An Introduction To Social Categories

A few weeks ago I was chatting with one of my free-talking classes (comprised entirely of fifth and sixth grade girls) when they asked me, "Teacher, do you know what a doenjang girl is?" I replied honestly that I didn't, only being aware of the word doenjang in reference to the soybean paste that is used in doenjang jigae. They explained (sort of) that "doenjang girl" is a label given to young Korean women who are "conspicuous consumers;" that is, they have developed a taste for (mainly) American cultural goods and, in the words of my student "Ann," have "gotten hooked." A recent article in the "Munsu Journal," an English-language magazine published by University of Ulsan students, helped define the term further, as well as providing some clues as to its etymology (although, I'm still confused as to how soybean paste got in there). Apparently, "doenjang girl" was popularized last year by Korean netizens (i.e. Korean internet users) to describe young women, mostly of high school or university age, who consume "western" clothing (non-Korean name brands), food (in the form of chain restaurants like Outback Steakhouse and Bennigan's, which are remarkably popular here), and drink (Starbucks) and romanticize the "New Yorker" lifestyle that they see on imported American television programs such as "Friends" and "Sex and the City." Another way of putting it is (and I quote Kim Eun-eui of the "Munsu Journal"): "A woman who is filled with vanity but has no ability."

Needless to say, I am intrigued that such a social category exists, especially as there are so many issues about contemporary Korean culture embedded in the label. Miss Kim makes several astute observations in her piece, some of which I will recount here. First of all, she points out that it's not just any woman who happens to buy a Starbucks coffee or carry a Louis Vuitton purse that gets labelled a doenjang girl; there seems to be an unmeasurable point at which the consumption of foreign, particularly "western" and American goods, is deemed problematic and opens the consumer up to ridicule by wider Korean society. Korea, like most places on the planet right now, is not immune to American economic and cultural hegemony, and for the most part American cultural exports are embraced with open arms. However, their is also a strong nationalist strain among Koreans (somehow related to their past as a colonized subjects, I suspect) that is reflected in their consumption patterns, as evidenced by the failures here of Wal-Mart, Carrefour, and Nestle, just to name a few. It is almost as if a person can be judged to be "too" friendly toward these "western" goods that they become like caricatures, so obsessed with anything non-Korean that they end up appearing as poseurs to their Korean peers and are viewed as ignoring their "own" culture (I would argue that we have similarly prejudiced social categories in the States, although in entirely different contexts, such as "wigger," "Oreo," and "banana.")

Another salient point of Miss Kim's is that the doenjang girl category has arisen to give a negative connotation to the most emancipated generation of Korean women and the economic power that they wield. As youth unemployment continues to rise, jealously of the conspicuously consuming Korean woman by out of work young Korean men leads to a knee-jerk reaction against Korean feminism. The doenjang girl label is hastily plastered on any woman who expresses her independence, especially with her pocketbook. Perhaps it isn't a cross-cultural issue at all, but one of localized gender stereotypes. However, my students assure me that there are also doenjang boys, i.e. boys who wear foreign fashion labels and quaff their Starbucks on the way to Bennigan's.

Whether a reaction to the Korean woman's changing role in society or to the increasing influence of foreign over domestic culture, the doenjang girl label is interesting, and maybe even useful, for the outside observer as an indicator of contemporary social attitudes in Korea.