On September 21, 6,000 women sat cross-legged on the bare asphalt in Hyehwa, a major cultural center of Seoul, to speak out against yet another epidemic of digital sex crimes plaguing the country.
South Korean women have been reeling since local investigations uncovered in August that massive Telegram groups – some with over 220,000 people – were being used to create and distribute sexually explicit deepfakes. Everyday women found themselves the victim of a crime committed by their coworkers, friends, and family members.
A heavy mood hung over the protest. This kind of gathering had become all too routine in a country that has been unenviably labeled the “digital sex crime capital of the world.”
Just a few years back, in 2018, women had taken to the streets en masse to speak out against the rampant proliferation of illegal spy cams in women’s public restrooms. Two years later in 2020, the Nth Room scandal came to light, uncovering the exploitation of dozens of women and minors who were coerced into creating degrading content for Telegram chat rooms with some 260,000 members. This case is now explored in the Netflix documentary “Cyber Hell: Exposing an Internet Horror.”
Joint Action Against Misogynistic Violence, the organizers of the women’s protest on September 21, called out the misogyny in Korean culture that enables sex crimes and criticized the government for their inaction. “Six years ago, hundreds of thousands of women gathered here in Hyehwa to condemn illegal filming and digital sex crimes and called for reform, but the government has done nothing. The problems are escalating but our laws and systems have not changed, and if anything, are regressing.”
In response to mounting public pressure, lawmakers have passed legislation banning the possession and consumption of non-consensual sexual deepfakes, punishable by up to three years in prison or a fine of up to 30 million won (around $22,000). This new law takes a stronger stance against deepfakes than previous laws, which only punish based on the intent to distribute.
Despite this change, South Korea still lags far behind other developed nations when it comes to laws against sexual violence. Under current regulations, rape is a matter of physical violence rather than that of consent. The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family submitted a proposal in January 2023 to expand the legal definition of rape to “non-consensual sexual activity,” to meet the international standard set by the United Nations framework on sexual violence. It was quickly shot down by the administration.
Kwon Seong-dong, a member of parliament from the ruling conservative party, the People Power Party (PPP), claimed that such a revision would lead to an increase in false rape allegations. “This is exactly why [our] administration pledged to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family,” he said. “It is because the government, rather than mediating the conflict between genders, is instead contributing to its cause.”
Indeed, there is a deep divide between the genders in Korean society today.
Feminism hit the mainstream in South Korea with a murder. In 2016, a man waited in the shadows of a public bathroom in Gangnam Station, a heavily trafficked subway station in Seoul, and attacked the first woman to walk in alone. During the police investigation, the perpetrator plainly admitted to his motivations: “I did it because women have always ignored me.”
Fueled by the fury at the hate crime and emboldened by the global #MeToo Movement, South Korean women began speaking out in earnest against sexism and widespread issues like femicide, revenge porn, digital sex crimes, and dating violence. Cultural movements such as the “escape the corset” movement took root, where women cut their hair short and destroyed their makeup in a public show of rejection of the oppressive beauty standards demanded of women in Korean society – the very force that has made South Korea a world leader in grooming products and plastic surgery.
But as the momentum for feminism grew, so did the backlash. Korea’s staunchly patriarchal and hierarchical society was less than accommodating to ideas of gender equality. Feminism, and women more broadly, quickly became scapegoats for the existential threats facing the country, such as population collapse (South Korea has a birth rate of 0.68 — the lowest in the world). Worsening economic issues, including a lack of affordable housing and limited job opportunities, have further intensified this backlash. As women became more economically competitive, many men began to see women’s advancement as a direct threat to their financial security.
Anti-feminist groups such as “Ilbe” grew in prominence online, mainly consisting of men in their 20s and 30s who identify as victims of female power. Anti-feminists have fought feminism with fierce misogyny – making claims that all Korean women are self-centered gold-diggers – and an alarming level of militancy. They falsely equate feminism with misandry, claiming that women are demanding additional privileges when they already benefit from being exempt from military conscription.
Anti-feminist influencers such as YouTuber “PPKKa” went so far as to actively encourage his 1.17 million followers to harass feminists. His followers faithfully obeyed. In a tragic case in 2020, a popular female Twitch streamer BJ Jammi and her mother took their own lives within months of each other after enduring years of cyberbullying by anti-feminists.
The virulent hostility of South Korea’s anti-feminists has also bled into the offline world, where women are collectively punished for their perceived support for feminism. A female employee of a convenience store was attacked by a male customer because of her short hair. A voice actress was fired from her job after she posted a photo of herself on social media wearing a T-shirt that said “Girls do not need a prince.” During job interviews, women are reportedly screened for any feminist beliefs.
Echoing the words of Kwon Seong-dong, the conservative member of parliament who spoke about against the rape law revisions, his government has indeed exacerbated the gender conflict for political gain. To woo the growing demographic of angry young men, the PPP and President Yoon Suk-yeol campaigned for the presidency in 2022 with the message that feminism is to blame for the birth rate crisis. Yoon vowed to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family and establish a Committee on Population Crisis Response in its place.
As a result, the genders became even more divided along political lines, with women increasingly aligning with more progressive ideologies and men leaning toward the far right. According to Gallup data, nearly 50 percentage points separate progressive women from conservative men in South Korea – a trend seen globally, though less extreme in other countries.
South Korean feminists face a long and difficult fight ahead. Despite ongoing efforts, the country continues to rank low in global gender equality indexes and holds the widest gender wage gap in the OECD, at nearly 32 percent. Alongside weak protections for women in cases of sexual violence, many women feel frustrated by the entrenched misogyny in society and being reduced to baby-making machines. In response, some have turned to the growing “4B” movement, which advocates boycotting men entirely by rejecting all heterosexual relationships – dating, sex, marriage, and children – believing that true freedom can only be found in a life without men.
Joint Action Against Misogynistic Violence wrote in their statement preceding the deepfake protests: “Standing in solidarity with the women in the lead, we declare war against the misogynistic violence that has permeated throughout Korean society.”
In an address to the women gathered at the protest, Park Jin-sook of the Women’s Party cheered on the fight. “Don’t give up,” she said. “If we continue to come together, the day we thought would never come will surely arrive.”