The 2025 Movement for System Change Forum “Toward a Victorious Public Square”
By Park Ju-yeon
Published Feb. 12, 2025
Translate by Marilyn Hook
“A feminist becomes president, a sexual minority
becomes prime minister, a female victim of sexual assault becomes the chief of
the police, a person who’s been stuck in part-time work becomes the Minister of
Labor, a bereaved relative of an accident victim becomes the Minister of Public
Administration and Security, a member of the Korean Coalition for the
Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities becomes the
Minister of Welfare, a member of the Korean Peasant’s League [a farmers’
association] becomes the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, and
someone who has fought for a world without war becomes the Minister of Peace.
Isn’t that democracy and true representative politics?”
This is what Kim Jin-sook, a member of the steering committee of the Busan chapter of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, said when she took the stage at the 5th Citizens’ March hosted by the “Emergency Action for Yoon Suk Yeol’s Immediate Resignation and Social Reform” held in the Dongsipjagak area near Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace on January 4.
In the huge citizens’ march rallies that
continue to take place every weekend, many people who stand up to speak reveal
that they are feminists and talk about a gender-equal society. This happened at
the rallies in Yeouido, Namtaeryeong, and Hangangjin. (See the
[Korean-language] article “After the ‘Battle of Namtaeryeong’, a world that women and
minorities will open up”) Feminism has become an
inseparable part of the public square.
The
8th Citizens' March hosted by the “Emergency Action for Yoon Suk Yeol’s
Immediate Resignation and Social Reform” in the Gwanghwamun area on January 25,
2025. The sign reads “Yoon Suk Yeol Immediate Resignation.” ©Ilda
The organizing committee of the Movement for
System Change held a forum entitled “Towards a Victorious Public Square” on
February 7, and chose “The Public Square and Feminism” as the theme of its
first half. This is the second forum held
by this group of around 70 civil society organizations and 150
activists; the first, “Let’s Organize Our Alternative,” was held last year.
Why did
feminists immediately join Yoon Suk Yeol impeachment rallies?
The opening speech of the forum’s first half was
given by Oh Mae, the director of the Korea Sexual Violence Counseling Center,
who recalled rushing to the National Assembly building on the night of December
3rd last year. “We had to stop martial law from taking away our daily lives and
paralyzing the National Assembly,” she said. “It was a time when we had to
force President Yoon Suk Yeol out without any hesitation,” and “I ran to the
scene as a feminist activist.”
What has the Yoon Suk Yeol administration been
like for feminists? Yoon “was elected by turning anti-feminism into a force by
[taking positions like] ‘abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family,’
‘strengthen the punishment for false accusations of sexual violence,’ and
‘there is no structural gender discrimination,’” and his government was
extremely harsh on women and minorities in various positions. Ms. Oh emphasized
that it was natural for feminists to rush to the public square, saying, “Wasn’t
it feminist citizens who had been wishing for Yoon Suk Yeol’s resignation the
earliest?”
“The 12/3 insurrection most directly,
fundamentally, and irrationally invaded our daily lives. Who will fight most
directly, fundamentally, and rationally against this completely unacceptable
act? It is not the political forces behind the twin special prosecutions, that
make political compromises with [Yoon’s] People Power Party[1]. It
is the citizens with the least capital and resources who have a hard time
living a single day in the anti-democratic, anti-human rights, anti-equality,
and anti-labor world that Yoon Suk Yeol has attempted [to create]. Citizens who
are literally the bastion of democracy. Women, feminists, and minority citizens
who were laid low with the exhaustion of ‘feminist burnout’ after the 2020
presidential election poured into the square.”
The
2025 Movement for System Change Forum “Towards a Victorious Public Square,”
held at the Gangbuk Workers’ Welfare Center in Seodaemun-gu, Seoul on Feb. 7.
