South Korean man assaults short-haired shop worker ‘for being a feminist’

He is also accused of assaulting another customer for coming to the aid of the store worker

A South Korean man attacked a woman inside a convenience store allegedly for being a “feminist”.

Police said on Monday that he was apprehended for assaulting a female worker in the store in the southeastern city of Jinju.

He is reportedly also accused of assaulting another customer, said to be in his 50s, for trying to come to the rescue of the convenience store worker.

“Since you have short hair, you must be a feminist. I’m a male chauvinist, and I think feminists deserve to be assaulted,” he reportedly told her, according to the police.

He then proceeded to kick and punch her. This was also captured by CCTV which showed a man, believed to be in his twenties, entering the store in Jinju and assaulting the woman.

He stopped the assault only when the police arrived at the scene, local media reported.

In South Korea, the word “feminist” is still considered an insult and is often confused with misandry.

Authorities said he was inebriated. The man, not identified in the media, also has reportedly received treatment for schizophrenia previously.

The incident took place on Friday last week in the late hours. The woman, said to be in her 20s, received serious ear and ligament injuries. However, her injuries were not life-threatening, police said.

Another customer who tried to intervene suffered face and shoulder fractures. The attacker reportedly hit him with a chair.

An arrest warrant was approved on Monday by a local court. He has denied some of the charges and has reportedly told the police that he could not remember the incident as he was drunk at the time.

Women sporting short hair in South Korea has previously also been a subject of contention. When South Korean Olympic archer An San won three gold medals at Tokyo 2020, men back home were busy criticising her short hair.

At the Games, she told reporters that she would only answer questions related to her performance and not the online hostility that was brewing back home in South Korea.

Because of her short hair, men called her a feminist.

To counter the growing criticism of Ms An online, many South Korean women, including politicians and celebrities, posted messages and their own cropped hair photos to support the athlete.

Moon Jae-in, who was the president at that time, praised the Olympic archer and said of the online backlash: “Sometimes we have to overcome expectations and discrimination.”

Challenging the notion that short hair makes someone less of a woman, thousands rallied online posting pictures of their hair using the hashtag #women_shortcut_campaign on X, formerly known as Twitter.

South Korea continues to uphold deeply entrenched patriarchal norms and ranks poorly for gender equality among advanced nations.

The country has the worst gender pay gap among OECD countries and consistently is ranked at the bottom on the Economist’s Glass Ceiling Index – which assesses the extent to which women experience equal treatment in the workplace.

The current president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, 62, disavowed the label of a feminist when he was running for office. Previously, he has also insinuated that feminism was responsible for the country’s birthrate, which is currently the world’s lowest.