Recently, some of the Donggukians have raised the question of whether or not the General Coed Student Council (GCSC) is a worthwhile student organization for Dongguk University. The question quickly spread through the Facebook Page “Dongguk Bamboo Forest.” Students pointed out that it was improper to give only female students the rights to vote and to confer a benefit on female students regarding the whole students’ fee. Moreover, they contented to reorganize the GCSC as a kind of gender equality committee.
Keeping an eye on such movement, the GCSC made their position on their Facebook Page. It said the GCSC is worthwhile, because it takes a role to visualize the situation of minority groups including women so that it can break down inequality in the campus. Also, it emphasized that the various types of adversity which minorities are facing should be considered by everyone, without distinction of gender.
I think the efforts to break down inequalities regarding gender, sexual preference, disability, and some others are quite important and should be continued. Without an independent organization to deal with the matter, it would be difficult to fulfill enough roles in some cases. Last year, the feminism network named “Womjikim,” which had taken a similar role as the current GCSC, was just an organization under the General Student Council (GSC). When the election of the GSC foundered, the representative of “Womjikim” had expressed difficulty that they had a limit on its activities. In this regard, I agree to keep the GCSC as an independent organization in some degree.
However, in order for the GCSC to win the students’ confidence, it would be necessary to relieve negative feelings from the Donggukians through active communication. Since the controversy over the existence of the GCSC has not yet been settled, just as the students recently observed the controversy over the usage of its meeting costs, it seems that the most important thing to do now is to build trust between the GCSC and the students of Dongguk. In this way, the students would be willing to support its activities so that the true sense of equality in Dongguk University can be realized.