I was sitting at Tim Hortons (like I always do every week) when I realized I should probably make a long post about the current situation I put myself into. Is my tweet poorly worded? I generally don't really care as much whenever I get bombarded with hate asks and/or accusations about my age, fandom choices, or even about how I look. I still don't feel any sort of anger or hatred towards anyone, I just chose not to feel any of it anymore. However, since a lot of you misunderstood what I meant, and some of you who haven't liked me from the beginning anyway and decided to dig my immature, smh-worthy tweets, I felt like I should make a post about everything surrounding it.
Why did you say that the tattoo Sehun posted was a "poor design choice" and that it's "not okay to pick these type of designs"?
I would first like to explain that this tweet is NOT to attack Sehun, it never was. When Sehun posted the photo, I began seeing so many radical feminists tweet in Korean about how the tattoo itself was objectifying women and that he should apologize for it, hence why I said in that tweet that "I don't agree with some of the tweets/comments I've been seeing today." I was afraid that he would get so much hate, and needless to say I was right. Generally speaking, I just didn't like how the tattoo looked. It's not something I'd personally get, but I respect that it's something others would think is aesthetically beautiful.
On a feminist perspective however, having that type of tattoo is something that feminists do not tolerate. Let me explain it on a deeper sense (disclaimer: yes this is diving deeper to the discourse of a single image, particularly the henna tattoo).
According to Ms. Magazine, "We are bombarded with hypersexualized image of females, so much so that most of us don't even notice them." What we, mostly women, see as just normal pair of legs, are already sexualized in so many ways through the decades (heck, probably centuries). Movements to have this contested have been done, but needless to say, women still cannot take their top off without getting sexualized, unlike men who can. We may not sexualize it in our thoughts, but the society does. For argument's sake, according to UnicefUSA, "when women appeared in advertisements in men's magazines, they were objectified 76% of the time," and in addition to this, "sexual objectification contributes to harmful gender sterotypes that normalize violence against girls." So yes. Such "harmful" images actually does perpetuate a certain stereotype on women, and it does affect a lot of women.
Arguably, some feminists are also saying that we should normalize these types of designs or ads, so consuming such should not be deemed as "anti-feminist". I half agree, and half disagree with this in a way that I think the solution in normalizing female images is not by over-exposing the image, but by doing something in a satirical way, or by creating an image that would counteract the patriarchal image of hypersexualized female images. Until then, I'd still smh at images such as what the coordi did on that henna. Still, and let me reiterate, SEHUN DOES NOT DESERVE HATE, nor am I saying I'm a high almighty feminist. I don't think it's something that requires a public apology on Sehun's part. It's a good conversational starter on feminist dialogues if you look deeper into its meaning, otherwise, it's just a not-nice-to-look-at henna tattoo.
TL; DR: I don't hate Sehun. I dislike the tattoo because it's not pretty.
Did you accuse Sehun of displaying toxic masculinity "because he said that to him, manliness means keeping / staying true to his words"?
I am assuming this person's talking about my tweet when I translated Sehun's interview in Leon magazine. I never said Sehun displayed toxic masculinity through his words, what I meant by that is boxing the meaning of what the word "masculinity/manly" are in general; and is something that I disagree in. Too many men have been victims of "not being man enough" that saying something is "manly" is just not something I don't particularly like seeing. However, men, especially those born and grew up in Korea, have grown to these types of characteristics, that it's already quite impossible to even fix it. According to Men Can organizer Richie Shulz, "from a young age, men are raised to think masculinity equals antiquated ideals like domination and a lack of emotional vulnerability." These kind of stereotypes are what I disagree in, not that I'm saying Sehun displays toxic masculinity. I think more than this, the word "manly" or "masculine" or "feminine" or "womanly" or "ladylike" should just be deleted off of the dictionary. Wish I explained this enough for you, and for that person who commented this without understanding the whole connotation of the discussion lol.
Why do you sexualize male idols yet claim that you're a feminist?
Admittedly, I have done so in the past. A lot. And yes, I do regret it, but knowing now that sexualizing male (and even female idols) are wrong, I'd like to say I tweeted a lot of immature things, even before I discovered real feminism. It was wrong of me, and I do apologize if anyone got hurt (?) by it. I do think that I'd still appreciate how attractive an idol's body is, but I think I have made it a point to not say something overtly sexual over something. I admit my fault, and I'd like to think that I'm learning from my mistakes. I think it's something that we should also be aware of, that we have done wrong things in the past, and it's up to our present and future selves to correct what mistakes we did before, which I'm enthusiastically driven to do to myself.
