Published on April 21, 2019.
This essay examines the deep-rooted discrimination against women in Korean society and the reality of sexual violence spreading across schools, homes, workplaces, and the entertainment industry.
Through the MAXIM KOREA cover controversy, the seriousness of domestic violence, the prevalence of sexual violence in schools, and the persistence of sexual entertaining in the entertainment world, it argues that Korea remains a profoundly male-dominated society.
The author questions whether the UN Human Rights Council should be directing its attention not at Japan but at Korea, and critically discusses how Korea’s structural distortions affect education, labor, and the dignity of women at every level.

2019-04-21
A South Korean member of the National Assembly analyzed and released materials on the “Current State of Sexual Violence Occurring in Schools” at elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide in 2013 and 2014, collected from the education offices of 17 cities and provinces.

The following essay…
is also one that proves with one hundred percent certainty the correctness of what I have been saying…
that Korea, of all countries, is such an extremely male-superior, female-inferior society…
that the UN Human Rights Council ought immediately to issue a human-rights recommendation against it…
and that the reverse side of this reality…
was the way Korean women professional golfers came to dominate the LPGA…
it became so extreme that now they are pouring into the Japanese tour…
as I have pointed out by way of analogy.
Twenty-three women in their twenties were victimized.
Why does “sexual entertaining” in the Korean entertainment industry never disappear?
JANG Hyuk, freelance writer.
The bold emphasis other than the title is mine.
In educational settings, the reality of in-school “sexual” violence has come to light, and in workplaces and the entertainment industry, “sexual entertaining” is an everyday occurrence……
The distortions of a major nation of discrimination against women are surfacing in every aspect of Korean society.
An incident that vividly demonstrated that Korea remains, as ever, a “male-superior, female-inferior” nation spread around the world.
What became the issue was the South Korean men’s magazine MAXIM KOREA.
The magazine is aimed at people in their twenties and thirties, and in addition to gravure photos of actresses and models, it carries information on fashion and romance, and enjoys popularity in Korea.
What developed into a scandal was the cover of the September issue.
Beside a man smoking a cigarette, one could see the legs of a barefoot woman, wrapped with tape, being shoved into the trunk of a car.
The cover headline said things such as, “Women like bad men, right? This is a truly bad man,” and because it evoked kidnapping, rape, and murder, a fierce backlash arose both inside and outside the country.
In addition to protests from domestic women’s organizations, an online signature campaign exceeded 100,000 names.
Western media also denounced it as “the worst cover idea in history.”
Taking the matter seriously, the magazine’s editors announced that they would recall and destroy the September issue, and that all profits from that issue would be returned to society.
This can truly be called an incident showing that contempt for women still remains deeply rooted in Korean society.
According to a report on the reality of domestic violence published by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, out of 2,659 respondents, 53.8 percent of married women had suffered violence from their spouses in 2010.
There are not a few cases in which domestic violence develops into criminal cases and results in prison sentences.
This September, when a wife who had long been suffering domestic violence from her husband demanded a divorce, the husband flew into a rage, assaulted her face and entire body, then wrapped her in tape and confined her.
Saying, “If you move, I’ll kill you,” he repeatedly beat her.
In the end, the husband was arrested by the police and received a prison sentence.
What is even more shocking is that such abuse of women is also seen in schools.
In September, a South Korean lawmaker analyzed and released materials on the “Current State of Sexual Violence Occurring in Schools” at elementary, middle, and high schools nationwide in 2013 and 2014, collected from the education offices of 17 cities and provinces.
According to the results, the total number of cases of in-school “sexual violence” occurring during those two years was 2,357, averaging 3.2 cases per day.
Of these, “touching the body” accounted for 1,182 cases, more than half.
“Verbal sexual harassment” accounted for 716 cases, about 30 percent, and “rape” for 459 cases, about 20 percent.
As for the actual number of victims, “students” accounted for 2,532 people, or 95 percent, overwhelmingly the majority, while “faculty and staff” accounted for 77 people, or 3 percent, and “outside persons” for 45 people, or 2 percent.
On the other hand, the perpetrators were most often “students,” at 2,020 people, or 85.7 percent, followed by “faculty and staff” at 179 people, or 7.6 percent.
Furthermore, in most cases, the relationship between perpetrator and victim was student to student, 1,995 cases, while there were 103 cases in which faculty or staff committed sexual violence against students.
The Ministry of Education had thus far failed to fully grasp the reality that “sexual violence” was spreading to younger age groups, and is now being pressed to adopt concrete countermeasures.
To be continued.