[Column] Excessive Attacks on Ansan... Muddying the 'Gender Equality Olympics'

Female archery representative An San. [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyun-joo] The slander against An San, the two-time archery gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, has gone too far. Some male-dominated online communities are claiming that An San is a feminist and demanding that she return her gold medals. This baseless accusation quickly spread to other male-dominated communities without any self-regulation, leading to attacks on An San’s social media (SNS) accounts.

Their grounds for labeling An San as a feminist are absurd. They base it solely on the fact that An San sports a short haircut and attends a women’s university. This claim stems from the notion that short hair is exclusively male and that women’s universities are “breeding grounds for subversive ideas.” They have designated her as a target for harassment simply because her political views differ from theirs.

This logic is embarrassing for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which emphasized a “gender-equal Olympics” by having male and female athletes jointly carry the flag at the opening ceremony and achieving the highest-ever female participation rate. Even Park Se-ri, who gave hope to the entire nation during the despair of the IMF crisis, had a short haircut. However, such controversies did not arise at that time, making the current situation in 2021 clearly anachronistic.

Upon hearing the news, female fans responded by urging the Korea Archery Association to protect the athlete at the association level. They argued that not all women with short hair who attend women’s universities are feminists, and even if she were a feminist, that would not be grounds for stripping her of her Olympic gold medals.

“United by Emotion.” This is the official slogan of this Olympics. Those who want to put a sports hero on the chopping block of ideological scrutiny and believe they have the right to do so just because of her short hair cannot undermine the desire to “unite.” We hope that An San, who is about to compete in the women’s individual round of 64, will deliver “emotion” to the exhausted nation weary of baseless slander.