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www.groovekorea.com / May 2014 62 Edited by Elaine Ramirez (elaine@groovekorea.com) INSIGHT years. “The number of female part-time, irregu- lar workers skyrocketed, relatively speaking, whereas the number of men doing it de- creased.” This, Turnbull says, is where many men found reason to become bitter toward wom- en, whom they viewed as threatening to their economic wellbeing by taking the jobs they viewed as theirs. “In the last 10 years you’ve had a lot of the … ill-educated, economically vulnerable, poorest men in the country in direct competition with women.” Journalist Kim attributes most of the sexist responses to her article to such men. “Men who post anti-female comments online are likely to be those who are socially disadvan- taged,” she says. “Most of them being unem- ployed, they hang around in PC cafes to kill time.” Song of the Korea Women’s Hotline also believes the country’s sexism arose from the groups of poor men that found themselves threatened by women whose economic sta- tus was rising for the first time. Rather than seeing themselves as a distinct group of the population going through financial struggles, they blamed wo men for their troubles. “Some guys have more economic power, but some are really poor. Some have power in so- ciety and some don’t,” says Kim. “I think the powerless and poor male group wants to have better lives. … So they found weaker groups — they hate women and immigrants.” This competition bred resentment, which became evident in the form of a stereotypi- cal image of an overindulgent female spender. The image was created by these men, who were competing against well-educated wom- en gaining high-status positions, says Turnbull. It wasn’t long until their bitterness took a clear