South Korean Anti-feminism: Has the #MeToo Movement Died?
A brief introduction:
As of 2024, the #MeToo Movement represents a global call for action, where women from different parts of the world come together to raise awareness of the inherent gender inequality in all corners of society. It is with this movement that ‘normal’ or ‘that’s just how it is’ discrimination based on gender has been able to be identified and acted upon by individuals and institutions considerate of these social issues, ousting those in previously untouchable positions of responsibility, primarily through the power of protest. Coined by Tarana Burke in 2006, the #MeToo movement went viral in 2017 after American actress Alyssa Milano’s tweet ‘urged victims of sexual harassment and assault to share their stories’ through a hashtag (Brown, 2022).
From America to South Korea
The #MeToo movement was able to penetrate the socially conservative boundary upheld in South Korea, though with difficulty and questionable success; while the #MeToo movement was global, in South Korea, it was “local in character”.
The introduction of this social movement was itself rather abrupt; in 2018, public prosecutor Seo Ji-hyeon accused her senior (a Ministry of Justice official) of groping her at a funeral eight years prior through a televised interview (Kim & Chang, 2021). It was with this unprecedented showcasing of sexual abuse by someone of regarded elite status in South Korean society, that Korean women started to believe in their voice and used this opportunity as a way to bring up their issues with sexual harassment or assault.
An esteemed poet, a respected political figure and a renowned stage director all fell victim to their concealed crimes, ranging from attempted rape, rape and sexual harassment, resulting in their dismissals and widespread directed public shame. The recognition of the need for a systemic form of change besides simply looking at high-profile cases helped incentivise grassroots developments. This resulted in a marathon #MeToo protest that took place in Gwanghwamun Plaza in Seoul, the same location where thousands took part in a candlelight demonstration to protest against the corrupt President Park Geun-hye during her 2017 term. Here, 193 women stood at a microphone and for 2018 minutes, iterated their experiences of sexual harassment, an inspiring symbol of both bravery and courage, a right that they had previously been restricted from having, in a society where order and conservation are highly prioritised. Former President Moon Jae-in’s comments wisely addressed the state of the #MeToo movement, claiming that the country "cannot solve this through laws alone and we need to change our culture and attitude" (Bicker, 2018), whether that be in education, the workplace (particularly corporate culture), or something slightly more nuanced.
Defining Feminism and the state of Feminism today
According to the International Women’s Development Agency, feminism is defined as the process of “respecting diverse women’s experiences, identities, knowledge and strengths, and striving to empower all women to realise their full rights” (International Women's Development Agency, n.d.). With this explanation, the IWDA helps to encapsulate the periodical stances made on the topic of feminism, more specifically referring to how the different ‘waves’ have led to a more refined and inclusive definition over time.
From its early foundations in giving women the right to vote, the progression of feminism has expanded to include ‘intersectionality’, acknowledging both the subtle and stark differences between experiences of being a woman, whether that be by race, economic class or other type of background. As for the ‘current’ wave, it is possible to say that from the internet activism and focus on sexual discrimination towards women picked up on fourth-wave feminism, there is now an established ‘Fifth Wave’. This builds on these new pathways but now expands the term feminism further, “broadening the ‘feminist’ narrative to include those who have been overlooked”, bringing men’s mental health and toxic masculinity into the equation (Muguruma, 2024).
The fourth wave of feminism has made itself evident in the previously mentioned impacts of the #MeToo movement in South Korea, where with internet activism, not only was the audience globalised, but the information was a lot more accessible to the public eye, driving the swiftness and prominent nature of the movement. However, as it is with many East Asian countries that are slightly behind regarding female representation and gender pay equality in the entertainment, fashion and corporate industries compared to the West, the inclusion of ‘men’ as with this Fifth Wave of feminism may not yet be appropriate in such contexts, especially if ‘feminism’ is still considered taboo in these parts of the world (Muguruma, 2024).
Difficulties with ‘feminism’
The Government
Although many women were finally able to express their concerns through cheering, legal support and the reactionary #WithYou movement, the concept of feminism has remained relatively taboo to this day, especially with current President Yoon Suk-Yeol’s right-wing and conservative-standing policies. In his manifesto, the South Korean president considered the Gender Equality Ministry too obsolete and thus made plans to scrap it, along with gender quotas to fight ‘structural racism’. Although the Ministry only accounts for 0.2% of the government’s budget, it supports victims of spy-cams, and the firing of women after pregnancy and provides financial support for single mothers. With the country having the worst gender pay gap of any rich country globally and reports of around 11568 digital sex crimes (2021), the abolishment of the ministry was met with scrutiny but no changes in plans were made (Mackenzie, 2022). At the time of writing, the future of the ministry remains ambiguous to external reviewers like me, but because of the continuous protests proceeding from around December 2022 to the Summer of 2023, this constitutional reform is unlikely to take place.
