South Korea’s “Feminism” Problem: An Analysis of the Megalian Radical Feminist Movement

In South Korea, “feminism” is a dirty word. In a country that prides itself on its rapid development and modernization, South Korea ranks low in a number of gender equality indicators among OECD countries (OECD, 2017), and 55% of young Korean men consider themselves to be “anti-feminist” (Sukuzi, 2019). This paper focuses on Megalia, an online radical feminist community that captured the nation’s attention in 2015 until it was shut down in 2018. Importantly, though some Megalians consider themselves feminists, most scholars and observers agree that their movement embodied misandry more than feminism (W. Lee, 2019).The movement was loose in structure and largely informal, but it mainly sought to change cultural ideas around misogyny and to push policies that addressed digital sex crimes. They found some success legally, but were ineffective and arguably counterproductive in shifting cultural norms. Megalia’s radical nature made feminism look less like equality and more like a power invasion, highlighting the burdens a too-radical movement places on reformists who attempt to come after it.

Megalia’s Catalyst: Misogyny in South Korea

As Korea has economically developed, its social structures have shifted as well. In older generations, women were seen as weaker and were limited to caretaking roles, yet respected for making significant sacrifices (Tribune Media, 2019). Today, as more women hold college degrees and enter the workforce, young men see women as their competitors. Limited by an over-competitive job market and high youth unemployment, some men believe that society gives women an advantage. They cite the #MeToo movement, increasing numbers of companies introducing gender quotas, pressure to financially support a family, and 2 years of mandatory military service for men as unfairly limiting the opportunities for men (Tribune Media, 2019). Fears of an uncertain future compel young men to look for something, or someone, to blame (Koo, 2021).

Meanwhile, Korea is one of the world’s most connected societies — 97% of Koreans have high speed access to the internet (Ji-young, 2018) — and dense networks of Internet communities spread increasingly extreme ideas about women. Particularly on Ilbe, a right-wing online forum, distinct and derogatory vocabulary emerged to describe women and their relationship to men. Women were “kimchi girls” (a stereotype of a brands-obsessed Korean girl) who “dominated” men, and men must “regulate the price of a vagina” (W. Lee, 2019). This sexualized, degraded, and commodified women.

Inevitably, the misogyny bred in cyberspace did not remain there. With the normalization of online hate speech came a lack of rigor in addressing increasingly prevalent digital sex crimes (Y. Lee, 2016). These included hidden cameras in public bathrooms, photos taken under skirts on public transportation or through a woman’s window, and even more extreme cases like a page called “My Girlfriend,” where men invited others to rape their drunk, passed out girlfriends (and sometimes livestream the process) (Kwon et al., 2018). In 2015, a woman found a case like this in progress online, publicized it, and begged others to alert the police. Despite hundreds of calls, the police denied their ability to stop or investigate the crime (W. Lee, 2019).

In 2016, a woman was killed in a public bathroom at Gangnam Station. The perpetrator, who waited in the bathroom until any woman walked in, admitted he was motivated by his hatred for women. Tension in Korea had reached a boiling point and political conflict erupted: one side argued he was simply mentally ill while others cited larger trends of gender violence (Park, 2016).

Megalia was born from this environment. Misogyny, or the hatred of women, differed from the visible sexism of the past. While sexism enforced gender hierarchy, it was not one necessarily defined by hate. Blatant, radical misogyny inevitably encouraged a radical response.

Analyzing Megalia as a Social Movement

In 2015, a series of seemingly small, unrelated events in a set of online forums led to a group of women taking over an intensifying discourse around gender. The first instances of ‘mirroring’ began here, where women reversed popular online misogynistic terms to instead target men. These cases were closely regulated, however. Within 10 days, “Kimchi boy” was banned while “Kimchi girl” had been ignored for years. Soon, the women moved off to create their own forum, Megalian.com, and mirroring became their brand (W. Lee, 2019).

Megalia was not initially meant to be a social movement, but it eventually became a significant political actor. Though unconventional, we can still break down its evolution using the framework presented in Stekelenburg, et. al (2013).

The anonymous group of women who created the website and established its base repertoire of ‘mirroring’ can be considered a basic action group. Gaining attention due to the outrage each mirrored comment sparked, word of radical feminists spread throughout internet communities. Considering how online Koreans are, this meant Megalia had a huge social releis, or recruiting space, with already robust networks.

