Meet a Member: Goldie (Myoung Ryoon) Kim, GET-P (Gender Equality Training Platform)

What is your organizational mission or vision statement?

To be reborn as the cradle of gender education for a gender-equal society.

To promote global exchange, cooperation, and to spread a culture of gender equality. A training platform encompassing various areas.

What does your organization work on?

GET-P was established in 1992 in Korea as a specialized training platform for gender equality training activists, trainers, and facilitators who work for a gender-equal society without discrimination. Our organization develops content and programs for gender equality training and regularly offers training programs for the growth of trainers and facilitators. In particular, since 2020 our organization has been exploring how to work with men to achieve gender equality and gender justice and has been using training to communicate the message of transforming masculinity. 

We also do international work in Nepal, where we operate free education centers in economically disadvantaged villages and a sewing skills center to help women become economically empowered.

What is something that you want to share about your work? 

I took a facilitator course on how to run the IMAGINE Toolkit from an Emancipator, a member of MenEngage Europe based in the Netherlands. I then brought the IMAGINE Toolkit to Korea, and have conducted 20 IMAGINE Workshops over the past two years. Through this process, there are now 355 trainers in Korea who have incorporated the IMAGINE Toolkit into their gender equality training with the goal of “transforming masculinities.” I have no intention of stopping this work anytime soon. Because this is still not enough. I will continue to help as many Korean trainers and facilitators as possible to deliver the “Let’s Build a Gender Equitable Society with Men” training.

I’m also proud of my non-stop training efforts to grow the IMAGINE toolkit facilitator group, and the backlash report on the gender equality movement in South Korea that I worked on with my colleagues at GET-P in 2023, which I submitted to the MenEngage Global Secretariat.

Was there a specific moment when you realized how your work is deeply connected to working with men and boys?

In 2016, a young woman was murdered in a public restroom in South Korea’s capital city, Seoul, in the neighborhood of Gangnam–made famous by the song “Gangnam Style.” The killer was a stranger, a young man who told police, “I killed her because women ignore me,” as he was being led away. 

The police, government authorities, and mainstream media treated the murder as a simple crime committed by a mentally ill person as the killer was schizophrenic, rather than a misogynistic killing. This reaction inspired a lot of young women to study and discuss feminism further, and to spread the issue of sexism from activists to the masses. However, this process of increasing women’s awareness has also been met with resistance and backlash from men. 

Meanwhile, the South Korean government has been operating a system since 2013 that requires public servants or those working in public institutions to attend at least four hours of gender violence prevention training a year. As the training was repeated every year, the number of participants expressing fatigue and resistance increased, and the harsh and reactive expressions of male participants became noticeable at the training site. They made aggressive and insulting remarks to the presenters, trainers, and facilitators. As a professional trainer and trainer of trainers, I have heard this from many trainers across the country and have come to believe that this is a problem that will not be solved unless we change the paradigm of education to say that gender equality is a men’s issue as well and that men need to be involved in preventing gender-based violence. So I contacted Equimundo in the USA, MÄN in Sweden, and Emancipator in the Netherlands, and thankfully I could learn and collaborate with Emancipator.

What keeps you moving, hopeful, and inspired, to keep on doing the work that you do? 

There are two things that keep my flames alight. One is the belief that everyone will believe that gender violence is harmful, and the other is the belief that gender equality is achievable, even if it is difficult.

What are you thinking or feeling passionate about these days in relation to gender transformative work with men and boys?

I’m passionate about gender transformative work with men and boys in Korea and want to create a Korean MenEngage Network with an expanding group of colleagues. And amazingly, it looks like it’s going to happen.

What’s captivating your imagination these days?

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with a song I’ve never heard before. It’s a song whose title and lyrics tell me why I work with boys and men on gender transformation.

The song title is ‘There is a land where women want to live’, by Joke Smit, 1933-1981, Netherlands.

“There is a land where men want to live

Where boys are freed of being brave and bold

Where no one wins at another’s cost

And being a man means thoughtfulness

Where fear and grief need not be covered up

Where jobless men think no less of themselves

Where women and men need not hate each other

But can at last join forces as allies.”

How does your involvement in MenEngage Alliance impact your work? 

The biggest thing is the relief and comfort that I am not the only one working with boys and men on transformative gender justice, and that my organization GET-P is not the only one. I also discovered that there are other like-minded people and groups in our society while preparing for the Korea MenEngage Network.

Do you have any words of advice or wisdom that you would like to share with others who may be reading about you and your work?

We cannot achieve women’s liberation without men’s liberation. A gender just society is one in which neither women, men, nor trans or non-binary people are oppressed. So let’s do it together!

Please share a part, or parts, of the MenEngage Core Principles, Accountability Standards or Ubuntu Declaration and Call to Action that resonates with you. 

Number 9 of the core principles is one that I often quote to my fellow trainers in Korea. “We believe that transformation must begin with ourselves.” 

If you want to build a gender just and gender equitable society, your daily life must also be in line with those values. As I have reviewed MenEngage’s materials, participated in general meetings and webinars, and interacted with the Global Secretariat, I have felt that members are committed to living the values. I am also trying to live by these principles in my own life and I feel good about myself as living these values makes me a better person.

We have translated the MenEngage Core Principles and Accountability Standards into Korean and shared them with our members, and we are looking for ways to collaborate with members who are interested in joining the MenEngage network in Korea. We are also reading the Ubuntu Declaration and Call to Action together and discussing ways to incorporate the Declaration and Call to Action into our work in Korea.

Do you have any final thoughts to share?

I have experience conducting gender training in Korea as well as in Nepal in Southwest Asia and Laos in Southeast Asia. I also conducted a gender sensitivities workshop for police officers from Senegal, Africa, who visited Korea. Through this process, I have been able to interact with participants from various countries and see firsthand that patriarchy maintains a similar order of domination around the world. Therefore, there is no need to be discouraged by the resistance of the learners in front of me, nor to be disheartened by the backlash of strong anti-feminism in Korean society. So far, we are moving toward a more equal society, albeit slowly. We’re not going to stop, and if I can’t do it all, you can, and then the next person. We’re all in this together, and that makes it all the more exciting and fun.

You can find more information about Goldie’s work on her social networks and website: Facebook and GET-P.