The ministry has played a pivotal role in aiding marginalized women confronting poverty and the severe consequences of rape and domestic abuse, meaning a reduction in its funding or its dissolution would only underscore South Korea's regressive portrayal of women as scapegoats. Misogyny existed also in the 2019 Seoul Government pregnancy guide, chauvinistically advising expecting mothers to “prepare 3-7 days of food and clothes for your husband so he can conveniently use them while you are in the hospital” and “to buy a hairband so that you don’t look dishevelled, as you won’t be able to wash your hair for a while in the hospital.” Only after public outcry did it get taken down from Seoul’s Pregnancy and Childbirth Information Centre website in 2021 (Robinson, 2022 ).
To prevent assigning full responsibility to South Korea for its recency in sexist policy changes, a review of the 2023 World Economic Forum’s report delivers concurring data. To quote: “Progress in the East Asian and Pacific region, including Japan, China, South Korea and Indonesia, has been largely stagnant. The gap widened by 0.2 percentage points in the past year to 68.8%, which, by WEF calculations, means it will take an estimated 189 years to reach 100%.” In other words, countries situated in the East Asia and Pacific region will take 58 years more than the global average to close the gender gap, something the West has been a lot more effective in doing (TAKE, 2023). Perhaps, this can be accredited to the governmental positions of power, a predominantly male-dominated department where many East Asian countries have not experienced a female leader; according to UN women, “of the 17 women currently serving as heads of state and/or government, just three of them are in Asia.” South Korea is an anomaly to this trend, but the impeachment of Geun-hye has been arguably retrogressive. Whilst scrutiny should focus on the performance of a corrupt president, the rare occasion that Park was a woman creates a skewed lens of the capability of females in governing the country, making it impossible for the next woman who tries to get accepted into office (Cohn, 2016).
The fact that the highest level of governance in the country has issues with misogyny provides a form of commentary on the seriousness being directed towards solving this social problem.
Defamation laws
The ubiquity of media and technology has both augmented platforms for sexualisation but has also been combatted by the developments in law-making and defence-based innovation.
Examples include the rigorous defamation laws in Korea, punishing any source of harmful slander with no indifference to the truth. Whilst Western nations only attach civil liability for defamation, Korea, in contrast, offers the opportunity for criminal punishment as well. This incorporates a mix of positives and negatives, helping the crackdown on digital and online crime but simultaneously restricting free speech.
Linking to the fourth-wave feminist characteristic of ‘internet activism’, in having such an austere approach to what is considered ‘harmful slander’, this would most definitely limit what a woman may be allowed to comment on whilst online. Even if truthful, a comment without sufficient evidence that could be seen as any way damaging towards, for example, an important male authority figure could be considered ‘more damaging’ than the sexual crime itself, a surprising yet most possible outcome. It has often been the case that whenever the term ‘feminism’ is brought up, there is a matter of debate at hand or an argument to resolve, which could play into the taboo-isation of the word.
Economics and Socialisation
Many question what led to this taboo and some have attempted to formulate an answer:
The legitimacy of the #MeToo movement should not be undermined, as despite the current state of feminism in South Korea, it has not always been like this. President Moon Jae-in’s liberal administration was largely supported by young people, where 90% of those in their 20s supported the president.
Despite the notion that young people tend to be more liberal (due to different sociopolitical environments to their seniors, e.g. higher attendance at universities and greater diversity), the dramatic shift to the right in Korea can be accredited to a mixture of youth unemployment; worship of meritocratic and misogynistic ideology and; self-victimisation due to feminism (Park, 2021).
The unemployment rate during the Moon administration sat at around 4% but the under-30s unemployment rate rose from 7-8% in the 2000s to around 9 % in 2014, suggesting that any male dissatisfaction experienced when being unable to find a job was directed towards feminism and female prejudice. However, according to Nathan Park, it is the combination of the latter 2 that explains why 72.5% of male voters in their 20s voted conservative during the Seoul mayoral by-election in April 2021 (Park, 2021).
Anti-feminist Rally in South Korea
This ‘worship of the idea of meritocracy and misogyny’ grows from the modern struggle that the new generation of Korean men is faced with, through constant examinations and high competition for high-paying and secure jobs. Consequently, by living in the ‘gruelling hagwon/cram-school’ environment, it is argued that these younger generations have only “internalised the logic” of said exams, creating this “distorted moral sensibility” where the disadvantaged are made to blame for their suffering due to the individualist and capitalist belief that everyone is and starts ‘equal’ (Park, 2021).