Beyond causing controversy, Megalia’s initial operations revolved around exposing the vast scale of digital sex crimes in Korean cyberspace. They were shocked to find thousands of photos of women who never knew they were victims. The nature of these crimes meant that any Korean woman could’ve already been victimized or could very easily be next. Motivated by a shared identity of victimhood and the potential power to fight back, thousands anonymously joined the community (W. Lee, 2019).

As numbers increased, Megalians organized more formal operations that moved offline. They installed public advertisments, fundraised for feminist political candidates, filed petitions and civic complaints, organized protests and boycotts, and established NGOs that investigated and raised awareness of digital sex crimes (W. Lee, 2019). At this point Megalians could be considered part of a “movement organization,” a more formal group with common social goals and established rules and culture.

Success and Failures

Perhaps their most significant success came in 2018 after a woman was quickly arrested for posting a man’s nude photos without his consent (an extreme case of mirroring). Mass public outcry and swift state action contrasted with their silence when the same crime happened to women. This sparked mass protests, organized by anonymous Megalians, that called on the government to punish digital sex crimes and carried the slogan #MyBodyIsNotYourPorn. An online petition calling for policy changes received over 400,000 signatures, and government officials responded with a series of laws, including banning hidden cameras (Y. Lee, 2016).

Megalia was potentially more successful on the front of digital sex crimes since it is an issue easy to condemn, even for more conservative audiences. Massive cultural change, however, is much more difficult.

Mirroring was ineffective for cultural change because it reinforced existing harmful ideas about feminism. Shown in Figure 1, structural forces and the misogynist narratives that sought to explain them painted feminism as a threat, and mirroring, regardless of its intention, only provided further proof and possibly strengthened these narratives. Naturally, the misogyny continued, prompting more pushback from Megalians. Additionally, for men and women outside any extremist forums, these aggressive tactics were their most significant exposure to modern feminism. This meant they too began to conceptualize feminism as aggressive and threatening. Neutral audiences naturally aren’t comfortable with radical messaging, so Megalians found little support. Despite some formal elements and some successes, Megalia was rarely seen as more than a group of angry women online who want to tear down men (Koo, 2021) (Min, 2021).

Figure 1. Structural and ideological factors bred a culture of misogyny which labeled feminism as a threat. Mirroring, despite its intention, only furthered this narrative as it offered “proof” that women did want to take power away from men.

What will become of feminism in Korea?

Megalian.com was shut down in 2018 due to pornographic content on the website. Before this, it had begun to splinter after disagreements around whether some particularly offensive terms were acceptable to use. Since then, some of its associated NGOs have continued operating, and a recent scandal has exposed a new network of digital sex crimes, raising more awareness (W. Lee, 2019). But generally, Koreans have grown tired of having the ‘feminism’ conversation. For now, the future is unclear, and to some it’s hopeless (Koo, 2021) (Min, 2021).

Most obviously, the cultural shock of radical tactics has given feminism an image problem. Potentially, what needs to change is what a Korean women’s movement looks like completely. Using Tilly’s (2006) framework for social movements winning over public support, feminists most urgently need to prove their “worthiness.” This means emphasizing sober, respectable demeanors, perhaps through a more clearly formal organizational structure with likeable leaders that advocates for specific, reformist policy changes. Appealing to a wider audience will legitimize the movement and give it more leverage to actually influence culture and/or policy.

However, even the most moderate movement will struggle. Their goals might be automatically assumed to be radical simply because of what the Korean public associates with feminism. Additionally, the core structural issues that lead to social tensions in the first place, youth unemployment and mandatory military service for men, are extremely difficult to fix.

Potential Directions to Scale

In deciding how to grow, a social movement can choose to scale wide (increasing numbers by expanding to new groups), deep (challenging core cultural ideas), and up (using litigation strategies to change policies and institutions). Considering the general aversion that young people currently have towards the topic and the fact that Megalia’s few successes mainly involved policy, scaling up seems the most promising immediate step. Of course, changing laws won’t be enough (or may not be possible) without significant cultural shifts, but developing a strong litigation strategy while giving the public time to leave the “gender war” further in the past could be useful.

