SEOUL, South Korea — My mother fled South Korea for two years in her 20s because she couldn’t stomach her domineering father. On her return, she was married off to my conservative father, whom she gradually realized she didn’t care for. Divorce was still taboo, so she opted to go to Canada with me in tow. The pretext for this long-distance marriage was my education, but it was also for her freedom from patriarchal expectations.

More than two decades have passed. She keeps her address in Canada but now spends considerable time with my father in Seoul. She also dines occasionally with her father, a frail man in his 90s. The arrangement works since the men in her life have grown subdued and she has more say over her life. With time, gender equality came to our family. Patiently waiting for improvement in gender relations, however, is not a strategy for South Korea.

The country awoke on May 17 to shocking news that a young woman had been stabbed to death in a bar restroom in a busy shopping district in Seoul. Reports of murder are hardly rare in this country, but the 30-something male suspect’s motive stunned people. After the arrest, he told the police that he committed the crime because women had always ignored him.

The incident prompted testimonials from many women about the amount of misogyny they endure. A large number of men, in turn, dismissed the notion that the killing was an act of misogyny and said that women were being hysterical.