Women Against Women: “Feminism” in South Korea by Minju Kim
My first “physical” encounter with feminism took place on one lovely Saturday afternoon while I was rushing to a nearby subway station after a soccer match. In South Korea considered one of the most conservative countries in East Asia, it is rare to see crowds of women gathering on a busy street, all holding large signposts and waving them, overwhelming the noise caused by nearby traffic with their shouts. My initial impression of the sight was appreciation. Living as a teenage girl, I was glad to see my peers gathering to cry out for the gender equality issue without compromising with the gender stereotype that has haunted our community for so long. However, as I approached the demonstrators to show my support, I had to step back as soon as I saw the slogans on their signposts filled with nothing but derogatory words and curses on the opposite sex.
On that day, I realized that the definition of “feminism,” or “being a feminist” could not be identical among the largest minority group, so-called the “second sex.” At least, the alleged 1 “feminist groups” on the street on that day do not represent my take on sexism. It is a disturbing fact that Korea was ranked 115th in the world according to the 2018 Global Gender Gap Report published by the World Economic Forum, which based their ranking on criteria of economic participation, social opportunities, and political empowerment. In my opinion, the radical 2 slogans cried out by those “feminist groups” create negative views on the feminist movement even within their own sex, and their efforts bring about a hatred against men and an attempt to
1 The term was widely used by Simone de Beauvoir, as is the title of her 1949 novel, The Second Sex, largely considered as the catalyst of the second wave of feminism in the mid-20th century.
2 The Global Gender Report is published annually by the Word Economic Forum, and ranks 149 countries in the world “on their progress towards gender parity,” across four criteria: Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Emplwerment (“The Global Gender Gap Report 2018”).
prove their superiority over the opposite sex must fail to earn the support of decent people, including myself. The Megalia and the Womad, the two most rapidly growing “feminist” organizations in Korea in recent years, promote their slogans and theory both in cyber and in real world. Those two groups even encourage not only anti-male ideologies but also their rallies demanding the stepping down of Moon Jae In, the incumbent president. To anyone’s surprise, they go even further by demanding the release of the enjailed Park Geun-hye, the first female president of South Korea, who is being imprisoned for her illegal abuse of power and taking bribes from major commercial companies in Korea. According to their claim, the poor former president was framed by male politicians and wrongly criminalized only because she is a woman.
The irony here lies in the fact that Park neither identified herself as a feminist nor launched any public policy challenging sex inequality in Korea throughout her term, most notably exhibited in her controversial approval of the South Korea-Japan ‘comfort women’ settlement in 2015. In fact, it has been proven that many female leaders have not actually made their countries equal or improved women’s rights as shown in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Myanmar. Therefore, those self-styled feminist groups in Korea should stop abusing the gender 3 issue to seek out revenge on men, which would make silent majorities turn their backs on the voices of average women. Those groups might have been successful in drawing attention from the general public, but not in building the support from a wide range of people, which is necessary for CHANGE.
3 The leaders referred to are Megawati Sukarnoputri, Corazon Aquino, and Aung San Suu Kyi, respectively.
Korea’s age-old gender inequality stems from the fact that women have not been allowed to speak for themselves. It has existed in South Korea for so long and only the few brave enough dared to raise it as an issue. However, those today’s extremists, falsely labeled as “feminists” by the media, alienate not only themselves but also decent social activists who experience sexism in their daily lives. Their cursed voices only give a bad name to feminism and feminists, providing an internal division among the very group of people who need to stand by each other’s side.
Women do not need hatred and violence disguising as feminism. They, we, I, need a passionate and progressive movement, one that is inherently positive and serves to spread that positivity to a larger audience, and seeks to benefit all silent majorities. After all, under no circumstance can respectable feminism escape from humanism.