March 10, 2017

Big positive reaction to female Korean chief justice after she shows up in court with 2 curlers in her hair.

Acting Chief Justice Lee Jung-mi had to rush in for the momentous announcement of the ouster of the South Korean president.

You'd think the curlers left in the hair would symbolize terrible tendencies in a judge — negligence, obliviousness, sloppiness, and lack of attention to detail. But no. She's a woman and therefore you have to put a positive interpretation on everything.

According to the AP reporter (in WaPo):
Many saw the episode as a sign of Lee’s dedication to her work. She was photographed arriving three hours before the scheduled reading of the verdict.
Some women also found it humbling that one of the highest judges in the country does her own hair instead of hiring a stylist even on such an important day.

“Any woman who does her hair on her own has an experience like that at least once,” one tweet said.

Some compared it to the impeached president who prosecutors say summoned her hair stylist to her office several hours after a ferry sank in 2014, killing hundreds of teenagers. Park’s first appearance after the sinking was at an emergency meeting; her hair was near-perfect. One of the contentious issues in the case before the Constitutional Court was whether Park fulfilled her duty as president on the day of the Sewol tragedy.
To be fair, the ousted president — Park Geun-hye — is also female. Here's an article about why she was removed.
“It was such an obvious case that there was no room for the court to rule other than impeaching the president,” said Kim Seon-taek, a professor of constitutional law at Korea University.
That is to say, there was no possible positive interpretation to be placed on what Park had done.

IN THE COMMENTS: Henry said: "The photograph is from when she arrived. I don't get the impression that the hair curlers were still in her hair three hours later." So I've removed a sentence that had appeared above ("So she had 3 hours to notice her mistake.") On reflection, I'm willing to think that she knew the curlers were there and wanted to look right later and just accepted that she'd be seen like this. It used to be very common in the United States for women to go out with their hair in curlers. Not all women, but many women, thought it was fine to go out in rollers covered by a scarf, if it was during the day and you were only doing errands like grocery shopping. I think the idea was that you'd look good when men were around and what other women would see was you in preparation mode, showing off that you had a man worth looking good for later.

29 comments:

MayBee said...

My husband and I have CNN on all the time, and we were just remarking on how little we know about what is happening in South Korea- an important ally.

Yet we know what Gloria Borger and Kiersten Powers think about what Paul Ryan said about health care.
The news is so disinterested in bringing us important information.

Big Mike said...

And yet from all I can tell the corruption of former president Park was pretty penny ante next to Hillary Clinton. From that I conclude that South Koreans are inherently more honest than the denizens of blue states.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

I think the judge's hairstylist left the curlers in on orders of the judge.

Too cynical?

sean said...

Wow, my mother did her own hair, and she absolutely never had an experience like that. Those Korean women must be very mentally disorganized.

Henry said...

She was photographed arriving three hours before the scheduled reading of the verdict.

The photograph is from when she arrived. I don't get the impression that the hair curlers were still in her hair three hours later.

Krumhorn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Henry said...

She is not wearing curlers in court.

Wince said...

Am I correct reading, as Althouse alludes, that the WaPo article didn't state the ousted president's full name or mention her sex?

Krumhorn said...

After reading that Post article, I'm shocked that they didn't save some trees and dispose of Hillary under the same indictment.

- Krumhorn

Sebastian said...

Context, people, context. The judge helped oust the relatively conservative president, opening the door to a more progressive, NK-accommodating figure, therefore she's good, all good.

MD Greene said...

I once covered a school board meeting in a small district where people had voted against annual school funding and the schools had been closed. There were several hundred people at the meeting.

One of the school board members arrived with her hair all done up in little pink curlers. Reason? She and other board members were going to meet with the governor the next morning.

I could imagine her agonizing thought process: Is it more important to look good for 300 people and the local TV station or for the governor?

The public schools were closed, and she was worried about her hair.

This is a true story.

Bob Boyd said...

Maybe the curlers refused to vacate her hair.

bagoh20 said...

"That is to say, there was no possible positive interpretation to be placed on what Park had done."

They need to watch how the American media and the DNC interpreted Hillary's lawlessness. That's thinking outside the box with dedication and skill.

Static Ping said...

When it comes to judges, I am more interested in their competence and dedication to the Rule of Law than their general hygiene. If she came into court sporting a reverse mohawk and wearing a bikini with a visible tramp stamp, I would still prefer her to Sotomayor.

Chuck said...

I don't know enough to be a juror in the case of the removal of President Park, but from my understanding of the reckless nature of her involvement with her BFF in official matters, I have no sympathy for her.

Fernandinande said...

the ousted president — Park Geun-hye

No Park-ing.

Karen said...

Her big mistake was not funneling the money through a foundation first.

sean said...

Now that the facts have been revised, I partially retract my comment. My mother might have gone out to run an errand with her hair in curlers under a scarf.

Bob Boyd said...

"My mother might have gone out to run an errand with her hair in curlers under a scarf."

