포스트페미니즘 시대, 여성전용 사이버공간의 필요성과 페미니즘의 역할 : 다음카페 <여성시대>를 중심으로

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Daum cafe <Women’s Generation>(now on WG) opened in september, 2009, claiming to stand for brave and agential of subjectivity of woman-in-twenties-only community. Comparing to Samkook cafe(representative appearance management community and a triple bond of woman majority online cafe), which organizing specific context from early 00’s to now, it is a second mover.
It is important to research other woman-only online space besides feminist communities, because there are a lot of languages that presents feminism crisis discourse, for example, post-feminism, anti-feminism, crisis of gender studies and so on, we could find a clue about how to overcome this using what kind of strategy. WG shows how the people who don’t have feminist identity sympathize, learn and practice feminism in certain context. Moreover no other solutions is considered how feminism could intervene actively in daily life area such as media, online space, etc., though there are plenty of concerns and researches about stream minimizing positions in gender ‘studies’, that is, institutional academy fields. Especially Korean feminism, institutionalized fast in official way, doesn’t achieve certain results and still gets huge backlashes in public space. Therefore it means Korean feminism couldn’t handle the crisis, the post-feminism trend, unless they seek any roles hardly outside of academy.
Accordingly I, as feminist and member of WG, started this research to find why woman-only space is needed and what kind of role feminism have to do in post-feminism ages. In this research, we could figure out outcomes and influence of feminism in woman-only space in heterosexual system and it functions as a safe crack which could make women learnt and empowered for daily politics. However, it is a critical point that they, the member of Women’s Generation, put distances on feminism or there is ambiguity of category of woman, which using as qualification of membership, fighting back norms selectively, not whole heterosexual systems or compulsory patriarchy. Feminism crisis discourses come to the fore continuously, limited only in institutional education area, research how we get involved public space or what kind of strategy is need to come close to woman-only space is not regarded as our issue.
McRobbie(2004) saw the distance about feminism as a potential and asked for new way and strategy which is used for differently merging category of woman and suppression into new language. Also Kim, Sooah(2011) analyzed women feel comfortable with commercial sites for woman and numerous woman’s communities as woman’s space. Because thinking appearance management and household affair labor are contrary to feminism, they hesitate to share their information. It related to identity politics which pointed out as a limit of feminism consecutively.
If there’s no other languages except for feminism which explain gender issue effectively, members of WG use it actively. However approaches such as suppression or exploitation on woman are no more persuasive, because patriarchy and neo-liberalism interact and work more intricately as ideology. For example, people looked away when feminism just emphasizing ‘inner beauty’ without explaining how appearance becomes resources in narrative of self-management and this process is part of heterosexaul system. Or without reflecting ambiguity of category of woman, identity politics, only identifying as woman through female body, is no more empowering tools resolved their problems. Then, the key point, switching crisis of feminism over possibility is started at analyzing periodical context of gender issues in intersecting a numbers of variables and drawing out countermeasures on how we shake the system or social structure from the public.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

다음 카페 <여성시대>(이하 여성시대)는 당당하고 주체적인 20대 여성전용 커뮤니티를 표방하며 2009년 9월에 개설되었다. 2000년대 초반부터 현재까지 일정한 맥락을 구성해 온 대표적인 외모관리 커뮤니티인 삼국카페에(윤보라, 2011: 13) 비하면 후발주자라고 할 수 있다. 놀이와 (정치) 학습의 장이라는 점에서 삼국카페와 궤를 같이 하지만 공유된 여성의 경험을 언어화하여 현실 세계에 적극적으로 개입하려는 점에서 차이를 지닌다.
페미니스트 커뮤니티 이외의 여성시대를 비롯한 여성전용 사이버공간에 대한 연구가 중요한 것은 포스트페미니즘, 반여성주의, 여성학의 위기 등 다양한 언어로 페미니즘의 위기 담론이 대두되고 있는 와중에 어떤 전략을 통해 이를 극복할 수 있는지에 대한 핵심적인 열쇠를 찾을 수 있기 때문이다. 여성시대는 페미니스트 정체성을 가지지 않은 사람들이 어떤 맥락에서 페미니즘에 공감하고 이를 학습, 실천하는지 반대로 어떤 맥락에서 페미니즘에 대한 거리감을 유지하는지를 잘 보여준다. 또한 여성 ‘학’ 즉, 제도 학문 내에서 여성학의 입지가 좁아지는 것에 대한 우려와 연구는 많지만 대중매체와 사이버공간 등 일상의 영역에서 페미니즘이 어떻게 적극적으로 개입할 수 있을 지에 대한 고민은 미비하다.
특히 공적인 영역에서 빠르게 제도화된 한국의 페미니즘이 여전히 대중적인 영역에서는 구체적인 성과를 얻지 못하고 오히려 강한 반발(backlash)을 사고 있다는 점에서 학문 밖 영역에서 페미니즘의 개입 방향을 적극적으로 모색하지 않는 것은 포스트페미니즘이라는 시대적 흐름에 적절하게 대처하지 못하는 것이다. 그래서 나는 페미니스트로서 그리고 여성시대 회원으로서 포스트페미니즘 시대, 한국에서 여성전용 사이버공간이 필요한 이유와 페미니즘이 어떤 역할을 해야 하는 지를 모색하기 위해 이 연구를 시작하게 되었다.