Chloe Chen, Period 6, 3/21

 Chloe chen 

Modern mythology

Blog #3 

Social-political consciousness 

3/21/2024

I’ve always been a big fan of true crime. My favorite show as a middle schooler was Criminal Minds and my favorite YouTuber growing up was Stephanie Soo, who told true crime stories as she did mukbangs ( eat food ). She would capture your attention with the details in her stories and I always appreciated the efforts she put into researching the events behind a case. She told many cases, from mysterious cold cases to the infamous crimes committed by celebrities. Stephanie’s videos were constant reminders of the cruelness of the world. However, the cases that stuck with me the most were often cases about violence against women, specifically the Burning Sun Case in 2019. To summarize, it was a scandal involving many A-list celebrities in South Korea who were in group chats, sending illegal and non-consensual photos of women. These people would drug girls, rape them, and post the events in the group chats that made inappropriate jokes objectifying the girls in the videos. This case got a lot of exposure because these celebrities were idols to a large number of female audiences, who were around the same age as their victims. It was questionable that the maximum sentence among all the men was 2.5 years. But it was bizarre to me that in comparison, possession of drugs in SK would lead to 5 years in jail. Perhaps it was surreal to me because drugs are more widely used here and the average sentence for rape in the US is 16 years. After watching this video, I went down a rabbit hole of many other videos on South Korean crime. It didn’t take long to realize how the police forces didn’t care for violence towards women. This case was something I thought of constantly because the end was so unsatisfying. So much evidence of them ruining these girls' lives and all they get is a year or two in jail?

After hearing about the lack of protection from the SK police department, I became more grateful for the systems enacted in the US to reinforce protection against violence. However, I knew that wherever we go, as a woman, people will always have something to say. I am a strong advocate for women’s voices not just being heard, but also being listened to. It started in middle school when my best friend and I joined clubs after school. We decided to play handball and unfortunately for us, we were the only two girls on the team. We loved handball, but not the part where we could only utilize the brick wall instead of using the actual courts because the boys were using them. For middle school me, it felt off, but I didn’t care to say anything. When high school began, I was exposed to more outward discrimination against women. My jaw dropped when I first heard a boy tell a girl to “go back to the kitchen,” or when a guy outwardly called my friend a dishwasher as their guy friends giggled at the comment. I was even more shocked that every girl had managed to brush it off as if it didn’t mean anything. It was degrading to our identity as girls and I hated it. As I played handball throughout high school, it wasn’t any different. Boys would come over to me and my friends, and take over our courts. 

I am the oldest of four siblings, having two sisters and the youngest being my one brother. Growing up with my sisters, we’ve learned the hardships of being girls and tried to teach our brother to be someone respectful to everyone. I can see that my experiences growing up with mostly women in my family may not be the circumstances of other families, which causes our views of womanhood to vary. I constantly see the work that needs to be done to face discrimination against being a woman. But others can see how greatly the world has changed, so there is no way there can still be discrimination. I understand that for some people, this issue doesn’t matter to them at all because they have way greater things to worry about. But personally, this issue matters to me. So I hope that girls start calling out immature boys and their unfunny jokes. I feel so much better every time I say something rather than just keep it in.