As for the ‘self-victimisation’, Park comments on how young Korean men now perceive women as “threats who continue to receive preferential treatment”, where men themselves are now ‘victims of feminism’. This closely ties into the supposed dogmatic belief in meritocracy that Korean men tend to hold, where feminist discourse is misconstrued as being inherently radical and misandrist (Park, 2021).
Real-life examples of this are showcased in the publishing of the feminist novel “Kim Ji-young, Born 1982," which caused controversy in 2016. However, the film’s release in 2019 caused tremendous uproar among anti-feminists in the country. Reports claim that those who criticised the book say it “presents distorted views, is highly subjective, and makes negative, sexist generalisations against men.” In actuality, the novel served to document the prevalence of gender discrimination in the day-to-day lives of Korean women, using one of the most common Korean names of the current generation, ‘Kim Ji-young’, to detail the extent and intensity of subtle gender-based prejudice at every stage of a woman’s life, whether that be at birth, employment, starting a family, etc. Anti-feminist tensions were further extended to female celebrities who expressed their support for the book or through the actresses who acted in the film; the lead actress Jung Yu-mi’s Instagram page was bombarded with hate comments upon the release of the movie (Kim, 2019). Although male celebrities did offer some support for the novel, it was often the case that female celebrities faced the majority of the negative slander, raising questions about double standards even with ‘respected’ and ‘famous’ individuals.
The epidemic of digital sex crimes
It is due to socialisation and the establishment of norms and values in Korean society that have allowed digital sex crimes to go noticed but unacted upon. The presence of hidden cameras in hotels, public toilets and other domesticated locations is something most Koreans are aware of, yet a recent news finding has amassed a lot of attention and concern for female safety:
1-2 months ago, South Korea was met with a “deepfake porn emergency”: through social media reporting on outlets such as X (formerly known as Twitter), as well as domestic news sites, it was uncovered that a large number of chat groups had been creating and sharing deepfake images of young women, sometimes including underage girls.
In line with the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov, the use of the app was found to have been used for purposes such as these, but also for drug trafficking and fraud (Mackenzie, 2024).
Initially, it was thought that these chat groups were being used to target university students, yet it was later revealed that some rooms included specific high schools and middle schools. According to the BBC, it is the immensely bureaucratic and organised nature of the procedure that made such crimes so much more horrific, where members had to post photos along with the name, age and area that they lived in. Since these reports came out, women and teenagers across the country have removed their internet profiles, experienced anxiety and been fearful that they could be the ones being exploited next.
In spite of the ‘nth room’ crisis that took place in 2019, where a sex ring had used Telegram to coerce women and children into “creating and sharing sexually explicit images of themselves”, it appears that the government is still yet to take sexual crimes seriously, which some members of the public have started to express their concerns about. The ringleader of the ‘nth rooms’ was sentenced to 40+ years in jail but no further action was taken against the platform due to fears around censorship, nodding to the issue of free speech in South Korean media and its legal system (Mackenzie , 2024).
Concluding thoughts
Particularly in the last couple of years, I have identified South Korea as having developed a hostile relationship with the term 'feminism', showcased in popular media, government administrative changes, public reception and policing. The lack of 'change' and proportional domestic concern has been a key motivator, and so I thought that by providing an analysis of this 'social issue' and a breakdown of various case studies, I could try to spread more awareness of the severity of the problems that are being overlooked. Fortunately, through social media and widespread forum discussions, certain issues such as the most recent telegram crises were able to traverse over national borders, showcasing the versatility of media as being a double-edged sword.
Although the majority of this article discusses the supposedly ‘less developed’ form of feminism in South Korea today, there are some key takeaways that have come about from the Korean experience of feminist thinking that is relatively unique even to the West. For example, given Trump’s victory and the Republican Party’s controversial policies on female reproductive rights, American women have taken inspiration from the South Korean 4B movement, a radical movement which calls on women to “refrain from dating, having sex with men, having kids and marrying men” (Rosenblatt & Tolentino, 2024), a form of peaceful but very impactful protest.
The #MeToo movement in South Korea has most certainly not ‘died’ but perhaps due to the current government administration and their social standings, one can argue that the efforts and progress made in 2017 have stepped a foot in the wrong direction.
Some questions to consider
Despite the existence of multinational bodies moderating economic and political activity in certain regions, is there a need for cultural/gender-based committees? Would international centralisation of the education system be beneficial, especially sex education? Partial ‘global curriculum standardisation’ could be the right step forward, where there is the inclusion of certain topics e.g. feminism but if a government is against it, then what can be done?
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