What is 'nammisae'? Viral parody clip accused of misogyny holds deeper meaning for Korea's feminists.

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What is 'nammisae'? Viral parody clip accused of misogyny holds deeper meaning for Korea's feminists.

Published: 22 Jan. 2026, 07:00 Updated: 09 Feb. 2026, 14:05

LEE JIAN
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Comedian Kang Yu-mi plays a ″middle-aged nammisae,″ or older females who have internalized misogyny, in a video clip released on Jan. 1. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

She is the kind of boss women warn each other about.

A female superior who coddles male subordinates while acting cold and harsh toward women. She is also overly invested in workplace gossip — “I think those two are dating,” she remarks, half-whispering. She meddles in co-workers’ personal lives, asking questions like, “Do you have a boyfriend?” and “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?”

What is 'nammisae'? Viral parody clip accused of misogyny holds deeper meaning for Korea's feminists.

Married, she brags about her husband’s wealth. She has a son and loves to brag about him, too — along with a questionable approach to how he should treat girls. “Hit back when girls hit you,” she tells him. “Girls are so cunning these days, but boys are so innocent.”

Comedian Kang Yu-mi plays a ″middle-aged nammisae,″ or older females who have internalized misogyny, in a video clip released on Jan. 1. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

For those unfamiliar with her, consider yourself lucky. For those who do recognize her, it is because she is a type, and Korea has a name for her: a middle-aged "nammisae" — a term referring to a girl who is obsessed with men.

The label surged into the mainstream after an 11-minute parody YouTube clip by comedian Kang Yu-mi, released on Jan. 1, featured a comically exaggerated version of this female type. Featuring the aforementioned statements, her clip amassed 1.9 million views and over 23,000 comments in 20 days.

While the clip sparked some backlash — with some calling it offensive or accusing it of promoting misogyny — the dominant response was one of uneasy recognition. Many viewers said the character felt unsettling, not because it was overtly exaggerated, but because it was painfully familiar.

That is because the power of Kang Yu-mi’s video lies not only in its unnerving accuracy but in what it reveals about the moment it has landed in. The figure of the middle-aged nammisae resonates beyond the trope of women turning on women, pointing instead to the lingering force of structural patriarchy — and to the Korean public’s growing willingness to name, satirize and debate the ways it continues to shape relationships between women.

Picture of two women on a sesaw [GETTY IMAGE BANK]

Kang’s clip and the public discussions it has opened “are noteworthy in that they made visible how patriarchal structures have permeated individual perceptions and ways of forming relationships, creating tensions and fractures within women’s communities,” said women’s studies researcher Cha Yu-ri and her research team in an email interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Cha, a researcher at Sogang University's Media Convergence Research Institute, along with researcher Xianmei Jin of the same institute and Seoul National University's SNU College professor Kim Ji-hee, published a paper on Korea’s nammisae discourse last year through the Korea’s Association of Women’s Studies.

“In particular, what stands out is how discomfort and anger that had long accumulated as private experiences were translated — through humor — into public language,” they continued. “In doing so, issues that had remained difficult to articulate were brought into the space of collective discussion.”

What is a 'middle-aged nammisae'?

A derogatory internet slang term, nammisae targets women perceived as being excessively focused on men, often to the point of prioritizing male attention or approval over solidarity with other women.

It emerged in the mid- to late-2010s, around the time when the country’s contemporary feminist movement gained momentum, catalyzed by online feminist communities, the 2016 murder of a woman at Gangnam Station and the global #MeToo movement.

Members of feminist groups hold a press conference in front of the Blue House in Jongno District, central Seoul, on Feb. 27, 2018, to announce their position on a presidential petition calling for mandatory feminism education in elementary, middle and high schools. [YONHAP]

Comparable terms exist in other cultural contexts. In the West, for example, the term “boy mom” refers to a mother who shows overt favoritism toward her sons over her daughters. An article published by USA Today describes a boy mom as someone who “speaks about her son in a way that viewers perceive as being almost romantic, hyper-fixates on her male child’s gender and all things ‘boy’ or gives special treatment to her sons through coddling and obvious favoritism.”

In China, the term "green tea girl" — with "girl" replaced by a derogatory word for women —has been coined. It is used to describe women who present themselves as innocent and pure — qualities symbolized by green tea in Chinese culture — in order to appeal to men, while allegedly concealing ulterior motives. The term shares conceptual ground with the Western phrase “pick-me girl,” which similarly criticizes women for seeking male validation.

