Everywhere and nowhere
By Kim Ju-hee
Recently, verbal sexual violence occurred in one of Korea's most prestigious universities.
Eight male students of Korea University joined in the crime that continued for nearly a year. They sent sexually explicit messages to one another in their talk group, targeting randomly selected women. The content consisted of the sexual belittlement about woman’s looks and the potential for harassment.
Surprisingly, all of them seemed to be educated and sensitive about gender. One was a member of a feminist academy, another struggled for gender equality, and others were active in gender issues.
This case also shows that the Korean society is full of “misogyny.” The word means hatred toward women and sexual harassment and belittlement are typical examples.
Someone said, “It was just one case. Do not generalize all men and society by only one instance.” However, here is a question for those who think this way: “Are you sure that it is just one case, and that this is something new in our society?"
It was a shocking and shameful incident, but such case is not something “new” for me. I have witnessed some similar situations.
Last year, I accidently heard the verbal sexual violence targeting at my classmates. The attackers were lower than seniors. When they were looking at the video of a dance performance, they evaluated the appearance and body of female classmates.
This year, I also heard similar violence from my juniors in school. They also rated the appearances of female classmates. Moreover, they said to one relatively pretty-looking girl, “You are killing other girls,” a remark indirectly belittling other girls' looks.
Therefore, people who think it is something new for our society show that they are ignorant about society and people. Because the case is rather old to me and it exists everywhere. Invisible doesn’t mean nonexistent.
Meanwhile, there are also people who argued from the aspect of freedom of expression. The title of this essay “Everywhere and nowhere” is the name of a sculpture to talk about free speech. If one has the freedom to evaluate other’s appearance and others have that to criticize that behavior, whose freedom should have priority?
The answer is simple. I think true freedom should expand the range of liberty. If you claim your freedom, you should consider whether it expands or limits other freedoms. To evaluate or harass randomly selected women in a sexual context is to limit their self-determination and it is not true freedom but the violence.
Until now, hatred and violence toward women were “nowhere.” But there’s more than meets the eye. Now we should reveal the truth and existence about all the violence from the dark, deep “nowhere.” All crimes are everywhere and nowhere.
The writer is a junior at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies majoring in English literature and culture. She can be reached at
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