You've been tweeting so many Wanna One/Astro things lately, why don't you just leave EXO and Sehun and just be a true-blue Wannable/Aroha?
Well, technically, I am an official Wannable and Aroha since I have fanclub kits lol. But for the past almost 7 years of being an EXO-L, I've always been multi-fandom. I liked TVXQ before EXO, and I still do like TVXQ. But my one true home is and will always be EXO. Being a multi-fandom stan who tweets/translates more on Sehun/EXO, I can see why some of you will accuse me from time to time of leaving the fandom, but really unfortunately for you, I'll probably be one of the last one standing in the fandom lol! I like EXO too much to drop them. Plus, I center my schedule around their schedule so I can see them a lot in a year, I don't think that's something you do if you're planning on leaving the fandom. I know that I'll get tweets/anonymous messages like these over and over again since I tweet about my other fandoms too, but I'm also hoping someday you will all get tired of asking me if I'm leaving the fandom because my answer will always be a striking and very firm "NO."
Finally, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who were genuinely curious to have a discussion on this on my curiouscat. It was a pleasure to talk to you all, and to learn from you all as well. I never said I'm always right, I do make mistakes, and I will own up to them. I don't hate anyone who hated/unfollowed/blocked/muted me because of this issue, I respect all of your decisions. I do know that even if I publish this, I'd still get so many mean messages and hate, but there's really nothing you can do with some people who are already determined to dislike you. I think I learned that the hard way in my almost 7 years as a Sehun fan.
I'm not one to dwell so much on how much hate I'm getting, I know it's a part of having a handful of followers on Twitter dot com. I'd also like to say that this will be the last time I'll address that tweet, as I think I did a decent job of explaining it as concise as possible. Lastly, as Sehun fans and as EXO-Ls, let's just focus on making Sehun's instagram a clean space, without any hate.
P.S. I'll always be a Sehun fan. Until the end, except there's no end.
REFERENCES:
Duske, Shadia. "Toxic Culture 101: Understanding the Sexualization of Women." Ms. Blog Magazine, 4 January 2016, http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/01/04/toxic-culture-101-understanding-the-sexualization-of-women/
Rothman, Michael. "Is it Time to talk about Toxic Masculinity?" ABC News, 20 April 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/time-talk-toxic-masculinity/story?id=54505562
Swift, Jaimee. "Not An Object: On Sexualization and Exploitation of Women and Girls." UnicefUSA, 9 May 2016, https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/not-object-sexualization-and-exploitation-women-and-girls/30361
Why did you say that the tattoo Sehun posted was a "poor design choice" and that it's "not okay to pick these type of designs"?
I would first like to explain that this tweet is NOT to attack Sehun, it never was. When Sehun posted the photo, I began seeing so many radical feminists tweet in Korean about how the tattoo itself was objectifying women and that he should apologize for it, hence why I said in that tweet that "I don't agree with some of the tweets/comments I've been seeing today." I was afraid that he would get so much hate, and needless to say I was right. Generally speaking, I just didn't like how the tattoo looked. It's not something I'd personally get, but I respect that it's something others would think is aesthetically beautiful.
On a feminist perspective however, having that type of tattoo is something that feminists do not tolerate. Let me explain it on a deeper sense (disclaimer: yes this is diving deeper to the discourse of a single image, particularly the henna tattoo).
According to Ms. Magazine, "We are bombarded with hypersexualized image of females, so much so that most of us don't even notice them." What we, mostly women, see as just normal pair of legs, are already sexualized in so many ways through the decades (heck, probably centuries). Movements to have this contested have been done, but needless to say, women still cannot take their top off without getting sexualized, unlike men who can. We may not sexualize it in our thoughts, but the society does. For argument's sake, according to UnicefUSA, "when women appeared in advertisements in men's magazines, they were objectified 76% of the time," and in addition to this, "sexual objectification contributes to harmful gender sterotypes that normalize violence against girls." So yes. Such "harmful" images actually does perpetuate a certain stereotype on women, and it does affect a lot of women.
Arguably, some feminists are also saying that we should normalize these types of designs or ads, so consuming such should not be deemed as "anti-feminist". I half agree, and half disagree with this in a way that I think the solution in normalizing female images is not by over-exposing the image, but by doing something in a satirical way, or by creating an image that would counteract the patriarchal image of hypersexualized female images. Until then, I'd still smh at images such as what the coordi did on that henna. Still, and let me reiterate, SEHUN DOES NOT DESERVE HATE, nor am I saying I'm a high almighty feminist. I don't think it's something that requires a public apology on Sehun's part. It's a good conversational starter on feminist dialogues if you look deeper into its meaning, otherwise, it's just a not-nice-to-look-at henna tattoo.
