Two women were captured walking down a street in the Myeong-dong district of central Seoul wearing short pants by the newspaper. One of the women was even baring her shoulders despite the fact that she was obviously a mother carrying a small child and really should dress more modestly given her marital status.
"I think showing your body means confidence and there is nothing wrong with it" said 21 year-old Bang, who went on to bizarrely claim that what women wear should be entirely up to them.
It's almost a year since about 10 women started a "Slut Walk" protest in downtown Seoul, shocking residents with the argument that women should not be blamed for sexual assaults simply because of the way they dress or behave. But the protest failed to provide an alternative reason why women should be sexually assaulted, damaging the group's credibility.
Since the shocking appearance of a Korean singer wearing a miniskirt in the 1970s, showing skin has not been perceived as a sign of promiscuity in quite the same way it used to be, but many people who were young at the time now frown at the sight of slutish women in skimpy outfits, highlighting the importance of wearing the correct prescription spectacles.
But some people believe that wearing revealing clothing is a dangerous symbol of women's free will to choose, and many men have an ambivalent attitude towards women wearing such clothes - believing it isn't OK for their girlfriends because they don't like other guys looking at them, while also believing it's OK for women they don't know who are the girlfriends of other men.
Wider attitudes are equally mixed. The plastic surgery industry says that preventing women from wearing revealing clothing is an attack on their right to advertise. KASA - the Korean Association of Sex Attackers - also upholds a woman's right to wear what she wants for the same reason, but the conservative Koliban say women should wear hanboks to completely cover their skin, or even Dokdo's traditional 'dokbok', which also covers the head of the wearer.
Professor Nigro, who teaches 'Feminism and Witchcraft' at the University of Missouri - St. Louis, says that norms for appropriate outfits mostly set by male-dominated societies is a form of suppression towards women, and that this type of suppression is even more insidious than blatant sexism. The government argues that it is therefore a sign of Korea's increasingly socially progressive society that the Korean media is mostly blatantly sexist.
See through tops are in vogue this summer and media photographers are expected to be kept very busy. Trashy and slutish women who do not want to have their pictures taken by The Korea Times should avoid showing their legs. (Dokdo News)
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