#미투: A Sobering Look at the MeToo Movement in South Korea
Originally published on FightingStripes.com on Dec. 6, 2020. Written by Michael Welch
Trigger Warning : THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS STORIES OF RAPE, SEXUAL ASSUALT, AND SUICIDE. IF THIS IS NOT FOR YOU, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH AND APPROACH WITH CAUTION.
“BEING A WOMAN IS HARD WORK. - MAYA ANGELOU
“IT IS HARD TO BE A WOMAN. YOU MUST THINK LIKE A MAN, ACT LIKE A LADY, LOOK LIKE A YOUNG GIRL, AND WORK LIKE A HORSE.” - UNKNOWN
We’ve all heard some variation of these quotes throughout our lives, whether from our mothers, sisters, partners, or other women in our lives. And if you’re telling me you’ve never heard that, my guess is you haven’t been listening.
In the end though, it’s far too easy as men for us to apply the “in one ear, out the other” attitude and shrug it off. We can just say to ourselves, “oh women are always saying that.” Or worse, we may even say “Who cares? Life is hard, get used to it.”
However, for me, it’s time to start listening and taking a real look at the world men have built to hold women back. Let’s take a real look at how unfair it is and admit to ourselves that these quotes are true. There should be no debate: it is far harder to be a woman than a man. The cards are stacked against women in subtle ways and more obvious ways. It’s time to figure out what we can do to make the game more fair for both genders.
I’ve been thinking about what I’ve wanted to say on this topic for months. Finding the right tone, not coming with a patronizing attitude, avoiding condescension; it’s all created writer’s block. I ended up reminding myself to “speak myself.” I’ve been wanting to say something about MeToo this whole year. It was this week that I finally felt compelled to begin writing and speaking up.
I finished reading Cho Namjoo’s novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and viewed the theatrical adaptation with Gong Yoo and Jung Yumi. I was brought to tears as I watched a movie that so rawly laid out the misogyny, microaggressions, and awful treatment women receive in Korea. Here is the trailer; I urge you to watch this film:
I’ve been learning and watching the movement unfold in Korea. And I’ve been shocked at the events taking place and the suffering women have been put through. It’s enough. It’s time for me to tell you that it’s enough. That we have to do better. Men in Korea and here at home in North America, let’s start to listen to women and see what we can do better. Where do we start with MeToo, or 미투 as it’s written in Korea? Well, it all began with a courageous confession from Seo Jihyun, a public prosecutor who shared on JTBC’s nightly newsroom program about her experience of sexual harassment in the workplace. As with the movement around the world, this story rippled out to women all across Korea. Women came forward in all fields of life to detail the harassment, assault, rape, and misogyny that had permeated their lives. There was a renewed reckoning with the Gangnam murder case of 2016, in which a 23 year-old woman was stabbed and killed in a public subway station bathroom. The man later confessed he had no acquaintance with the victim, and killed her because he was tired of being ignored by women. There was the downfall of popular politician Ahn Heejung (once considered a strong contender to be the next South Korean president), who admitted that he had repeatedly raped and assaulted his secretary. There was the accusation that the acclaimed director Kim Ki-duk had assaulted and forced an actress to participate in a sex scene on the set of one of his films, against her will. In the athletics field, Shim Sukhee, an Olympic gold medalist speed skater, came forward with allegations that her coach Cho Jaebeom had raped and assaulted her for years. In 2018, before the Pyeongchang Olympics, she abruptly left the national training center and went public with her accusations. Many of her teammates voiced support for her and coach Cho has been banned from the sport. This past June, South Korean triathlete Choi Sukhyeon committed suicide after enduring years of physical and psychological abuses at the hands of her coaches. She was beaten and subjected to constant fat shaming, a practice that Korea’s national athletics training program will have to stamp out. In the K-Pop industry, in the past two years we have had to mourn the passing of two incredibly talented young women. Sulli, of the SM group f(x), committed suicide in 2019 after being constantly subjected to online abuse by netizens for the way she went against gender norms. She would be abused constantly for standing up for feminism, speaking out about why she preferred not to wear bras, or for dating too many different