This article focuses on the role of female participants during the time of the Sabuk Incident and in its aftermath, by examining what brought about the female participants’ silence regarding their suffering and participant experience
The Sabuk incident was a historical event in which women actively participated and played a role. However, in order to summon the corrupt leader of the labor union, there was a Lynch incident in which the wife of the union leader was detained and sexually assaulted. At the time of the incident, the miners’ Lynch incident was reported to the media, and the female participants has been recognized as the instigators of the Lynch. Due to the women’s active participation, numerous women were arrested at the Jeong-seon Police Station after the incident. Women were also sexually harassed in the process.
While male participants were able to spend time sharing their torture damages with each other, because of the stigma of Sabuk’s “strong women-criminals”social culture that the guilt of her husband, female participants who went to jail, felt the shame of sexual harassment itself, and they have been forced to remain silent for a long time. The wives were the ones who worked on the incident, but for a long time they were recognized as ‘unrelated’ to the Sabuk incident. After the incident, the wives of male participants were responsible for livelihoods on behalf of their detained or sick husbands. Sometimes they were harassed in coal mining villages because they were the wife of the male participants.
It was Korean society that masked the women of the Sabuk incident, but the women of the Sabuk incident started talking about the Sabuk incident in their own voice to reveal the incident and their existence. However, there are still women who do not reveal their experiences in participating in the Sabuk incident, and who have not been exposed to the damages in the process, and when they are revived in various places as ‘women’. Wouldn’t it be possible to leap into the Sabuk Democratic Uprising.