Healthy settling of the #MeToo

By Song Sang-yep

The impact of the #MeToo movement on Korean society has been enormous. Companies widely recognize sexual harassment as a crime. Supervising managers are reluctant to host a dinner with colleagues or subordinates in order to prevent any possibility of sexual harassment.

Touching is starting to be considered a form of sexual harassment. The perception that only women are victims has also changed as there have been publicized cases of harassment of male subordinates by female superiors.

It's a positive change. Yet at the same time, strong medicine can produce strong side effects. Recently, an elementary school vice-principal indicted for sexual harassment for holding a girl's hand and patting her shoulder during a counseling session was finally acquitted by the Supreme Court.

A high school teacher was also acquitted after being indicted for touching a female student's waist in front of several other students.

The common tenet that led the court to their acquittals was that an intention to molest the victim was not clearly proven as their actions were made in an open space ― the playground or school facilities ― in view of others. It is a ruling that shows although any behavior may offend a female student, it should be distinguished from a sexual offense. It's a really difficult job for law enforcement authorities to distinguish a sexual offense from an action that produces offense and discomfort. The victim's discomfort and sexual “shame” are complex emotions, and it must be a painstaking job for the judge to delineate between them.

The social eruption of the sexual harassment issue has shown that women and men can both fall victim. However, as some people abuse good medicine, exploiting the #Me Too movement is also a problem. Police now receive more accusations of sexual harassment from men who are now suing each other for sexual harassment even when the contact occurred during a physical altercation.

While these quarrels are punishable as assault, identifying this type of interaction as sexual harassment is an abuse of the #MeToo movement that adversely affects the true victims of sexual harassment and assault. Law enforcement agencies are struggling to distinguish between genuine and false cases of sexual harassment and this impedes the #MeToo movement's healthy establishment in Korean society.

It is also related to the “special nature” of Korean culture, which accepts certain kinds of close contact ― but not others. Even though Koreans know that it is not hygienic, it is still a common practice to share a dish among coworkers. Koreans time and time again attempt to explain this as “affection among colleagues” often waving the flag of the rarely well-defined concept of “jeong.”

People in their 50s and older may recollect that old men from their village often touched the genitals of young boys they didn't know on the street, telling them, “Oh, you are healthy boy, you will become a general.” If that were to happen today, they would be arrested for child sexual molestation. In other words, Korean society and its value systems are changing rapidly. An act permissible until yesterday may no longer be permissible today. Korean society is progressing positively.

To protect the true victims, Korean society must take good and detailed care of the #MeToo movement by deterring false claims of sexual harassment.

Sangyep Song is an attorney at law, licensed at the Korea and U.S. Illinois bars.