"'Must There Be a 'Female' Buddha to Guarantee Rights?'
'Institutional Dichotomy Distinguishing Men and Women Cannot Bring Happiness to Both'"
Seo Hye-jin, attorney for the late Park Won-soon's sexual violence case victim (third from the left), is speaking at a press conference titled "Speaking Together with the Victim of the Seoul Mayor's Power Sexual Violence Case" held on the morning of March 17, 2021, at a hotel in Myeongdong, Jung-gu, Seoul. Photo by Joint Press Corps
[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Kang Wooseok] Kim Jandi (pseudonym), the victim of the late former Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon's sexual violence case, expressed support for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's campaign pledge to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.
In an article contributed to JoongAng Ilbo on the 15th, Kim wrote, "There is a lot of noise right now about whether to keep or abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Rather than the superficial issue of whether to eliminate it or not, I want to ask a more fundamental question. Is it really necessary to have a government organization named 'Women' in order to guarantee rights, implying that only formal gender equality is needed?" She added, "If someone asked me, I would answer that I want practical gender equality that directly touches people's lives rather than this."
She continued, "I hope that the absurd incidents that occurred during the last five years under the Democratic Party government, when the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family firmly existed, will never be repeated," and criticized, "As everyone remembers, the Democratic Party did not even call the victims of repeated power-based sexual crimes by its own party's power figures victims."
Kim said, "The public's anger at witnessing such absurd situations has risen, and the opposition party reflected this by pledging to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family during this presidential election," adding, "Despite the clear mistakes made over the past five years, they did not even try to correct them properly. Only after the abolition pledge came out did those inside and outside the Ministry, as well as women's groups, get agitated, calling it 'dividing women and men and hateful agitation,' and quite a few women in their 20s and 30s sympathized with this."
On the morning of July 27, 2020, in front of Seoul City Hall, members of the Education Reform Movement Headquarters and the Barun Human Rights Women's Association held placards with related messages at the press conference titled "Opposition to the Installation of the Park Won-soon Archive (Records Repository) and Request for Investigation of Those Involved in Concealing Sexual Harassment." [Image source=Yonhap News]
She said, "However, regardless of whether the pledge to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is fulfilled, I hope that just making the pledge itself becomes a significant turning point that directly changes the lives of the people," and added, "Unlike the previous Democratic Party government, the next administration should implement institutional improvements to prevent secondary damage. In particular, secondary harm caused by people with higher social status should be subject to stricter standards. It is overwhelming for victims to bear this exhausting and seemingly endless struggle alone."
She went on, "The Korean Institute for Gender Equality Promotion and Education under the Moon Jae-in government caused controversy by distributing an educational video titled 'Civic Duty of Potential Perpetrators,' which defined all men as potential sexual violence perpetrators. The new government should recognize that 'hierarchy' and 'ambiguous distinctions between public and private' can create potential perpetrators, and create related policies instead of fostering gender conflicts in this way," she wrote.
Kim emphasized, "Our society is a tilted playing field for women," but added, "It is not desirable to create rules that favor only one side just because the field is tilted. What women need is to pour concrete on that tilted ground and level the playing field itself."
She continued, "Institutional dichotomies that distinguish between men and women cannot lead to happiness for both. I want to view the numbers 48.5 and 47.8 from the last presidential election not as 'a terrible division in our society' but as 'a primer for moving toward a society of mutual respect and understanding,'" and said, "Rather than distinguishing between men and women, I hope the new government actively communicates with the public to solve problems faced at different life stages. I look forward to the day of freedom, equality, fairness, and common sense."
In her article, Kim also quoted a line from the movie about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second female U.S. Supreme Court Justice who fought against discrimination. In the film On the Basis of Sex, Ginsburg commented on a tax court ruling that denied caregiving tax deductions to a single man supporting his elderly mother, based on a tax law that designated women as family caregivers: "I'm not asking to change this country. Change has already begun without any court's permission. I'm asking to protect this country's right to change... Such laws do not help women; they cage them."
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