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Title details for Flowers of Fire by Hawon Jung - Wait list

Flowers of Fire

The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women' s Rights Worldwide

by Hawon Jung
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Listed in the best books of 2023 by The Economist

"Invigorating debut . . . [a] full-throated rallying cry."

—Publishers Weekly

One of Ms. Magazine's "most-anticipated feminist books of 2023"

An eye-opening firsthand account of the ongoing and trailblazing feminist movement in South Korea—one that the world should be watching.

Since the beginning of the #MeToo movement, tens of thousands of people in South Korea have taken to the street, and many more brave individuals took a stand, to end a decades-long abortion ban and bring down powerful men accused of sexual misconduct—including a popular presidential contender. South Korean feminists know that the revolution has been a long time coming, between battles against its own patriarchal society as well as challenging stereotypes of docile Asian women in the Western imagination.

Now, author Hawon Jung will show the rest of the world that these women are no delicate flowers—they are trailblazing flames. Flowers of Fire takes the reader into the trenches of this fight for equality, following along as South Korean activists march on the streets, navigate public and private spaces where spycam porn crimes are rampant, and share tips and tricks with each other as they learn how to protect themselves from harassment and how to push authorities to act.

Jung, the former Seoul correspondent for the AFP, draws on her on-the-ground reporting and interviews with many women who became activists and leaders, from the elite prosecutor who ignited the country's #MeToo movement to the young women who led the war against non-consensual photography. Their stories, though long overlooked in the West, mirror realities that women across the world are all too familiar with: threats of defamation lawsuits to silence victims of assault, tech-based sexual abuse, and criminal justice systems where victims' voices are often met with suspicion and abusers' downfalls are met with sympathy. These are the issues at the heart of their #MeToo movement, and South Korean women have fought against them vigorously—and with extraordinary success. In Flowers of Fire, Jung illuminates the strength and tenacity of these women, too often sidelined in global conversations about feminism and gender equality.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 7, 2023

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781637742426

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781637742426
      • File size: 33166 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 23, 2023
      Journalist Jung’s invigorating debut examines the “loud, raucous world” of contemporary feminism in South Korea, a country that has become a technological and cultural “juggernaut” while “hover at the bottom of many surveys on women’s status among advanced nations.” Covering the period between 2015 and 2021, Jung profiles feminists who were galvanized by such events as the 2016 murder of a woman in the bathroom of a bar in Seoul’s Gangnam district by a man she’d never met and prosecutor Seo Ji-Hyun’s 2018 TV appearance accusing a high-level Ministry of Justice official of sexual assault. Jung also discusses how voyeurs planted spy-cams in women’s homes, hotel rooms, and public bathrooms, and then posted the footage on nonconsensual porn websites; police only began to take the problem seriously after a series of massive protests in 2018. Elsewhere, Jung details how the Escape the Corset campaign goes beyond body positivity to reject the association between women and beauty altogether (“under the hashtag #EscapetheCorset, a growing number of people began sharing pictures and videos of crushed makeup; strands of long, chopped-off hair; or themselves with short hair or a shorn head”). Deeply reported and driven by the voices of the young activists Jung interviews, this is a full-throated rallying cry. Photos. Agent: Amy Bishop, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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