Liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung has received South Korea’s snap presidential election with a transparent lead. With the entire ballots counted, Lee received nearly 50% of the vote, forward of his conservative rival Kim Moon-soo on 41%. He’s taking over a rustic this is deeply divided alongside gender traces.
Lee’s marketing campaign successfully channelled voter anger. He inquisitive about resetting South Korea’s politics after impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was once from the similar birthday celebration as Kim, unleashed chaos through mentioning martial regulation in December 2024.
On the other hand, gender war has persisted, subtly however powerfully, to form voter behaviour, marketing campaign methods and the nationwide debate about who’s responsible for the loss of alternatives in South Korea for younger males.
The election happened 3 years after Yoon pipped Lee to the presidency through only a quarter of one million votes – the nearest margin within the nation’s historical past. Yoon’s victory was once, as has been famous through researcher Kyungja Jung, “the epitome of the utilisation of gender wars”.
A key a part of Yoon’s technique was once fostering a way amongst younger Korean males that it was once now them, reasonably than females, who had been the sufferers of discrimination. He secured 59% of the vote from males of their 20s and 53% from males of their 30s. Simply 34% of ladies of their 20s supported him.
In the most recent election, gender was once in all places and nowhere suddenly. At the one hand, no longer a unmarried candidate put ahead a significant coverage to handle structural gender discrimination within the place of work, home violence or public sexual harassment.
None even discussed the gaping absence of ladies applicants, in spite of hundreds of most commonly younger females having crammed the streets challenging democracy after Yoon’s martial regulation declaration. It was once the primary time in just about twenty years that no longer a unmarried lady stood some of the contenders for the absolute best function within the nation.
The presidential applicants of South Korea’s primary political events – (left to correct) Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic birthday celebration, Kim Moon-soo of the conservative Folks Energy birthday celebration, Lee Jun-seok of the Reform birthday celebration and Kwon Younger-kook of the Democratic Hard work birthday celebration.
Yonhap / EPA
Lee, positioning himself because the consensus candidate, tried to neutralise gender as a marketing campaign factor. When newshounds requested him whether or not he would announce any women-related pledges, he stated: “Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans.”
His commentary would possibly sound inclusive. However it indicators a way to claim the gender factor off-limits for the sake of the higher excellent, thus sidestepping the particular inequalities that proceed to divide the rustic. It’s a type of cohesion through erasure.
Lee Jun-seok of the right-wing Reform birthday celebration, however, attempted to resurrect the similar playbook that delivered Yoon to energy in 2022. He tried to impress, polarise and win the loyalty of disaffected younger males.
As Yoon had completed 3 years in the past, he known as for the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Circle of relatives. And all the way through a televised debate, he requested: “If someone says they want to stick chopsticks into women’s genitals, would that count as misogyny?” The query was once a nod to a arguable on-line commentary Lee Jae-myung’s son had made years previous.
Lee Jun-seok’s remark drew standard condemnation and, in the long run, he handiest scraped about 7.7% of the overall vote. This incorporated over 37% of guys of their 20s, whilst 58% of ladies in the similar age staff sponsored Lee Jae-myung. Gender is a extremely political topic in South Korea whichever approach you take a look at it.
Gender wars
This gender divide is now one of the crucial constant options of South Korean politics. Ladies are vocal and visual in public to safeguard no longer simply their very own rights, but additionally South Korea’s democracy.
But populist politicians have cultivated a belief amongst younger males – squeezed through stagnant wages, fierce festival over jobs and social expectancies – that their diminishing alternatives are because of insurance policies they see as favouring females.
This has led to many younger South Korean males seeing feminism no longer as a motion for equality however as a disadvantage to their very own growth. In truth, their battle has much less to do with gender and extra to do with structural inequalities in source of revenue and alternative for all younger Koreans.
As Kyungja Jung noticed in a paper from 2024: “Misogyny becomes an outlet for their [South Korean men’s] frustration and masculinity crisis as they search for a scapegoat for their struggles in neoliberal society. They blame women rather than the neoliberal economy.”
Younger other people even from the most efficient universities in Korea really feel they can’t compete within the process marketplace it doesn’t matter what they do. South Korea now has one of the crucial absolute best charges of younger other people no longer in schooling, employment or coaching some of the OECD international locations. This has given upward thrust to the so-called “N-Po” technology, who really feel so deprived that they’ve given up on all long run desires of marriage, circle of relatives and a profession.
South Korea isn’t on my own in mobilising backlash towards feminism and gender equality. Around the world, gender has turn into one of the crucial primary fault traces in politics. Within the November 2024 US election, Donald Trump led amongst younger males through 14 issues, whilst Kamala Harris had an 18-point edge with younger females.
In the meantime, self-described misogynist Andrew Tate continues to form younger male attitudes on-line. And in Italy, Giorgia Meloni rose to energy on a far-right platform that, in spite of being a girl herself, reduces females to their roles as moms and homemakers.
Younger females performed a key function within the protests towards Yoon’s martial regulation declaration.
Icelander / Shutterstock
One type for trade in South Korea might be to introduce quotas for ladies in politics to make their voices heard. Ladies handiest occupy round 20% of the 300 seats in South Korea’s Nationwide Meeting, trailing smartly at the back of the worldwide (27.2%) and Asian (22.1%) averages. If females don’t seem to be in politics making selections about themselves, then their voices may not be heard past the streets.
Lee Jae-myung’s win has given South Korea a second to respire. However the fault traces stay. When a complete demographic, be it younger males or females, feels systematically unheard or structurally discriminated towards, opportunistic voices can transfer in to fill the void.
Gender is political. Ignoring it can be simply as dangerous as confronting it head-on.
