South Korean election video pulled after public outcry over misogyny

Local authorities in Gyeongsan issued an apology for a video that showed a male supervisor assaulting a female employee and subsequently removed the clip

A video encouraging South Koreans to vote in next week’s presidential elections has sparked public outrage after it featured a male supervisor assaulting a female employee, leading to an apology from local authorities.

Gyeongsan, a city located about 300km (186 miles) southeast of Seoul, shared a 49-second video on its YouTube channel on Monday to encourage residents to participate in the election on June 3.

In the video, a male supervisor is shown throwing a crumpled a piece of paper at a junior worker, Korea JoongAng Daily reported. Additionally, he pressed his finger to her forehead and hit her on the head with a file folder.

Later in the video, she bites the supervisor’s finger in frustration, with the caption, “Don’t bite – ask about the candidate’s policies”.

The supervisor then grabs the woman’s hair after she teased him about his receding hairline, which was accompanied by the words, “Don’t pick on others – pick your rights”.

The video ended with the tag line, “Don’t take shots at others – focus on hope for tomorrow”, but only after if it showed a colleague removing the woman’s desk from the office after she was caught gossiping about the supervisor.

The video quickly sparked widespread online backlash over workplace abuse and misogyny.

“Is it glorifying violence?” read one comment below the video, the Maeil Business Newspaper reported.

“This has nothing to do with encouraging voting,” another user wrote.

“It’s shocking that this was produced by a local government … I see what Gyeongsan thinks of women.”

After facing public backlash, the city removed the video on Tuesday, just one day after its release, and issued a formal apology the following day.

“We sincerely apologise to anyone who may have felt uncomfortable watching the video,” the city said in a statement, explaining that the video was a parody of an existing advertisement.

The city emphasised that the video’s scenes were fictional, and it had no intention “to incite violence or hatred”. The inappropriate content resulted from revisions made to avoid perceived bias in references to voting or political parties, it said.

“We failed to recognise that the content could make viewers uncomfortable,” the city said.

This was not the only instance of chauvinism during a political campaign that caused public outrage in South Korea this week.

A presidential candidate apologised for a sexually explicit comment made during a recent televised debate, in which he questioned whether sticking chopsticks in a woman’s genitals constitutes misogyny.

Lee Jun-seok, who leads the minor Reform Party, drew widespread backlash from the public and across the political spectrum for the controversial remark he made on Tuesday.

The state’s human rights watchdog received 35 petitions over the remark, The Korea Herald reported, with many saying Lee’s comment was sexually demeaning to women and too graphic.