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By Kim Jae-heun
Female students are calling for protection against violence targeting feminists at high schools.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education (SMOE), Tuesday, 78 complaints were filed in three days from last Friday to Monday requesting protection for young feminists at schools.
The teenagers further asked the education office to reinforce education about feminism and punish those who use violence against girls.
Considering the SOME receives 300 to 400 complaints every week, the education office says 78 is not a small number
The SMOE said it will ask the Korean Democratic Citizenship Education Center and the Student Human Rights Education Center to review the situation. In most cases, complaints filed online are handled within two weeks.
A group of teenage feminists is said to have led filing the complaints.
In the first week of this month, a tweet calling for a complaint against school violence against young feminists was re-tweeted 300 times on social media.
The teenage feminists are reportedly preparing to file the same complaints online to the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education soon.
They said a number of female students were verbally abused and physically assaulted for revealing their identity as feminist. The victims varied in age from elementary school students to high school students.
In the previous month, young feminists began protesting against violence targeting them on social media, reporting assault cases using the hash tag function.
The female students say they wrote the catchphrase "GIRLS CAN DO ANYTHING" on their Instagram profile and it cause male students to make fun of them and attack them. Some were also physically abused for putting up a banner at school about not using misogynistic expressions.
The experts are calling for immediate measures to cope with this situation.
"This is happening because the schools are failing to deal with issues about women's rights," said Prof. Yoon Kim Ji-young from the Institute of Body and Culture at Konkuk University. "When female students complain about male students using loathing expressions against feminism, teachers tend to not take it seriously. This is causing young feminists to discuss the issue online and form groups online to fight against it."
Yoon said teachers should learn about feminism to deal with such issues and schools should carry out mandatory education programs on teaching students about women's rights.
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