The Miryang gang rape
“Rape is to me no different than murder. It kills a part of the victim’s soul.” By Jonathan Maberry. One of the most controversial cases of rape that happened in Seoul in 2004 shows that at least 41 to 44 male students from the Miryang gang did rape middle and high school girls almost over a course of a year. It begins by virtually contacting the first victim of 14 years old who did interact with an 18 male student. After meeting with him, he and his friends sexually assaulted her and blackmailed her to diffuse the videos of her being raped. Throughout the course, we did learn that this behavior is immoral and rejected by our societies but the question that we ask ourselves what causes this event? Are there any
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As we can see, these lower-class adolescent boys come from a country where they are pressured to be the best students, so they need to achieve a certain status. When they fail or can’t reach this status it will make them frustrated that may lead them to engage in a very abusive and violent behavior, to assert their dominance and to gain a certain sense of power. Driven by this feeling of frustration, they create their own subculture referred to by Cohen as “delinquent subculture” where they create their own system and rules. It can be different from what society sees as right. So, they will rape the girl in a way to assert their own status and compete against each one to achieve their goals. (The goal means …show more content…
This case shows how the perpetrators tried to express through their actions their power over the victims. The fact that all the victims of this rape were women and that the perpetrators were men, also they did act together to assert their dominance over women. Therefore, this theory shows us a form of gender-based violence where women are seen as objects to be used and dominated by men. As we see, after the case was published on the news many people blamed the victims by being the one who is responsible for this rape as well as the police officer did ask her if she seduces the men so this is why she gets what she deserved. This shows how much the Korean society were gender-biased and didn’t respect the women at this time. In addition, the victims of this case were primarily from poor and abusive backgrounds. This contributes to their vulnerability to sexual violence. On the other hand, the perpetrators came from more privileged backgrounds than their victims that can give them a sense of entitlement over their