Korea Times, December 29, 2006
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is facing controversy over an anti-prostitution campaign, with a growing number of demands for it to be abolished.
The ministry, known in Korean as the Ministry of Women and Family, earlier this month offered cash awards to men for a pledge not to hire prostitutes for year-end company parties. In Korea, so-called second parties, held following the traditional office party, often take on the character of “boys night out,” a time when men bond through early-morning carousing.
To win the money, men had to register at the ministry's Web site and sign the pledge online. Chances of winning the cash prize, which ranged from 100,000 won, or $107, to 1 million won, increased with the number of company signatures.
After news reports of the ``competition,'' thousands of men accused the ministry of wasting money, in a frivolous way, trying to encourage people not to break the law. Some said they were begging men to behave. Others criticized the ministry for treating all men in a stereotypical way.
The local media had its turn, saying the nation had become a laughing stock, after foreign news organizations, including Reuters and AP, commented on Korea's “odd” holiday campaign. Public fury increased over the international “mockery” and the image of a provincial society.
On a broader note the campaign rekindled longstanding resentment among many men who accused the government of discriminating against them by treating them as lascivious and malicious oppressors of women. The ministry offered the perfect target for their rage.
In Internet chat rooms and blogs came calls to shut down the ministry. In an earlier campaign started on Daum.net, a blogger asked readers to sign an online petition to close the ministry.
The reason given for that petition was that the name of the ministry applied only to women. He said men should refuse to pay taxes to a government that does not represent them.
That campaign fizzled before achieving its goal of 100,000 signatures. But the recent anti-prostitution campaign breathed new life into the petition drive, with 20,000 people signing on in just one day, Thursday.
By yesterday, more than 75,315 people had signed the petition; some leveling accusations at the ministry and feminists. They criticized government policy for ``pampering women and finding fault with men's slightest actions.''
Other responses to the anti-prostitution drive were more extreme. One said the ministry was trying to stop the production of ``Choripong,'' a popular snack, and Hyundai's Sonata automobile because all or some parts of it resembles a woman's sexual organ, in the former, and a man's sexual organ, in the latter.
Not all suggestions on the future of the ministry were negative. At least one blogger said the ministry should change its name to one that represents both genders and truly work to achieve equality.
As if retreating to ascertain its own future, the ministry declined to elaborate on questions about its course of action.
``We have nothing further to say at this moment,'' a spokesman for the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family said Friday.
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