According to the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, the four teachers invited the college students to an evening drinking outing on April 6. Later that night, they also suggested them to go to a singing room, which the college students rejected.
Then, the teachers told the college students that they wouldn't get good grades on their on-the-job-training unless they'd join. At the singing room, the teachers sexually harassed the students that included touching their hips and hugging.
Three days after the incident, the students handed in a letter, detailing the incident and asking the male teachers to be punished.
An official with the provincial educational office said, "Most of the allegations proved to be true. The teachers involved will face stern punishment."
As Extra! Korea notes, "hips" is how Koreans mistranslate "butt." And I think "punishment" is another way of saying "might get a talking-to, maybe" considering how common this sort of behavior is. Anecdotal evidence and observations tell me that, and a survey---I know, I know---that found half of women get harassed at these mandatory drinking parties helps the case.
Lee was not the only one having such an unpleasant experience ― according to a survey by a recruitment company Saramin of 729 female employees, 52.3 percent, or 381, said they have experienced sexual harassment at drinking sessions. Some 39 percent said they have been harassed not only at drinking parties but also during work.
When multiple replies were allowed, the surveyed women said they suffered from physical contact such as hugging (74 percent), dirty jokes (41.7 percent), jokes about their body shape or appearance (30.7 percent), pressure to serve drinks to men, and questions about their sexual experience. Twenty-one respondents even said male senior staff or co-workers asked them to have sex with them.
About half of the harassment was from immediate superiors, followed by top managers and co-workers.
6 comments:
I love how this stuff happens and gets covered up, yet a foreign teacher makes one tiny slip and it’s front page news.
Seriously, though, Korea's MT culture is a main culprit for things like this, and it sets the stage for future social activities long after college.
I welcome a few lawsuits. When threatened with loss of face and/or cash, many companies finally start trying to put the kibosh on this kind of activity.
For many managers, the threat of lawsuits and a new set of dentures adding teeth to the law provides them the social cover they need to put the kibosh on this kind of activity.
I assume you're being facetious with your first line, but you know it's ridiculous to demonize foreigners through prtrayals in the media or through accounts of bar-hopping, while really they're not doing anything that isn't widely practiced among Koreans.
Yes, I was being facetious. I quoted verbatim and in its entirety an actual comment by someone else at Korea Beat.
And while I agree with you about demonization, there's some perspective to be brought in to the discussion. An apt comparison is not of what is widely practiced among Koreans in general, but what is practiced among Korean teachers in general.
Koreans have traditionally been putting teachers up on a pedestal and expecting them to live up to a higher standard, though in the past there was precious little opportunity to verify that standard was being upheld.
Nowadays, however, even though the majority are probably decent, responsible folk, the image of teachers as a whole has taken a lot of hits with the advent of the Internet, camera-equipped cell phones, and a movie industry that is willing to slaughter what had been a sacred cow.
The general public is sick and tired of position-abusing teachers (a common perception of Korean teachers) and teachers who do not deserve their position (which includes Koreans who used connections, bribes, etc., and foreign teachers who marched into the classroom with far more ease and — in many cases — considerably less experience or training than their Korean counterparts).
Koreans don't much care for party-hardy Korean teachers so saying that foreign teachers "really are not doing anything that isn't widely practiced among Koreans" does not help the case of the E2.
Sorry for derailing the thread.
Well, no, don't apologize, you made a lot of good points in your follow-up about differentiating between Koreans and Korean teachers.
I think the women in these instances need to be abit pro-active. Yes, of course the men at to blame but there are things the women could have done.
Dont go drinking alone with older male teachers. Yes, they will try to force you so, have a good excuse:
- I'm allergic to alchole.
- I have to go visit my sick mother in the hospital.
- I have a part time job in the evenings etc.
There were 3 of them. Why not go to the principle with the original threat of bad grades if they dont go to the singing room before it happened instead of the 3 of them going after it happened?
As soon as the first inappropriate touch, comment is made, as a group, LEAVE!
Learn to defend yourself. Afew basic martial arts block and holds can work wonders. After a couple of classes they come second nature. (a taxi driver tried to grab my chest. He got a block and then a punch!)
I wonder though if some of the things they complain are intended as sextual advances or just poor jugement. If you watch a group of drunk businessmen together there is lots of hugging, dirty jokes and talk about sextual activities. Are they acting differently because the women are there? Or are they forgetting to act differently because the women are there?
I have a friend who is a Phd, she works as a genetic engineer for a major Korean chaebol, and she's divorced (a not uncommon story I know among my 30something Korean women friends: husband beat her). Anyway, she was married when she started at the company but keeps it a secret that she's now divorced. Why? Well, a divorced woman is considered the go to woman for coworkers looking for a little something something on the side. The attitude seems to be "no man will have you as a mate because of your shameful divorce so I'm the best offer you're going to get."
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