How Radical Feminism Is Shaking South Korea

An inverted #MeToo. For the past few weeks, groups for the defense of "male rights" have been active in South Korea, on social networks and the judicial field, to lead the revolt against the country's feminists. Originally, it was a simple emoji that set fire to the powder: showing a hand with the thumb and index finger close together, it was first used as a logo by a feminist group that no longer exists today, then taken up by many companies and organizations. But South Korean men protest that this emoticon is only intended to make fun of small male genders…

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Result: anti-feminist activists have launched a real witch hunt against those who use this symbol, says the correspondent of the Los Angeles Times in Seoul, quoted by Courrier International. Companies and organizations that have adopted it on posters or advertising campaigns, but also employees deemed too feminist, are thus overwhelmed by complaints or calls for a boycott. Some of them have even been sanctioned or demoted for this use, municipalities have had to apologize, museums withdraw works and stars from all walks of life have seen their careers threatened.

A young but radical movement

Because for the South Korean advocacy groups acting today, this emoji is only an illustration of the deep hatred of men that characterizes, according to them, a feminist movement that has gone out of control. Born recently with #MeToo, the latter has since been deployed in a very radical way. “Once the idea was introduced, it spread like wildfire,” confides Figaro Madame Lim, a Korean living in Paris for more than 30 years. With the same excesses as in Western countries. This translator and editor by profession deplores in particular that the movement has “caused many victims”, citing the poet Ko Un, approached several times for the Nobel Prize for Literature, or the filmmaker Kim Ki-duk, recently deceased. “There is a tendency towards witch hunts”, she insists, before detailing: “Once a known artist is designated as a sexual harasser, his career is dead and his work too”. As in our Western countries? “If the movement is more recent than in Europe, its effects are very radical and the impact much greater than in France”, tempers Madame Lim.

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This radicalism, Aleyna, a resident of Seoul, also feels it: "It is no exaggeration to say that extreme feminists in Korea have greatly undermined the original meaning of the term 'feminism'", she confides to Figaro. With a major consequence in Korean society: “People of both sexes tend to think that they are conventionally and structurally wronged by the other sex and that they are not treated correctly”. This barrier particularly concerns the young male generation, who complain of paying for the mistakes of their elders, and who sometimes feel slandered, muzzled, and even disadvantaged, in particular by military service, compulsory for all men but not for women. women.

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Government fueled hostility to feminism?

Therefore, Mrs. Lim believes that “the birth of an anti-feminist movement is completely understandable”. And if it is for the moment shy, the translator foresees that it “develops” if the “excesses” of feminists continue. However, this hostility is already reflected in the figures. In 2018, a study conducted by the Korean Women's Development Institute showed, for example, that 65% of men in their twenties defined feminism as a movement of hatred against men. 56.5% of them said they were even ready to break up with their girlfriend if she said she was a feminist. And this feeling is spreading throughout society. “Feminism is a mental illness” thus became a slogan in demonstrations by men's rights groups. In 2015, a South Korean columnist even claimed that “unconscious feminism” was… “more dangerous than the Islamic State”.

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In this social climate, it seems particularly frowned upon to declare oneself a feminist in South Korea. "If I say: 'I support feminism', I pretend to oppose most men and turn them into enemies", summarizes Aleyna, before insisting: "If a person declares to have the same point of view as a feminist, she can be treated unfairly by society”. A phenomenon exacerbated among the younger generation by the feeling of being excluded from the debate by the power in place. "The Korean government rather supports the feminist movement, like many left-wing politicians," explains Ms. Lim. “The government has specialized itself in the conduct of public opinion by appealing to a certain ideology,” agrees Aleyna. “Men are tired of this debate and believe that the conflict between the sexes has worsened under the current administration,” she adds. The young woman also regrets that the current debate is more about "the conflict between the sexes" than about "equity". “But there are still too few legislators who are working to deal with this subject properly,” she regrets.

At the origin of inequalities, Confucianism

According to a 2020 World Economic Forum report, South Korea currently ranks 108th out of 153 countries in terms of gender equality, making it one of the richest economies lagging behind on the issue. . On the other hand, the wage gap between men and women there was 32.5% in 2020, according to OECD figures. These structural differences between men and women run deep in Korean society for a reason: Confucianism. “Korea is patriarchal: the men dominate the women”, summarizes without complex Mrs. Lim, who believes that it is for this reason that “feminism has spread so quickly”. Today, “some Korean mothers are still imbued with this patriarchal idea and they are the ones who educate young men”. Relations between men and women are thus always very compartmentalised. “Korean women generally prepare the food while the men meet to eat and drink,” describes the Korean exiled in France. "Men are generally very reluctant to discuss subjects such as the army with the opposite sex, when women rarely discuss childbirth with men," Aleyna abounds by way of example.

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But if inequalities are still very present “in companies as in everyday life”, the debate is progressing, according to Ms. Lim. "In the past, in the education sector, we did everything to dismiss pregnant women," she recalls. "Today, men are more careful, but in an insidious way", especially with the denunciations on the Internet linked to the #MeToo movement. However, there is no question for the Korean translator of establishing any parallel with France, where she has lived for more than 30 years: “Here, it's not really patriarchal, the men are not as macho. Go see Korea, you will quickly understand!

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