©Ilda
On December 4, as the movement to oust Yoon Suk
Yeol gained momentum, the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center joined with
women’s movement organizations to form the ‘Feminist-Queer-Network for
Democracy.’ The network currently includes New Ground, Anti-Prostitution Human
Rights Action E-Loom, Spark Feminist Action, SHARE Center for Sexual Rights and
Reproductive Justice, Unnie Network, Women with Disabilities Empathy,
Femidangdang, Platform C, the Korea Cyber Sexual
Violence Response Center, the Korea Sexual Violence Relief Center, the Korea
Women’s
Hotline, the Feminist Designer Social Club, and FFF.
On December 7, 2024, feminist activists, under
the name of “Feminists Gathered in the Square to Save Democracy,” raised issues
with Candlelight Action [a major civic group in the movement to oust President
Yoon] because it is led by Kim Min-woong. Mr. Kim is a representative figure of
sexual violence denialism, who attempted to discredit victims of former Seoul
Mayor Park Won-soon’s sexual harassment [and leaked one of their names]. The
activists released a statement saying, “Unrepentant perpetrators of secondary sexual
violence, get off the stage of the democratic public square!”
After that, Ms. Oh said, “the citizens’ march rallies hosted by Emergency Action for Yoon Suk Yeol’s Immediate Resignation and Social Reform began on December 7, and the ‘Equality Rules’ were recited.” From then on, “speakers began to give solidarity greetings for women, sexual minorities, irregular workers, farmers, the disabled, youth, and immigrants.” Ms. Oh explained, “The speakers in the public square now know that introducing their gender identity and social position is a ‘national rule.’ They introduce themselves [with a marginalized identity] or extend greetings of solidarity.” She said this is “not about emphasizing or displaying their own minority status, nor is it just about listing or ‘taking care of’ social minorities,” and analyzed it as follows:
“These introductions and greetings seem to come
from the feminist ethics-culture of reflecting on one’s social position,
gauging the position of others and one’s own relationship, and reaching a
recognition of one’s role from that. At the same time, it can also be seen as
coming from queer culture, where you introduce your sexual identity and that
guides how you should be perceived. Also, some citizens share ‘nerd culture’ [deokhu
munhwa] by saying things like, ‘Let me share a line from my favorite
musical.’ In summary, citizens come to the democratic public square having
reached an understanding of who they are and what they like, and they are
waiting in line to speak about why they want to create a better world.”
Ms. Oh said, “Some people on social media snipe
that ‘queers are taking over women’s issues,’ but there’s no line drawn between
feminists and queer people in the public square, and there’s no hierarchy
between women’s issues and other social movement agendas.” She added, “The practicing
of intersectional feminism in public squares and online right now is likely due
to the hard work of online feminists who have been introducing minority agendas
online, creating spaces for conversation, and responding in specific contexts
[to different issues, from a feminist perspective].”
Banners
hung at the site of the 2025 Movement for System Change Forum “Toward a
Victorious Public Square”. The left one reads, “Let’s turn the anger and
frustration gathered in the public square / into a struggle for world-changing
system transformation,” and the right one reads, “Inequality is a disaster /
not the climate,” and, “Let’s change the world / that discriminates even in
death / profits from war / promotes gender-based violence.” ©Ilda
What to
do about far-right-influenced masculinity
In addition to discussing these changes in the public square and the
various civic entities that are becoming visible in it, forum participants also
raised concerns about masculinity, which seems to be becoming more aggressive
and violent recently.
Ms. Oh emphasized that anti-feminism should be
viewed as a “right-wing mechanism that sacrifices social minorities,” and not “the
gender division between twentysomething men and twentysomething women.” She
said the latter analysis “only recognizes a ‘pie fight’ worldview [that
different groups should fight for their piece of a limited ‘pie’ of
resources/power/etc.] rather than a political and economic perspective,” and
urged, “We must break away from the heterosexual, dichotomous, and pie-based
discourse that in its analysis of twentysomething men always contrasts them
with twentysomething women.” She continued, “We must destroy the worldview that
holds that there are two groups in the world, men and women, and that when
women grow, men will attack them, or that when women grow, men will shrink.”
