Me too, Korea
By Jason Lim
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I thought that I had misheard when Sohn Suk-hee, the renowned anchor of JTBC’s flagship news program, stated that Seo Ji-hyun, a prosecutor, was actually in the studio and willing to show her face while discussing her experience as a victim of sexual misconduct.
Seriously? A currently working female prosecutor would be live in a studio to appear on the highest-rated and most-trusted news program in Korea to speak about how a senior official of the justice ministry, Ahn Tae-geun, forcibly put his hands around her waist and aggressively touched her behind repeatedly. At a funeral, no less. Even more damning, there were numerous other prosecutors and officials, including Ahn’s boss, who witnessed this abuse and didn’t speak up.
This took guts. Certainly more guts than her male colleagues who went along to get along.
Her story doesn’t end with the attack. Seo alleges that the head of the justice ministry’s criminal affairs bureau tried to sweep this under the rug and even engaged in retaliation against her through bad performance reviews, negative desk audits, and undesirable assignments. Basically, your basic sordid story of petty retaliation against whistleblowers who dare to upset the status quo.
And that’s what I would have expected to happen in this case. Seo would have been silenced through such tactics and probably eventually forced to resign through a conspiracy of the powerful. I can’t imagine how incredibly fatiguing it must be to bear the emotional burden of knowing that you are being unfairly targeted and wronged for being a victim.
As everyone knows from the “Me, too” phenomenon that started with Harvey Weinstein in the U.S., sexual harassment is less about sex than power. It’s driven mostly by powerful men who act on an ingrained sense of privilege and entitlement over others, especially in how they view and consume women as objects of sexual gratification with impunity.
In Korea, women are treated as currency by which you can curry favor or gain advantages from powerful men. From obsession over cosmetic surgery to the ubiquity of hostess bars and other forms of prostitution, the message of “women as commodity,” valued mostly for their sexual desirability, is loud and clear throughout Korean society.
Institutions are actually structured to cater to this power structure. Granted, there are policies in place that pay lip service to how people ought to behave toward one another, but Korea’s corporate culture and social norms had been built to nurture and coddle the “elite” who know best how to lead Korea’s path toward prosperity. This was the power narrative that took root during the Miracle on the Han River: the paternalistic, all-knowing leadership that ensured that a rising tide raised all boats. And woe unto anything or anyone who questions the sanctity of this narrative.
Until now. When Seo showed her face on live TV and spoke so cogently of her experience, she represented a crack in this narrative. And the fact that she got such a highly visible platform from which to share her experience also speak to a changing power landscape, giving hope that it can be different this time.
According to The Korea Times, “Calls for a probe have been growing since her revelation. An online petition has been filed with Cheong Wa Dae, with thousands of citizens signing up to call for a swift launch of a fair investigation into the allegations.”
Actually, it’s not just one petition. There are multiple petitions that demand investigations to find out the truth, punishment for the senior officials involved, strengthening punishment against sexual crimes, and even forced castration for Ahn, the alleged culprit. Seo has also been getting public messages of support from her prosecutor colleagues and national assembly women, as well as flowers from strangers.
Perhaps we would look back at this moment to see an inflection point in Korean society. What we are seeing in Korea today might be the emergence of an alternate social narrative to finally replace the Miracle on Han River one that demanded belief in the omniscience of the dominant political and socioeconomic institutions. The new narrative places the rights and dignity of the individual over that of the institutions and the elite that purportedly run them on behalf of the Korean people. Park Geun-hye’s fall showed the fallacy of the old story once and for all.
In this light, the Candlelight Revolution that brought down Park’s government was a process of collective authorship over what Korea would look like in the coming years. The mismatch between the expectations set by the old narrative and realities on the ground, especially for the young people, had led to the Hell Joseon narrative that became popular right before Park’s fall.
But Hell Joseon was a cynical and loud observation of the hypocrisy of Korea’s dominant narrative that no longer existed. It couldn’t serve as a replacement overarching, constructive narrative that Koreans could use to make sense of their current experiences and plan for a better future.
But the Candlelight Revolution could have changed all that. And Seo could be the first witness to that change.
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006.