Like these expressions, nammisae targets women’s behavior and can subject specific patterns of conduct to moral judgment, often producing a stigmatizing effect. However, experts note that the Korean discourse places distinctive emphasis on intra-women solidarity and political alignment within a male-centered social order.

“Compared to these cases, Korea’s nammisae discourse is distinctive in that it develops alongside a collective judgment about how aligning oneself with male-centered social orders undermines trust and norms of solidarity within women’s communities,” said Cha and her research team.

In this sense, nammisae does not merely denote an individual dating strategy or personal desire for men. Rather, it marks a perceived choice of allegiance — siding with men and patriarchal norms even when doing so is understood to harm women as a collective.

Drawing on interviews with young women, Min Ka-young, an associate professor of women’s studies at Seoul Women’s University, said the term isn’t meant as an attack on other women but is more targeted at patriarchy itself.

“Although the slur appears to target women, it actually carries an underlying mockery of patriarchy,” Min told the Korea JoongAng Daily in an email interview. “The term implies that one would have to be ‘out of one’s mind’ to remain invested in something so outdated, harmful and meaningless — namely, patriarchal and male-centered systems.”

This logic extends to the figure of the middle-aged nammisae, which refers to women in their late 30s, 40s and 50s, who have married and often have a son, as spotlighted in Kang’s viral parody.

“To fervently defend a patriarchal order that is both harmful to women and long past its expiration date can only be explained, rhetorically, as being ‘obsessed with men,’” Min said. “While the insult aims at middle-aged women on the surface, the premise that sustains nammisae as a slur is ultimately the ridicule and perceived obsoleteness of the patriarchy itself.”

Why do they exist?

Experts say the figure often labeled as middle-aged nammisae is not the result of individual personality flaws, but a product of the social environment these women grew up in.

According to Cha’s research team, this generation came of age at a time when gender discrimination was still deeply rooted, even as society was beginning to change. Opportunities varied widely depending on education and access to work. For some women, staying close to men — and aligning themselves with male-centered values — became a practical way to secure stability, protection or status in an uncertain world. Over time, these coping strategies hardened into recognizable ways of speaking and relating to others, eventually forming the stereotype now referred to as nammisae.

Min adds that today’s hypercompetitive society also plays a role. As women are pushed into constant competition with one another, older forms of “protective” patriarchy have given way to harsher hierarchies, where women are treated as rivals rather than dependents. The attitudes mocked as nammisae can be seen as products of this shift.

A passed-down version of patriarchy remains central. In Kang’s parody, the nammisae figure is harsh toward younger women but noticeably more forgiving toward male colleagues and family members — reflecting how women who once experienced control may later reproduce similar power patterns after gaining age or authority.

“These behaviors should be understood in relation to social conditions and reward structures, not as individual pathology,” Cha’s team said.

At the same time, scholars note that the visibility of nammisae is inseparable from the rise of feminism. As feminist ideas have become more prominent in Korea, behaviors once normalized under patriarchy have become easier to recognize — and easier to contest.

Why now?

The buzz over Kang Yu-mi’s video reflects a growing sense that Korea’s gender conflict can no longer be understood simply as a battle between men and women.

Recent discussions around Kang’s clip have expanded beyond confrontations with antifeminist groups, turning the conversation inward to look at the kinds of attitudes and relationship patterns demonstrated by nammisae-type individuals, and the cost of tolerating these actions.

“Rather than directly calling out an external enemy [of feminism], Kang Yu-mi’s video takes internalized norms that had remained at the level of private discomfort and pulls them into the arena of public discussion,” Cha’s team said. “That shift is precisely what has generated such strong resonance.”

More than simply an outlet for humor, comedy that gains traction at a given moment can also serve as a measure of a society’s sensitivity to power. What people laugh at — and how — is closely tied to social conditions. When a particular figure becomes the repeated object of satire, it signals that the figure no longer occupies an untouchable position but has instead entered a space where critique is possible.

In this sense, Kang’s video marks a symbolic moment: The figure of the middle-aged nammisae, long shielded by familiarity and informal authority, is no longer treated as an exception beyond critique. Instead, it has entered the public sphere as a legitimate object of scrutiny — something more Koreans are finally willing to name, and even laugh at.

BY LEE JIAN [[email protected]]