After believing a female convenience store employee was a feminist, a man in South Korea attacked her late at night and was taken into custody.
CCTV footage shows a man in his 20s hitting and striking a woman after breaking into a store in Jinju, a city in southeast China, after midnight.
He also attacked a 50-year-old customer who attempted to step in.
According to the police, he attacked the woman on the grounds that he thought she was a feminist due to her short hair.
“Since you have short hair, you must be a feminist. I’m a male chauvinist, and I think feminists deserve to be assaulted,” he told her according to police statements that were published in the Korea Herald newspaper.
He persisted in his attack until the cops showed there and put an end to him. According to the authorities, he was inebriated and had previously received a diagnosis and treatment for schizophrenia.
South Korea consistently ranks among the worst economically developed nations for working women due to its low gender equality.
In recent years, anti-feminist sentiment has also grown, especially among young males who believe they have suffered because of reverse discrimination.
The woman, who is in her 20s, sustained severe injuries to her ear and ligaments during the incident on Friday, but authorities said her condition is not life-threatening. After being struck by a chair, the intervening client also sustained fractures to his face and shoulder.
According to police, they requested a warrant on Sunday in order to detain the suspected culprit.
In South Korea, where many misogynistic pundits identify the hairstyle with feminism, a term that has been conflated with being a man-hater, women with short, cropped hair have faced attacks before.
Women displayed their short hairstyles in 2021 as part of a viral solidarity campaign in support of an Olympic archer who won multiple gold medals at the Tokyo Games but was subjected to a barrage of internet abuse due to her short hair.