TL; DR: I don't hate Sehun. I dislike the tattoo because it's not pretty.
Did you accuse Sehun of displaying toxic masculinity "because he said that to him, manliness means keeping / staying true to his words"?
I am assuming this person's talking about my tweet when I translated Sehun's interview in Leon magazine. I never said Sehun displayed toxic masculinity through his words, what I meant by that is boxing the meaning of what the word "masculinity/manly" are in general; and is something that I disagree in. Too many men have been victims of "not being man enough" that saying something is "manly" is just not something I don't particularly like seeing. However, men, especially those born and grew up in Korea, have grown to these types of characteristics, that it's already quite impossible to even fix it. According to Men Can organizer Richie Shulz, "from a young age, men are raised to think masculinity equals antiquated ideals like domination and a lack of emotional vulnerability." These kind of stereotypes are what I disagree in, not that I'm saying Sehun displays toxic masculinity. I think more than this, the word "manly" or "masculine" or "feminine" or "womanly" or "ladylike" should just be deleted off of the dictionary. Wish I explained this enough for you, and for that person who commented this without understanding the whole connotation of the discussion lol.
Why do you sexualize male idols yet claim that you're a feminist?
Admittedly, I have done so in the past. A lot. And yes, I do regret it, but knowing now that sexualizing male (and even female idols) are wrong, I'd like to say I tweeted a lot of immature things, even before I discovered real feminism. It was wrong of me, and I do apologize if anyone got hurt (?) by it. I do think that I'd still appreciate how attractive an idol's body is, but I think I have made it a point to not say something overtly sexual over something. I admit my fault, and I'd like to think that I'm learning from my mistakes. I think it's something that we should also be aware of, that we have done wrong things in the past, and it's up to our present and future selves to correct what mistakes we did before, which I'm enthusiastically driven to do to myself.
You've been tweeting so many Wanna One/Astro things lately, why don't you just leave EXO and Sehun and just be a true-blue Wannable/Aroha?
Well, technically, I am an official Wannable and Aroha since I have fanclub kits lol. But for the past almost 7 years of being an EXO-L, I've always been multi-fandom. I liked TVXQ before EXO, and I still do like TVXQ. But my one true home is and will always be EXO. Being a multi-fandom stan who tweets/translates more on Sehun/EXO, I can see why some of you will accuse me from time to time of leaving the fandom, but really unfortunately for you, I'll probably be one of the last one standing in the fandom lol! I like EXO too much to drop them. Plus, I center my schedule around their schedule so I can see them a lot in a year, I don't think that's something you do if you're planning on leaving the fandom. I know that I'll get tweets/anonymous messages like these over and over again since I tweet about my other fandoms too, but I'm also hoping someday you will all get tired of asking me if I'm leaving the fandom because my answer will always be a striking and very firm "NO."
Finally, I'd like to say thank you to everyone who were genuinely curious to have a discussion on this on my curiouscat. It was a pleasure to talk to you all, and to learn from you all as well. I never said I'm always right, I do make mistakes, and I will own up to them. I don't hate anyone who hated/unfollowed/blocked/muted me because of this issue, I respect all of your decisions. I do know that even if I publish this, I'd still get so many mean messages and hate, but there's really nothing you can do with some people who are already determined to dislike you. I think I learned that the hard way in my almost 7 years as a Sehun fan.
I'm not one to dwell so much on how much hate I'm getting, I know it's a part of having a handful of followers on Twitter dot com. I'd also like to say that this will be the last time I'll address that tweet, as I think I did a decent job of explaining it as concise as possible. Lastly, as Sehun fans and as EXO-Ls, let's just focus on making Sehun's instagram a clean space, without any hate.
P.S. I'll always be a Sehun fan. Until the end, except there's no end.
REFERENCES:
Duske, Shadia. "Toxic Culture 101: Understanding the Sexualization of Women." Ms. Blog Magazine, 4 January 2016, http://msmagazine.com/blog/2016/01/04/toxic-culture-101-understanding-the-sexualization-of-women/
Rothman, Michael. "Is it Time to talk about Toxic Masculinity?" ABC News, 20 April 2018, https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/time-talk-toxic-masculinity/story?id=54505562
Swift, Jaimee. "Not An Object: On Sexualization and Exploitation of Women and Girls." UnicefUSA, 9 May 2016, https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/not-object-sexualization-and-exploitation-women-and-girls/30361
I really get what you mean by the social construct formed around those "gender specific" terms. I mean, why don't people just accept the change is always around us by the minute and not be too afraid of what might come. And if there's one thing us, humans should learn more from other species is their ability to adapt. I just hope it'll come to most of us.
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