[In-Depth Review] Male-Centered Gender Order and Gender-Equal Society

Men often have experiences like this. When meeting young children in the neighborhood where I used to live, I used to give them sweet treats I kept in my bag. I did it because I liked the children and enjoyed exchanging greetings with neighbors. But I stopped after the so-called ‘Jo Doo-soon incident.’ It wasn’t a problem with neighbors I was close to, but parents I met for the first time, especially mothers of girls, showed uncomfortable reactions. It felt like they were equating Jo Doo-soon and me, which made me very upset. Once, I barely caught an elevator in an apartment building late at night, and a woman who was alone inside screamed in terror.

Why do I have these experiences just because I am a man? How can I personally prove that I am not that kind of person? Or am I that kind of person too? It’s confusing. At the root of this confusion is the male-centered ‘gender order.’ Although terms like male actor, male doctor, male professor, male prosecutor sound awkward, female actor, female doctor, female professor, female prosecutor sound natural. This is because men are the standard, and women come next. In relationships between men and women, there were pranks played on women based on the male perspective, but now these actions are all called sexual violence.

Korean society is experiencing a time when the boundaries between pranks, sexual harassment, and sexual violence are rapidly changing. It is a period of confusion that cannot be resolved by legal provisions alone. Legally, these are sexual harassment and sexual violence, but for many people regardless of gender, they are still considered pranks and expressions of masculinity. Laws change quickly, but our values and norms change slowly. The gender order that centers men does not change that fast. A stone thrown as a prank can kill a frog in a pond. From a male perspective, it may be a joke or an expression of love, but from a female perspective, it can be a matter of survival.

Asian Americans are assaulted on the street just because of their appearance. This is due to historically deep-rooted structures of racial discrimination. On a dark street in the U.S., a white person appearing in front of me is a potential attacker. There are news articles worrying that actress Youn Yuh-jung has to go out on American streets with a bodyguard. Let’s turn our attention to our society with the same concern. There is a gender order where women can be sexually harassed or assaulted just because they are women. Women appear as potential victims. As a man, I am a potential perpetrator to that woman. Therefore, I must act in a way that does not cause misunderstanding that I am such a person in specific situations. Above all, we must create a gender-equal society where the gender order dividing men and women into perpetrators and victims disappears.

This is not a matter of just pointing fingers at each other. A process of understanding and persuasion is necessary. The gender violence cases and structures that make a woman see me as a sexual violence perpetrator just because I hurriedly got on an elevator must disappear. However, since things seem to be getting a bit noisy, the Minister of Gender Equality and Family had the related educational videos taken down. The biggest reason for the existence of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is to protect and support people and organizations that try to maintain a gender equality perspective even in difficult situations. The minister publicly postponed that role. Was there some deep meaning behind this? In any case, it is regrettable.

Jaehoon Jeong, Professor, Department of Social Welfare, Seoul Women’s University