Korea's rape culture under attack
Hypocrisy! South Chungcheong Governor An Hee-jung faces accusations of raping his secretary repeatedly after promoting #MeToo movement to fight sexual predators. / Korea Times
By Oh Young-jin
Allegations of South Chungcheong Governor An Hee-jung repeatedly raping his secretary are culminating in the ongoing revolution that is changing Korean society fundamentally.
It may take time to determine whether An is guilty of rape or, by the current standards, had consensual sex. But even if it is proven in court to be the latter, it would still smack of rape.
The reason is that as with rape, the brutal and savage conquest by the powerful of the weak, consensual sex between An and his subordinate secretary could most likely be the result of a power imbalance.
A major attempt to rectify this imbalance as encapsulated by An’s case is what has been going for the last couple of months _ triggered by a female prosecutor’s whistle-blowing disclosure of a predatory sexual relationship domestically and the #MeToo movement after the Weinstein revelation in the United States.
Our supposed elders representing the cultural community, legal circles, religion and what not have been paraded with their naked contempt for women’s basic rights and pilloried for their predatory acts against juniors, students and what not. Now, our society is holding its breath in anxiety over where the next “bomb” will explode.
In that sense, it is another version of the candlelit protests _ a declaration of independence for human rights and self-determination, which toppled the previous corrupt power held by Park Geun-hye.
What we are up against is an even more virulent, corrupt order than Park’s, which has successfully defied any attempts at change perhaps for longer than any other _ the patriarchy.
This gender-stratified hierarchy has enslaved women to perpetual inferiority status since primitive times when raw power reigned. Now, these chains of slavery are loosened and could be eventually thrown off.
There should be no stopping this cascade of revelations until there are none left. Let there be no compromise.