Anti-Feminist movement of South Korea
A new element of Anti-feminism of the south world seems to be rising its presence as patriarchy continues to exists. In Seoul, South Korea, a band of young men dressed in black always shows up, shouting, taunting, every time the streets are taken up by the rallies of feminist protesting against sexual violence and gender biases in South Korea.
These young men are amplified by the anti-feminist sentiments who call on the other men of the society to smack feminism, which they consider as a social evil.
Their forceful activism has impacted to a large level, forcing a university to cancel a lecture being conducted by a women’s who was suspected of spreading misandry. Various businesses are also threatened of boycott over their advertisement with the image of pinching fingers they said ridiculed the size of male genitalia.
South Korea is brewing with extreme hate sentiments among the young male for the feminist, who are being regarded as the enemy no.1, being charged with the crime of consuming all the benefits and advantages. This rise of hate sentiment hasn’t been sudden, it has been bottled up among the young men who have been against the traditional military services which is a compulsory conscription for abled-bodied men or 18 and 35, while its not a compulsory conscription for women.
Many anti-feminist university students have held the compulsory conscription as a major discrimination with only one gender being given such responsibility. Not just in military, but in area of jobs and education, there is start of competition among male and females with women being granted expanded representation in ministry and public schools.
Even the private sector is being incentivized to hire more women and change the male-centric corporate culture. All of this comes in a backdrop of rising unemployment rate among the youth from 6.9% to 9.9%. It isn’t just on streets, but the anti-feminist voices have found themselves in political realm too.
President Moon Jae-in who vowed to become a “feminist president” before he was elected in 2017 has seen a very prominent decline in popularity. It is a general assumption in developed countries that younger generation evolves to develop a liberal leaning, but in case of South Korea, 90 percent of young men in their 20s who supported President Moon has sought a U-turn in their political leaning within just 4 years, with President Moon support declining to just 17 percent among young men.
This rising anti-feminist sentiments that regard feminism as synonymous to radicalism and misandry, considering men as the victim of feminism, stands parallel to South Korea being ranked 115th among 149 countries on gender equality in 2018. South Korea has seen a widening gender gap from 34.6 percent in 2018 to 37.1 in 2019. But none of the downsides are seen by the anti-feminist who are standing for the ideology of meritocracy.
Updated by Preet Joshi