Practicing Feminism in South Korea: The Issue of Sexual Violence and the Women’s Movement
Author(s)
Jung, Kyungja
Abstract
This paper explores feminist practice in South Korea on the basis of a case study on a feminist-run sexual assault centre (SAC). Feminism has been regarded as ‘Western culture’ in most parts of Asia. Feminists in Asian countries have been criticised in relation to the introduction of feminism into their countries and the application of ‘Western thought’ to their local contexts. However, some Asian countries such as Korea have developed their own feminist practice rooted in their specific sociopolitical and cultural context. Through an analysis of development of the first SAC in Korea, this paper shows how the Korean activists have operated SAC as a site of a broader feminist movement even though the idea of the SAC was introduced from Western countries. This paper concludes that feminist practices can be a dynamic process, constituted by social contexts and feminist activists in their local situation.
