Welcome to Part 1 of our November 2024 Inspirational Interview with Hawon Jung of South Korea.
Hawon Jung is a journalist and author of Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’s Rights Worldwide. Her coverage of South Korea’s #MeToo movement for Agence France-Presse was shortlisted in the Awards for Editorial Excellence by the Society of Publishers in Asia, and her book was chosen as one of the best books of 2023 by The Economist magazine. Her writings and commentary on women’s rights issues have been featured in the New York Times, Al Jazeera, and BBC, among others.
Part two of Hawon’s interview will be published 4 November 2024.
All photos are courtesy of Hawon Jung.
1. What inspired you to begin reporting on South Korea’s feminist movement?
South Korea experienced a powerful wave of feminist movement through the mid- to late-2010s, during which many women, especially young women, campaigned together to pave the way for many social, cultural, and institutional changes in the country. They drove one of the world’s most vigorous cases of the #MeToo movement to bring down many powerful sexual abusers; successfully campaigned to end a decades-long ban on abortion; and organised massive grassroots-level campaigns to raise awareness about widespread technology-based sexual abuse and harassment like spycam porn aka “digital sex crimes” in South Korea. At one point, tens of thousands of young women took to the streets every month in the latter part of 2018 to call for tougher punishment against such crimes; it was the largest ever women-only protest recorded in the country.
As a Seoul correspondent for Agence France-Presse at that time, I had the privilege of witnessing and documenting these developments firsthand. The remarkable social, cultural and legal changes brought about by the movement compelled me to closely report on the movement then.
2. What are the particular challenges that journalists face when reporting about feminism and violence against women (VAW) in South Korea?
Despite all its economic, cultural and technological advances, South Korea remains a deeply conservative country regarding gender norms within the circle of advanced economies. Discrimination against women is widespread in many workplaces, contributing to the country’s persistently large gender pay gap – the largest among OECD member countries for three decades. Deep-seated gender stereotypes persist, dictating how women should look or behave in public. Those who openly challenge these norms are often labelled as “mentally-diseased” feminists and face the risk of social ostracism, harassment, or bullying. Women journalists are no exception – those consistently reporting on misogyny or VAW are often labelled as “femi” in online forums and spaces popular among men and face online bullying, harassment, doxxing, and other abuses.
Here is one recent example: South Korea was recently rocked by revelations of multiple Telegram chatrooms where participants created and shared AI-generated pornographic images of women they knew. As public anger grew, some abusers opened a new Telegram chatroom dedicated to creating deepfake porn imagery of female journalists who reported on this issue and threatened more if these journalists continued to report on the issue.
3.Your book Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’ s Rights Worldwide was listed as one of The Economist’s best books of 2023 and has been described as ‘a vital resource for K-media fans and feminists around the world’. Why did you decide to write the book and did you face any backlash when the book was published?
Global conversations about South Korea are often dominated by a few topics: geopolitics and North Korea, technology, or South Korean pop culture. But when I was extensively reporting on women’s rights issues for Agence France-Presse in the late 2010s, I often received messages from women around the world asking questions like: Why are so many women protesting against spycam porn? South Korea seems like a really advanced country–are things that bad for women there? Is there an English-language book I can read to get more context for the situation in South Korea?
Many of them were fans of South Korean TV dramas and pop culture, and their interest in South Korea extended beyond the pop culture products they were consuming, which are highly sugar-coated versions of the actual reality on the ground. Yet, there was no such English-language book written for a general audience outside Korea, so I decided to write one myself. I haven’t received much backlash in South Korea yet, perhaps because the book was written in English and not for Korean readers.
4.South Korea has one of the most oppressive patriarchies in the world with young men voting in the current misogynist president, 8 out of 10 Korean men admitting to abusive behaviour towards their wives and girlfriends, and a constant stream of high-profile cases of VAW, including the use of Telegram to distribute deepfake pornography and Taeil, a member of the popular K-Pop boy band NCT, fired from the band due to being investigated for sexual crimes. Korean women and feminists have fought back with a range of actions ranging from public protests to the 4B, ‘Escape the Corset’, and #NoMarriage movements. Given how severe and entrenched sexism, misogyny, and VAW are in South Korea, what do you think it would take for significant progress to be made for Korean women’s human rights and gender equality?
We need a holistic approach to address the deeply-entrenched patriarchal culture in the wider society — from companies that routinely discriminate against women employees and job seekers to the law enforcement officers who often turn a blind eye to violence against women.
Two key strategies I can think of are: 1) having more women in decision-making positions and 2) proper gender education at schools and workplaces. South Korea has a notoriously male-dominated workplace culture with women occupying a tiny fraction of managerial roles, if any, in both companies and government agencies like law enforcement authorities. Promoting more women to leadership roles can ultimately contribute to changing the overall social atmosphere of male domination and discrimination against women.
At the same time, it is critical to strengthen gender equality education, especially for children, to foster more equal relationships between men and women. This is particularly important in the current context, where antifeminism is gaining popularity among boys and young men in many parts of the world, including in South Korea.
