked," he said.
Traditionally, Korean women subjected themselves to men in a highly stratified society under the Confucian influence. A woman should defer to her husband. When she gives birth to a baby, who happens to be a son, then the mother should also defer to her son. A female who was docile, quiet, obedient, was considered "virtuous."
But the male-led social hierarchy in Korea is shifting. The male authority is tumbling. Korean men now live in a society where he could be easily prosecuted for simply sending a wrong look to a woman for "sexual harassment." Children now don't have to automatically adopt their father's last name. A man is not supposed to challenge the "feminism" discourage to avoid being labeled as a "male chauvinist."
Kim diagnosed that Korean men are increasingly feeling "cornered."
"The remark by the Korean female college girl who declared publicly that she wouldn't date men whose height doesn't measure up to 180cm, labeling them a 'loser' was a trigger for the Korean male trauma to explode," Kim said.
For Kim, the episode is a start of "giant cultural revolution" in Korea where the male dominance is publicly challenged by a member of the opposite sex, who, by getting higher education, entering professional fields that used to be reserved for males, have come to the realization that, after all, they are on an equal footing with men.
"Unfortunately, Korean men find themselves not having a good means to protest," said Kim, charactering the Internet outrage by men a "childish" whining.
In this social shift, Kim predicted, Korean men will be further cornered. "They are increasingly cornered. But it was the Korean men who brought this all up."
In Western movies, Asian men are depicted as short, ill-mannered, lacking courage, and abusive towards women. The global prejudice against Asian men has been repeatedly reproduced. "Very few Asian men, including Korean men, have guts to challenge the view," he said.
The outlook for Korean males is grim. "Now the Korean men will try hard to please the Korean women to survive. They will do plastic surgery to have a six-pack abdomen, if that's what the Korean women want. They will send amorous eye signals to win women's attention.
"It's just a beginning. The Korean women have just started what they've wanted to talk about for along time. Now the fried egg is not for the loser," he said.
sunny.lee@koreatimes.co.kr