Deplorable.

'TreHammer said...

My wife did that once (left for work after accidentally leaving a hair curler in her hair). Her direct reports were afraid to tell her about the curler. She only found out when her boss pointed it out. Needless to say, I was the one who caught hell for not noticing the curler in her hair as she flew out the door on her way to work. :-(

BJM said...

I was raised that one simply didn't leave the house looking untidy. Pushed for time, I once ran to the grocery store in curlers covered by a nice scarf. Who did I meet in the dairy aisle? An old flame whom I could see was thinking "Well, I dodged that bullet".

Unknown said...

And yet from all I can tell the corruption of former president Park was pretty penny ante next to Hillary Clinton.

No.

Context, people, context. The judge helped oust the relatively conservative president, opening the door to a more progressive, NK-accommodating figure, therefore she's good, all good.

No.

FFS people, it's not hard to read up on what's going on. Don't compare Park to Hillary Clinton or anyone else in American politics. Clinton wasn't a protege of a fucking cult leader. And conservative or not, Park was a goddamn puppet for a cult. Get it?

Balfegor said...

Re: Big Mike:

And yet from all I can tell the corruption of former president Park was pretty penny ante next to Hillary Clinton. From that I conclude that South Koreans are inherently more honest than the denizens of blue states.

Haha, no. There are basically two pieces to President Park's scandal.

Piece 1 is that she was sharing classified information with her friend Choi Soonshil. The news have seized on other salacious (but irrelevant) details like Choi picking out her wardrobe and whatnot, but Park really did give Choi classified information to get her advice, and Choi stored that information on totally unsecured devices. This is similar to, but -- in my opinion -- worse than what Clinton did, since at least Clinton kept her classified data on a server she controlled. Choi apparently kept this stuff on unsecured mobile devices that she left behind in her office when she fled to Germany briefly.

Piece 2 is the bribery, which is apparently what has so many Koreans exercised and out in the streets, although I cannot, for the life of me, understand why. Have they somehow forgotten that they, you know, live in Korea? Since the end of the dictatorship, every single president has had his associates (usually his close family members) investigated for taking bribes. Ex-President Noh Moo-hyun committed suicide to avoid the humiliation of his wife being investigated for bribery while he was President. Bribery is totally ho-hum. Indeed, what's remarkable about it is that people were apparently just bribing Choi to gain access to Park, not bribing Park herself, so it's not even as egregious as past scandals.

Re: MayBee: the situation is Korea is, frankly, a total dumpster fire at this point. Last year was one of the worst years for Korea in a long time -- Samsung phones and washing machines blowing up, Hanjin Shipping going bankrupt stranding boats all over the world, Park Geun-Hye impeachment scandal, the elderly Chairman of Samsung caught in a prostitution scandal. This year, the Samsung crown prince has been arrested for bribery, Park's impeachment has gone through, and it seems likely -- now that Ban Ki-Moon has dropped out -- that loony lefty Moon Jae-in is going to be the next President.

Balfegor said...

Actually, the story of Choi's unsecured mobile device seems a little shadier than I had remembered. I am not sure I trust what these journalists are saying about how they, ah, obtained it.

StephenFearby said...

AA wrote:

"...Not all women, but many women, thought it was fine to go out in rollers covered by a scarf, if it was during the day and you were only doing errands like grocery shopping. I think the idea was that you'd look good when men were around and what other women would see was you in preparation mode, showing off that you had a man worth looking good for later."

That you had a man worth looking good for. Delicious.


When my esteemed wife [who always looks good to me] and I finally got married after 20 or so years of co-habitation, I channeled Groucho's refusal to join a club line to explain the long delay.

"I wouldn't marry a woman that would have me has a husband."

Dude1394 said...

It looks like she forgot them to me. I mean the rest of her hair is plenty dry and combed.

Etienne said...

We had a Saturday ritual. Mom would kick us all out of the house and dad would take us for a drive in the country. Many times, we just went out to play, and dad went to a tavern.

But mom was a Coiffeuse at the salon all week, and she did very special customers in the home on Saturday. These were very wealthy Jewish women, and my mom being a poor Catholic was glad to have them favor her. She even house sat for them when they went on vacation. I remember their racing horses. My God, those were good looking horses.

I asked her once, where she met them, and she said they all lived in the same apartment complex when she first came to America. None of them spoke English. Mom and dad spoke German and French so they tried to find an apartment where the landlord understood them.

She once told me that her very best customers were German Officer wives. She was from Metz, which was culturally German anyway, and nothing much changed when the Germans took France. It was when the Americans arrived that they blew up everything and shot her dog. Trying to get French women into the salon was like pulling teeth. They did their own damned hair. Don't need no damned Coiffeuse...

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Asian women (including Indians with dots) process reality very differently from the rest of mankind. A sexist and racist stereotype, no doubt, but also repeatedly verified by life experience.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"nothing much changed when the Germans took France"

Well, got rid of those pesky Yids. Shame about mom's dog.