When pursuing a legal strategy, Roa & Klugman (2014) argue that four conditions are required for it to be effective:

1. An independent judiciary: Korea’s constitution establishes this, and the court has generally functioned with minimal interference (The National Law Review, 2021).
2. An existing “rights” framework: Korea’s constitution includes clauses about equal opportunity, personal liberty, human dignity and rights, and outlaws discrimination based on sex (The Constitution of the Republic of Korea, 1948).
3. An organization that has the ability to frame sexism and misogyny as violations of these rights, as well as the resources to litigate: This is where a reborn feminist movement would need to build a strong strategy and recruit skilled lawyers. This is no small feat, as litigation strategies can be tedious and expensive.
4. A network that can support the organization: Though current feminist are relativey small, a significant source of support and strategy could be Joint Action for Reproductive Justice, a coalition of feminist groups, youth advocates, doctor’s groups, and religious groups which organized a realtively successful legal strategy to rule Korea’s abortion ban unconstitutional in 2019 (Kim et al., 2019). Additionally, a feminist movement could find political support from the recently established Women’s Party and its donors, though the party failed to win any parliament seats in the recent election (S. Lee, 2020). Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, has declared himself a “feminist” president (Soo-jin, 2017), but his approval rating and party have been struggling with popularity and may not be willing to support a potentially controversial cause (J. Lee, 2021).

Overall, a women’s movement with a focus similar to Megalia has potential to pursue a legal strategy in Korea, but would need to ensure it has sufficient resources for potentially lengthy battles.

Further Research Directions

When something has already worked for a social movement, replication is beneficial. Further research may look to cases like the US, where activists turned “feminism” from taboo to relatively politically acceptable (though contextual factors that differentiate the US from Korea are crucial). For a more local example, the abortion rights movement and Joint Action for Repoductive Justice found some success in post-Megalia Korea, and their legal strategy effectively used “rights talk” specific to Korea that a new movement may want to emulate (Kim et al., 2019).

References

Ji-young, S. (2018, June 24). Korea №1 worldwide in smartphone ownership, internet penetration. The Korea Herald. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180624000197

Kim, S., Young, N., & Lee, Y. (2019). The role of reproductive justice movements in challenging south korea’s abortion ban. Health and Human Rights, 21(2), 97–107.

Koo, A. (2021, April 4). Perspective on Megalian Movement and Korean Feminism [Interview] [Zoom].

Kwon, J., Jeong, S., & Hancocks, P. (2018, September 7). Seoul to inspect thousands of toilets for spy cams, but women say not enough being done. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/06/asia/south-korea-spy-cams-toilet-intl/index.html

Lee, J. (2021, February 9). Moon strives to win back public support in polls. The Korea Herald. http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20210209000867

Lee, S. (2020, April 24). South Korean feminist party plans school to train “winning” candidates. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-women-politics-trfn-idUSKCN22614D

Lee, W. (2019). Responding to Misogyny, Reciprocating Hate Speech — South Korea’s Online Feminism Movement: Megalia. https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37366046

Lee, Y. (2016, August 6). Megalia: South korea’s radical feminist community | 10 magazine korea. https://10mag.com/megalia-south-koreas-radical-feminism-community/

Min, S. (2021, April 15). Perspective on Megalian Movement and Korean Feminism [Interview] [Personal communication].

Park, S. (2016, May 20). Gangnam murderer says he killed “because women have always ignored me.” http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/744756.html

Roa, M., & Klugman, B. (2014). Considering strategic litigation as an advocacy tool: A case study of the defence of reproductive rights in Colombia. Reproductive Health Matters, 22(44), 31–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0968-8080(14)44804-3

Soo-jin, P. (2017, February 16). Moon Jae-in announced the promise of gender equality, saying, “I will become a feminist president.” Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.kr/entry/story_kr_14788070

South korea: Legal news, regulation & court cases. (2021). The National Law Review. https://www.natlawreview.com/jurisdiction/all-international/south-korea

South Korea’s young men are fighting against feminism. (2019, September). Wqad.Com; Tribune Media. https://www.wqad.com/article/news/local/drone/8-in-the-air/south-koreas-young-men-are-fighting-against-feminism/526-7c557ec6-e68d-425d-9ab9-ddfaa4327c5f

Stekelenburg, J. van, Roggeband, C., & Klandermans, B. (Eds.). (2013). The future of social movement research: Dynamics, mechanisms, and processes. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816686513.001.0001

Sukuzi, S. (2019, February 4). As #MeToo reaches South Korea, pressured young men turn on Moon. Nikkei Asia. https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/As-MeToo-reaches-South-Korea-pressured-young-men-turn-on-Moon

The Constitution of the Republic Of Korea (1948). Retrieved from: https://www.wipo.int/edocs/lexdocs/laws/en/kr/kr061en.pdf

The Pursuit of Gender Equality: An Uphill Battle. (2017). OECD. https://www.oecd.org/korea/Gender2017-KOR-en.pdf

Tilly, C. (2006). Regimes and repertoires. University of Chicago Press.