<
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/20/inside-saturday-south-korea-gender-war>
"On a November evening in 2023, in the South Korean city of Jinju, a woman
called On Ji-goo was working the late shift at a convenience store when a young
man stormed in, aggressively knocking items off the shelves. When she asked him
to be careful, he turned to her, saying, “I’m angry to my bones right now, so
don’t touch me.”
The situation escalated. When On tried to call for help, he seized her phone
and threw it in the store’s microwave. She tried to stop him and he grabbed her
by the collar and arms, dragging her several metres while slamming her into
display shelves. It was the start of a brutal assault. Throughout it, he
repeatedly said he “never hits women” but feminists “deserve to be beaten”.
When an older male customer tried to intervene, the attacker turned on him,
too, demanding, “Why aren’t you supporting a fellow man?” When the police
arrived, he announced he was part of a men’s rights group and called for male
officers to handcuff him. He later admitted he had singled out On because of
her short hair.
“Before this, I had only the most basic understanding of feminism – the kind
any woman might naturally have,” says On, an aspiring author who uses a pen
name.
We meet on a sunny afternoon in a coffee shop in Jinju, where she still lives,
just blocks from the shop. It’s a sleepy provincial city of under 350,000
people, four hours from Seoul by high-speed train. On’s face is hidden behind a
face mask, a beanie pulled low. Having endured insensitive questioning from
local media in the aftermath of her assault, she takes a while to drop her
guard. “I didn’t fully grasp the discrimination women face, or rather I had
accepted it as normal,” she says.
The attack left her with permanent hearing loss and severe trauma. The
perpetrator received a three-year prison sentence. In a landmark ruling, the
appeals court recognised misogyny as the driving force behind the assault, the
first time a South Korean court had acknowledged such hatred as a criminal
motive.
On’s story is not unique in a country where systemic inequality and virulent
online misogyny have pitched mainly gen Zs and millennials into a bitter battle
of the sexes. While similar fights over gender and feminism are playing out
across the world, from the US to Europe, South Korea has become ground zero for
gender wars, its highly connected, digitally literate population amplifying
this trend at a pace not seen elsewhere.
On the surface, South Korea appears a hypermodern society, defined by its
positive contributions to global pop culture, cutting-edge technology and sleek
urban landscapes. But beneath this veneer lies a widening gender divide that
seems to belong to another era. Among nations of the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development, the country ranks first for women’s tertiary
education attainment, yet maintains the bloc’s largest gender pay gap. Women
remain largely excluded from leadership roles, and South Korea consistently
ranks last in measures of workplace gender equality. While the country leads
the world in internet connectivity and hi-tech innovation, these same digital
spaces have become breeding grounds for some of the most toxic anti-feminist
communities, turning virtual hatred into real-world violence."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
