Why Is Feminism Considered A Sensitive Topic Among Korean Men?

The young South Korean archer An San, who recently won three gold medals in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, received harsh criticism among some Korean men for her short hair.

Her short hair was taken as a symbol of her support for women's rights and this sparked a controversial debate online.

So why were some Korean men offended by this incident?

Gender Inequality In Korea

Despite the fact that Korea is continuing to advance in technology and has a powerful economy and culture, women in Korea are still fighting for equality.

The gender income gap in the country is the largest among developed economies, with a high rate of gender discrimination in recruitment.

According to a survey by the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality in May 2021, among 2,246 listed companies in the first quarter, only 1,668 (5.2 percent) out of 32,005 executives were women.

Vice Minister Kim Kyong-seon said in an online meeting that the ratio is much lower than the average of 25.6 percent of OECD member countries.

The country was also repeatedly judged by The Economist for having the worst working environment for women among OECD countries.

When Did Feminism Become A Social Issue?

Korea has been heavily influenced by Confucianism, so boys were considered to be more important than girls.

As the world advanced, Korean women became more financially independent and their sense of self-worth and equal rights have been changing.

As a result, women gradually stood up to fight for feminism and gender equality.

In May 2016 a 23-year-old girl was brutally murdered by a 34-year-old man in a bathroom near Gangnam Station in Seoul all because of his hatred for women.

This incident brought the issue of gender hatred in Korea to a climax.

Feminists who founded an online organization called Megalia (메갈리아) in August 2015 held an extreme amount of anger towards this case.

The website posted a lot of negative information about the wrongdoings of men.

It was a website where women could freely make abusive comments against men.

It further escalated into an extremely abusive culture with excessively rude remarks, causing further gender discrimination and it was shut down at the end of 2016.

The movie Kim Ji-young: Born 1982, was released in 2019 which was based on a famous novel of the same name that was released in 2016.

The novel told a story of the hardships that a woman faced who had to give up her career to raise her children and take care of her family.

The movie again sparked controversy over women's rights and was ostracized by Korean men because it only told one side of the story.

Young people in their 20s and 30s view that women in their 40s and 50s suffered a lot in the old society, but women nowadays don't live in the same society anymore.

Therefore, they claim that it is not right to blame all men for making their lives difficult.

This is also why young men in Korea have an increasing hatred for feminism and consider themselves 'victims of feminism'.

They have also formed anti-feminist groups that protect their views.

Since then, whoever spoke out for feminism was met with negative backlash from men.

It is easy to find female celebrities that have implicated their support for feminism who have received severe hatred online such as Bae Suzy, Red Velvet's Irene, AOA's Seolhyun, and more.

Korean Men's Sensitivity Toward Feminism

Below are some reasons behind why Korean men are so sensitive toward feminism and why feminism is viewed in a negative light in Korea.

1. Men worry about the risk of losing their jobs and view new policies as unequal

Over the past 10 years, the unemployment rate among young Koreans has increased from 6.9 percent to 9.9 percent.

Faced with difficult job application processes, the government has introduced some programs that help bring women into the workforce.

This led men to protest for their own views about the matter.

In November 2017, the Ministry of Gender Equality of Korea planned a five-year plan to create opportunities for women to work in public and private institutions.

They also encourage large corporations to hire more women and shift the male-dominated culture.

This started to worry male workers about their opportunities for finding jobs.

Since Korean men have to serve in the military for two years, they became concerned that their chances in the job market would be negatively affected because they would have less work experience than female peers.

2. The abuse of the feminist movement

The feminist movement in Korea has been abused as a political tool.

President Moon Jae-in pledged to 'be a president for women's rights' before he was elected in 2017.

Under President Moon Jae-in, there have been many new policies for job applications that were in favor of women's rights without the mention of opportunities for men.

With the support of the government and celebrities, and sexual abuse cases from high-ranking officials and celebrities in the industry coming to light, the topic of feminism has once again sparked a lot of debate.

There have been numerous movements such as #MeToo, which helped bring light to sexual assault cases and women being taken advantage of by men with the upper hand, and #EscapetheCorset, a movement against strict beauty standards.

These movements, however, put Korean society in a state of intense tension.

Korean men, especially, young men, became more cautious and distant of women in public places.

According to ISPO's survey this year, among 28 countries, Korea came first in the level of conflict between the two genders.

In addition, the problem worsened as the conservative opposition party aimed to win support ahead of the presidential election.

In June, Lee Jun-seok, a male rights activist who supported the wave of attacks on GS25 stores after releasing an offensive promotion campaign, was elected as the leader of the People Power Party.

Given that young men are now becoming the target of 'reverse discrimination', Lee Jun-seok is expected to exert a considerable influence within the party and attract huge support for their presidential candidate.

His influence and campaign strategy make young Korean men feel that women's rights are no longer a fight for gender equality, but a tool to bring men down.

They view that gender discrimination is the problem of the older generation, and now young men are suffering.

As a result, hatred of feminist movements is growing.

That concludes our insight on the current situation of the feminist movement in Korea and why it's being perceived differently in Korean society.

We hope you found this article useful!