'Gender-based online harassment's link to violence needs to be exposed'

This CCTV footage shows a man in his 20s attacking a female part-timer after midnight at a convenience store in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, Nov. 4. Police said the assailant assaulted the victim because she had a short hair and he assumed she was a feminist. Yonhap

A Yongin-based middle school student surnamed Lee saw her friend with short hair getting harassed by a group of male teenagers on a bus a few weeks ago.

“We were sitting on the bus on our way home. They approached her, giggling and said, ‘Are you a feminist?’ She then moved to the door to get some distance from them but they followed her, and tapped her on the hands as if they were forcing her to let go of the bus grab handles she was holding,” Lee said.

Lee and her friend found the situation intimidating, but nobody around them said anything or tried to intervene. Lee said she heard the boys using terms she could not understand, which she assumes are widely used in male-dominated online communities.

A Seoul-based middle school teacher surnamed Kim said she spotted some boys associating short-haired women with feminism at school last month. When she asked them where they learned such ideas, they simply replied, “the internet,” and asked whether she was also a feminist.

“I was baffled … Not all boy students are like that. But I can sense there certainly is a widespread antagonism towards the word ‘feminism’ among the young male generation,” Kim said, adding that she often feels hesitant to bring up topics of gender equality and feminism in class for that reason.

The cases of Lee and Kim bear similarity with the recent late-night assault by a man in his 20s against a short-haired woman working at a convenience store. The attacker identified himself as a member of Man on Solidarity and assaulted the victim on the assumption that her short hair meant she was a feminist, who he believed “deserves to be assaulted.”

Man on Solidarity is a far-right men's rights activist organization that is anti-feminist and pro-Yoon Suk Yeol. The group’s YouTube channel garnered over 150,000 subscribers within two months since launching in June 2021 and has over 584,000 followers as of Tuesday.

A flag with the logo of a Korean anti-feminist group Man on Solidarity / Captured from Man on Solidarity's Facebook

Members and supporters of the Man on Solidarity hold rallies against the anti-discrimination bill and call for the abolition of gender ministry in central Seoul, July 16, 2022. Captured from Man on Solidarity’s Facebook

Led by Bae In-gyu, also known among his followers as “Wangja,” which means “prince” in Korean, the group gained international media attention for actively waging anti-feminist rallies next to female activists a few years ago. They call for the abolition of the gender ministry and argue that feminism threatens men’s rights in violent and hateful ways and encourages misandry, or hatred of men.

In recent years, their activities have grown online. The group uploads videos regularly defaming victims of the notorious Nth Room online sex blackmail ring, the bereaved families of the Sewol ferry disaster and reporters criticizing their activities, while instigating its followers to upload malicious comments on news articles about gender issues through anonymous online chat rooms.

Kim Soo-ah, a professor of communications at Seoul National University and an expert in online misogyny, told The Korea Times in a written interview, Tuesday, that the assault was a hate crime as the assailant confessed that the criminal act was motivated by the victim’s gender and identity.

“Although not all online users learn wrong convictions and become criminals, in several cases, those who had been exposed to biased information online have manifested their sense of belonging to the online communities and their online-instilled convictions as motivations for their criminal acts,” Kim said, drawing a connection between online harassment to violence in real life.

In a recent interview with The Korea Times, Jung Ha-won, a former AFP correspondent who chronicled Korea’s #MeToo movement and authored the book, “Flowers of Fire,” agreed with Kim's view. Jung raised the possibility of such online hate speech against women leading to physical violence and called for studies to investigate the link between the two.

Jung Ha-won, author of "Flowers of Fire" and former AFP correspondent, speaks during an interview with The Korea Times at the paper's headquarters in Seoul, Aug. 22. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk

“In the United States, there is government-led research on how online misogyny and expressions of hate and abuse can lead to actual violence,” she said during the interview.

In June 16, 2022, the White House launched a task force to address online harassment and abuse to “produce recommendations for the Federal government, state governments, technology platforms, schools, and other public and private entities to prevent and address technology-facilitated gender-based violence, including a focus on the nexus between online misogyny and radicalization to violence.”

The task force connected recent mass shootings with online harassment, hate, misogyny and extremist acts. The U.S. Secret Service's annual report on "Mass Attacks in Public Spaces" notes that "special focus should be given to assessing threats and preventing violence related to 'men who use digital platforms to voice misogynistic views and general animosity toward women.'"

Jointly with the offices of education and the National Institute of Health, the task force is paving the way to prevent online harassment and hate speech from fueling actual violence and disconnecting the link between the two, she said.

Considering the growing online harassment and a recent series of assaults targeting women, Jung believes Korea needs a similar initiative.

“It is yet unknown how such online harassment and hatred against women leads to assaults in real life in Korea. Although the male-dominated online communities here are not exactly like the 'manosphere' and incel community of the U.S., they share certain similarities,” Jung said.

“Considering the chain of events that happened in Korea, I believe we need to take into account the research done in the U.S.”

Also, Korea needs an anti-discrimination law to serve as a legal basis to stipulate such assault as a hate crime, prevent its recurrence and regulate future online harassment targeting minorities, Kim said.