It's not a secret we live in a misogynistic society, and that that misogyny invades every single aspect of our lifes, even music.
However, there's one industry in which both men and women suffer from this misogyny, the pop industry, more specifically the k-pop industry.
While female 'idols' (this is how the singers are referred to as) get hate for being too fat or skinny, for having personality or not, or don't get taken seriously (because they're women) male idols suffer a smaller form of discrimination, since most of their fans are female, that get squashed into the category of crazy fangirl.
Female idols get belittled, and critiziced for, almost literally, anything.
"Girl crush" concepts are seen as empowering, but don't get away from this hate. One of the biggest groups in this concept, BLACKPINK, gets constant hate. In the "Kill this Love" era, one of the concept photoshoots, featured the members with fake bruises and cuts, representing toxic love. And ntzens accused them of glorifying abuse, yet, many male groups have tried this kind of photoshoot concept before, and no one said anything. Furthermore, in the MAMAS 2017, when presenting blackpink, their faces were blurred and tinted red, which on korea means to wish for someone's death.
MAMAS 2017, in which bp's faces were tinted red. The girls were rookies, having debuted only a year before.
"Cute" concepts aren't saved, either, from harsh and unreasonable criticism, while popular in the past, in recent years, it has been framed as anti-feminist and not empowering, and each year there are less and less cute concepts.
Moreover, TWICE, who have been declared NGG, (Nation's girl group) receive lots of hate for having a "cute" concept since debut. They debuted on October 20, 2015 with "Like Ooh Aah", all the nine members being selected from a (highly traumatic and frankly cruel) survival show, called SIXTEEN.
In this show, Park Jinyoung, at the time CEO of JYPE, not only pitted the girls against eachother by putting them in the Minor and Major categories, but allowed body shaming towards one of the members, Park Jihyo. She was a bit thicker than the other girls, and she trained hard, for 10 years before the survival show, so she was confident, however, one of the phootgraphers critiziced her and told her to move to the back on one of the photoshoots they held.
On the other side of the expectrum, Hirai Momo, also a TWICE member, was critiziced for being too thin, ever since debut. Even though she was one of the thinner girls in the show, after being announced as the 9th TWICE member, the agency put her through an extreme diet so she could lose 5kg in a week.
Both members had to put up with body shaming for years, and still struggle with their self images 5 years after debut.
Jihyo 2015 to 2017.
Other female idols that have been critiziced for their weight are: Sunmi, called 'too thin' during Siren era, and when she put on some weight in pporappippam, being called 'too fat'.
Some idols have been so heavily critiziced they committed suicide, especially in the past year. Sulli, ex-f(x) member, struggled with depression for many years, due to heavy criticism. She even made a song about her feelings,trying to warn us, some say, called Goblin.
Even then, artists like TWICE or BLACKPINK continue to be one of the most successful groups right now. They have unbelievable struggles, but push through, and get hit after hit.
Male idols have it, objectively, easier. But they still have issues.
The biggest boy band in existence right now, is BTS, but they're constantly belittled as their fandom is framed as being only 13-17 year old fangirls, crazy for them. They're also "insulted" by being told that they look like girls, because they wear makeup, either for photoshoots or just because they like it. [remember, make up is gender neutral!]
To conclude, even if they're not equally at disadvantage they are all, affected by misogyny.
[A/N: please stream Sulli's song, Goblin on YouTube.]
