On October 11, a special lecture about gapjil was held in the Science Building by a lawyer, Lee Eun Eui. Lee is famous for suing the biggest company in South Korea, Samsung, after being sexually harassed by one of the employees in the company. She won after five years of tenacious battle and resigned to attend a law school and become a lawyer. She has since then become an active lawyer fighting for justice and publishing books, such as It’s Fine to be Sensitive and Living Samsung.

The lecture began with the story of how Lee became a lawyer and the behind stories of how she ended up filing a lawsuit against a company she used to work for. It was, however, the stories she collected from her experience as a lawyer that mainly comprised the lecture to convey her message. As both a witness and victim of sexual harassments, Lee has gone through numerous unjust lawsuits that were related to sexual harassment. She shared her experiences of witnessing sexual victims crumble into pieces while the offenders walk away bare-hand and gave her own interpretations of these excruciating phenomena.

She pointed out that one of the main problems of today’s society is that the so-called euls are put in a situation where they have to act servile and “polite,” obeying to almost any commands, and that the victims aren’t protected by anyone. However, she emphasized that the eul’s failure to resist harassment due to defective laws and their willingness to hold their opinions back to maintain “good” relationships cause greater problems. She gave actual examples she witnessed during a lawsuit where she defended a sexually harassed victim who was accused by the defendant to be luscious for not having resisted to a similar harassment earlier.

The lecture that was filled with shock and horror came to an end with one final notice from Lee, saying that students should “have the guts to say what you want to say and be able to stand on your own.” Lee claimed that people are too willing to maintain relationships due to their tendency to rely on others, and that “people need to strengthen their abilities to stand on their own, which Korea University (KU) will hopefully help to enable.”

▲ Lawyer Lee Eun Eui giving a lecture. Photographed by Jeon Sohyeon.