Why Feminism is Needed in Korea
I’m trying to find the right words to describe this incident. A few days ago in Korea, a 23-year-old girl was murdered by a 34-year-old man just because “she was a woman.” The man confessed that his motive was to kill “a woman” because he felt that women looked down on him. So he waited in one of the public bathrooms in Gangnam Station (one of the most popular sites in Seoul) for a woman to come by.
Since I was young, my parents have always told me that the world was an unsafe place for a girl like me. They used to tell me that I should never ride a taxi alone and if I do, I should always take a picture of the number plate. They used to tell me that I shouldn’t go out on the streets at night after 10:30 because it was dangerous. Even though I wanted to walk back home after private academies at 10 back in middle school, they wouldn’t let me (even though my neighborhood is considered one of the safest in Korea). When I met my friend at a nearby park until midnight, my parents texted me every 10 minutes to make sure I was okay. I listened to what my parents said, but didn’t take it seriously because I thought that crime, especially crime so tied in with my inherent identity, was something that was stupid and distant.
I may be in a safely protected environment in Exeter, but that could have been me two months ago when I was waiting in Gangnam to meet one of my friends. There’s no guarantee that this kind of incident won’t happen again, even though social awareness on women’s rights has increased due to this incident.
The truth is that Korea is and has been an extremely male-dominant society because of Confuciansm. One of the main beliefs of Confucianism is that a woman’s duty is to serve her husband. The typical, or even ideal, image of woman in Korea has been timid and reserved. Although this image is being broken by the younger generation in which women believe that they should be more active, the deeply-rooted male-dominant mindset is hard to change. In Korea, actual gender equality is yet to be achieved—female workers receive 61.5 percent of the pay that male workers receive. According to the OECD, Korea’s wage gap between male and female is 37.4 percent, one of the highest among the OECD members. Just because Korea has a female president or that more women are being elected into congress does not mean that it is devoid of gender inequality.
The police eventually ruled this not as a hate crime, but as a non-premeditated crime that was caused by a mental illness. But whether this crime was caused by a mental illness or a random hatred against women, the fact that the murderer waited for a random woman to show up in the bathroom does not change. The victim was killed because she was a girl. His hatred was not towards a specific woman, but women in general. This was not a crime aimed at a specific person, but at a specific group.
This incident quickly escalated into a conflict between men and women. Women are voicing their opinions about what it is like to live as a female in Korea, and men are resenting women for viewing them as potential criminals. Many comments from the article that informed the initial news were offensive, such as “Because of this incident, women don’t care about men’s rights anymore, and now advocating for men’s rights is just frowned upon,” or “Women are stupid for trying to become dominant over men.” A lot of the comments question the seriousness of this incident. One comment said, “Korea has an all-female bus, an all-female parking lot, an all-female library—so many facilities just dedicated for women. Doesn’t this mean that Korea is a good country?” I realized that after reading these comments, we still have a long way to go. All of these ignorant comments are also part of the deeply rooted male-dominant mindset in Korea. People should have realized that gender equality was devoid in Korea 10 years ago. People should have realized what being a woman entails. This should have happened sooner, when we read in the papers two years ago that a 16-year-old girl was hit in her head with a rock in an elevator just because “she was a girl.”
One of the most important lessons I learned from studying 333 is that social perception is extremely hard to change, but changing social perception is the only way to start actual change. The more severe problem is that the Korean society has not yet reached a consensus on this issue, and social awareness on women’s rights—or any rights—is extremely low. The word “feminism” is frowned upon (people don’t know what feminism is). Saying “I’m a feminist” makes people awkward. Talking about politics is frowned upon. Duality shapes conversations, politics and discussions.
While I have been extremely lucky to be in an environment which fosters these thoughts, I know that the majority of Korean students don’t really have this luxury. I hope this incident becomes a lesson for everyone in Korea—but not only in Korea—to reflect on, and that nothing like this ever happens again. Hopefully, 10 years from now, we can look back at this incident and say that this incident became the grounds for actual gender equality. Rest in peace.