Korean Male Union & Sexual Harassment 남성연대와 성희롱

 The group Korean Male Union (Man of Korea) has been in the news frequently in the past few months and our regular contributer Jenderole has introduced some of there ideas here, here and here.

In my opinion, Man of Korea may have some important messages to share about fairness in censoring lyrics or content offensive toward men or boys, for example, after the movie "You are my Pet/너는 펫" or the song "Good Boy." They also may provide useful resources to men who suffer sexual harassment on their website.

남성연대가 페미니즘을 비판할때 남성화 이론을 선립하고 있다? 남성연대의 페미니즘 이해한 의식은 무엇인가? 남성연대의 구성원들이 페미니즘을 배우기 대신 압축적 근대성에 대해 생각하며 '세계 최저의 출산율, 최고의 이혼율, 가족의 해체, 한국남성의 가족 부양 경제생활비 부담률 세계 1위, 가족에 대한 한국 남성들의 의무와 책임은 다양화되가고 있으나 가정은 오히려 붕괴되고 있다고 말하고 있으며 이러한 원인'을 다르게 이해할 수 있다.

However, a casual browsing of their site shows a serious lack of understanding about violence against women in Korean society, or even about the purpose of Korean law. In the screen grab below, some members debate about the sexual harassment laws, and the online misogyny is apparent. This quote is representative of a subset of discussion on the site that not infrequently centers on the supposed oppression of men brought about by feminism, or that feminists are making "too big a deal" out of jokes and calling it sexual harassment, or that the sexual harassment law should just be scrapped: 

KoreaBang has also shown the comments made by netizens about the recent Man of Korea Twitter debate and a sexual harassment case reveals that the majority of the translated posts support the rights of the girl child to be free from molestation, but there are also the odd posts that encourage violent attitudes toward women and children. For example, one post reads:

junp****: "If you think she’s cute, just beat her up instead. Punch her in the face, in her ears, in her jaws. You’ll still be fined about 20 million won.. It’s better to get a crime record by hitting her instead of being accused of sexual harassment. And if someone asks you why you beat her up, then tell him you beat her cos she was too cute.. That’s still better than sexually harassing her…"

junp****: "차라리 귀여우면 주먹으로 귀빵망이 갈겨버리고 죽통 아작내 버려라.. 반쯤 죽여놔도 벌금 2천 안나온다.. 글 고 같은 전과라도 성범죄보단 폭행죄가 낫다.. 왜 때렸 나고 물으면 대답해라.. 아 존나 빡치게 귀여워서 그랬 다고.."

We can see there are some misunderstandings about the sexual harassment laws that are clouded by criticism of feminism or reinforced by causal dismissal of the rights of women or calls to violent abuse of women. Rather than mirror these attitudes by random netizens, the Man of Korea membership could take a different path and work toward achieving gender equality. 

Screengrab:

http://www.manofkorea.com/bbs/board.php?bo_table=mandf&wr_id=473