Kim Chan, an activist from the Busan branch of
the youth human rights activist group Asuna, said, “I really hate the talk that
out-of-control masculinity suddenly appeared out of nowhere,” because it erases
the fact that “it was there from the beginning.” Mr. Kim pointed out, “For
those who have been pushed to the margins, (the threat from this masculinity)
already existed, but people are describing it as if it suddenly rose up with
the 12/3 insurrection.”
The public became interested in masculinity when
it was revealed that the majority of participants in the riot incident at the Seoul Western
District Court were men in their teens and
twenties. In addition, suggestions of methods for cutting off the relationship
between far-right YouTubers and young men are also emerging. Mr. Kim
criticized, “These methods include increasing the share of progressive
YouTubers, strengthening literacy education on algorithm-based media content,
controlling online communities with strong tendencies toward in-groupism, and argumentation
[nonsul] education geared toward discussion and communication [as
opposed to exam essays], but as someone who has been involved in the youth
movement for a while, I can say that these would be completely ineffective.”
2025
Movement for System Change Forum “Toward a Victorious Public Square” attendees
packed the auditorium of the Gangbuk Workers’ Welfare Center. (c) Ilda
Mr. Kim emphasized that what our society should
focus on and look into is “the school-military-workplace life course that is
where masculinity is acquired and that enables right-wing extremism.” However,
he criticized that the so-called pro-democratic political forces are “avoiding
that analysis […] because just like the extreme right, they have also postponed
and denied many things like political correctness, feminism, queer [rights],
and anti-discrimination laws. They want to hide that [the extremism-enabling
typical male life course].”
Post-Yoon,
feminism must be included in social movements and progressive politics
The discussion continued on the future of the
voices in the public square and how to respond to far-right movements and
anti-feminism.
Lee Ho-rim, an activist with Solidarity for LGBT
Human Rights of Korea, expressed concern that “the Korean LGBT movement and
feminist movement will inevitably be directly and indirectly affected” by the
emergence of the second Trump administration in the U.S. and the trends that
follow, and that “coupled with the gathering of far-right mass movements in
Korea, this could result in a huge backlash against social movements.” She
emphasized that the Trump administration is “erasing pro-diversity language
related to gender equality and sexual minorities from U.S. policy and shifting
to far-right rhetoric of ‘restoring the family as the center of American life
and protecting our children,’” and that “it is also necessary to respond to
these changing international circumstances.”
Ms. Oh said, “Social movements must explore the
relationship between the current ruling system and masculinity, sketch the
relationship between system change and the construction of new masculinity, and
put a different imagination into practice.” She continued, “Social movements must
confront feminism head on and across the board [as an important agenda]. Rather
than supporting feminism and then hiding it away again, we need a process of
re-digesting and maturing progressive politics from a gender perspective.”
Mr. Kim said, “We need to create an opportunity
for people who are discriminated against everywhere to come together and fight,
and to make them feel, in their daily lives rather than online or in the public
square, ‘I am not the only one isolated’.”
Kwon Su-jeong, Vice Chair of the Korean
Confederation of Trade Unions, said that she “would like to live in a country
where a feminist is president,” as Kim Jin-sook said, and predicted “a plan for
a feminist candidate in the next presidential election and the forming of a
cabinet to accompany them.” Kwon expressed her determination by saying, “I
think we must respond to the zeitgeist of equality and solidarity that has been
desperately brought about by the countless beings who have stepped up to the
microphone in the public square with trembling voices and risked their lives to
speak.”
*Original article: https://ildaro.com/10114
[1] Translator’s note: Special prosecutions are currently taking place for
President Yoon’s martial law declaration and First Lady Kim Gun-hee’s alleged stock
price manipulation.
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