celebrities. Sulli was a “different” kind of woman, and online netizens drove her to suicide over it. In November of 2019 (we just passed the one year anniversary of her passing), Goo Hara, from the girl group KARA, committed suicide after enduring a revenge porn attack from an ex-boyfriend. After a physical altercation between the pair resulted in charges being filed by both parties, her ex-boyfriend Choi Jongbum threatened to release a sex tape he had taken. He had done this without her consent and the backlash she received online was intense. The whole ordeal drove her to suicide and her brother is now fighting for her legacy and appealing for greater punishment for Choi, who has thus far only been sentenced to a suspended 1 year prison sentence. The crazy thing is this: I haven’t even gotten to the picture I shared at the top of the article. What is “My Life is not Your Porn” all about? Well, it is something that shocked and disgusted me when I learned about it. In Korea, women have to deal with a brand new kind of porn: spycam porn. In bathrooms, changing rooms, you name it, men have installed spycams to capture photos and videos of women in their most vulnerable moments. There was the Burning Sun scandal, where it was revealed that multiple male celebrities were involved in groupchats where they shared this lewd and illegal pornography. Worse still, they had participated and shared videos of sexaul assaults involving intoxicated women they had partied with. The protests were a striking and defiant stage against this disgusting behavior. The female protesters came together all wearing masks and proclaiming a chilling truth: “My life is not your porn.” In Korea, this is what it has come to. Women now have to worry about spycams in public areas capturing pornography for the men of the country. Police task forces have been created to eradicate these spycams. Companies have been rocked by scandals of male workers circulating these spycam pictures and videos of their female coworkers. This is the sobering reality of life as a woman in Korea. In the scariest scandal of them all, the Nth Room Scandal came to light this year, as we learned a man (read: monster) had been operating a Telegram groupchat where he sold videos of coerced sexual acts performed by minors. The crazy thing: men across the country were paying to join this Telegram groupchat to get their eyes on this material. The ringleaders of this porn operation have now been sentenced to 40 years in prison for their monstrous crimes. It’s not enough punishment for the lives they ruined. Netflix recently released a documentary on this case.
How does it feel to read this? Does it disgust you? Does it make you angry? I hope so.
This is what we’re dealing with. We’re dealing with a generation of men that have gotten it in their minds that women’s bodies are meant to be their play things. There are Korean men and frankly men around the world, commonly known as “incels”, who justify their behavior by saying that women ignore them. The term incel is short for involuntarily celibate. These Korean men blame the women who ignore them as the problem, saying they wouldn’t have to engage in this behavior if women would just pay proper attention to their sexual advances. The behavior is pathetic. There is no other way to say it.
This is the cruel reality of a patriarchal culture that has exploited women forever. When we look at the numbers, South Korea is the country with the worst gender pay gap in the OECD, with women getting paid 34.1% less than their male counterparts. This is a country where women are still routinely fired for becoming pregnant. This is the country where babies born out of wedlock were sent abroad for adoption by the hundreds of thousands, as single mothers were shunned and abandoned by their families.
Is this all a lot? Well, it’s where we are. It’s now time to make a change. It’s time to take a look in the mirror and admit this is all wrong. That this misogyny, inequality, and sexual violence is unacceptable. It’s time to take a step back and listen to women’s stories. It’s time to support women in our lives who have been through experiences of rape and sexual assualt. It is time to take a look back at our past behavior as men and look to make changes.
I’m not perfect. I have immense regrets with how I have treated women in past romantic relationships. I have behaved unacceptably and had to make apologies for the mistakes I made. That’s the work we as men have to do. It’s not going to be fun, but it’s a heckuva lot easier than any of the hardships we’ve put women through. We need to redefine the term “man up.” It needs to be about having the courage and humility to admit wrongdoings, notice misogyny, and stand with women. I’m ready to “man up.” Are you?