Understanding antifeminist backlash in the South Korean context: Remnants of militarism and patriarchy
Understanding antifeminist backlash in the South Korean context: Remnants of militarism and patriarchy
WRITTEN BY JIMIN NAM
28 February 2024
The global antifeminist backlash is more intense than ever. It is happening in diverse forms in various places: women’s abortion rights are being stripped away in the US; anti-gender movements that vilify feminism and LGBTQIA+ ideologies are rising in Italy, France, Germany, and Finland; state policies are silencing feminist voices online and offline in China; and Brazil elected a far-right, sexist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic president in 2018. South Korea is no exception. The ‘war against feminism’ is currently sweeping the nation.
Backlash in South Korea
Since 2016, at least forty-three workers have been mistreated at work for being feminists in South Korea. In 2016, a voice actress was fired for uploading a picture of herself wearing a t-shirt saying ‘Girls do not need a prince’ on social media. In 2023, another company fired a female employee after her social media — showing her support for legalising abortion and protests addressing spy-cam crimes rampant in the nation — was excavated by male users.
Antifeminists take cyberbullying of (alleged) feminist women to the extreme, even causing the suicide of a female streamer. Women with short hair, a symbol of feminism that rebels against the conforming femininities in South Korea, are targets of physical bullying. Rising conservative politics is not helping. The current government is abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family — a campaign promise that was fervently supported by many young men in their twenties, the demographic of which 79 per cent believe that men are discriminated against for being men. The budget for all gender divisions in eight ministries will be cut in half in 2024. The government erased the term ‘gender’ or ‘women’ — for example, changing the term ‘gender-based violence’ into ‘violence’ — in its policy plans.
In South Korea specifically, backlash is not just a reaction to the rise of popular feminism since 2015. Instead, it is an indicator that two related institutions, militarism and patriarchy, persist in South Korean society and represent gender norms in a way that positions feminism as something problematic.
With even universities failing to be safe spaces for talking about feminism, the backlash has pushed more women in their twenties to talk about feminism solely in online spaces to protect their safety. While the term ‘backlash’ is often imagined as a mere reaction against something, such as the rise of feminism, feminist scholars argue that it is more than that; backlash should be read as a continuum. Queer activists in Brazil, for instance, understood the election of Jair Bolsonaro in 2018 not as “a return to dictatorship but an elaboration of continuing authoritarian features of Brazilian society”. In other words, backlash should be analysed historically, considering it indicates oppressive institutions remaining and underlying in society from the past, not a reaction formed out of nowhere.
In South Korea specifically, backlash is not just a reaction to the rise of popular feminism since 2015. Instead, it is an indicator that two related institutions, militarism and patriarchy, persist in South Korean society and represent gender norms in a way that positions feminism as something problematic.
Tracing the roots
A similar type of backlash that we see today happened in 1999 and was connected to the male-only conscription that started in 1951 during the Korean War (1950-1953) under dictator Rhee Syngman. In the 1960s, the ‘point system’ was created to benefit male jobseekers who served in the military by awarding extra credits when competing in several civil servant exams. In the 1990s, the system was expanded to all civil servant exams, as well as the hiring process of private companies. The reform was catalysed by a national controversy over political elites avoiding conscription. Sociologist Bae Eun-Kyung argues that the government chose not to confront the male political elites but expanded the ‘point system’ at the expense of the rights of female job seekers and those with disabilities.
The prototype of the current backlash started when a constitutional complaint against the expanded ‘point system’ was filed in 1998 by a group of women at Ewha Women’s University, as well as a man with disabilities who argued that the new system discriminated against people who cannot serve in the military due to disabilities or unless choosing the military as one’s career. In 1999, the court ultimately ruled in favour of the complaint. Right after the ruling, online forums of the websites of women’s rights organisations and Ewha Women’s University were flooded with misogynistic claims that women were ‘selfish’, ‘cunning’, and ‘ungrateful’. Due to the persistence and intensity of the backlash that lasted into the 2000s, scholars have referred to this period as ‘cyber terror’.
Remnants of militarism and patriarchy
These intense reactions by many men and antifeminists were possible due to militarism and patriarchy, two institutions that shape South Korean society, as indicated by the backlash.
Being a place that forces men to unlearn and learn everything, the military and its legitimacy of conscription successfully create patriarchal versions of the gendered identities of men in South Korea. Specifically, the military, intertwined with its relevant popular culture, cultivates a moral identity in their soldiers to be a filial son, a manly boyfriend, and a strong guardian of the nation. Regardless of its human rights abuses and violent nature of forcing people to serve, the military becomes the core of South Korean masculinity, making it difficult for women or people with disabilities to be critical of the system without facing backlash.
Militarism not only shapes patriarchal gender norms in the military but also in the workspace. The militarised workspaces in South Korea have led women to quit their jobs due to constantly losing chances for promotions by being excluded from male-only networking activities. Adapting well to the militaristic hierarchical culture of many South Korean workspaces — a culture which men are thoroughly trained for through military service — is also not an asset for many women. Militarism, therefore, reinforces patriarchy in the workspace and society by pushing women back into the home. Militarism forms gendered identities for both women and men, the former as a girlfriend, mother, and a woman, as well as an incompetent worker, and the latter as a guardian of the nation, as well as a competent worker.
Patriarchy itself has also produced gender norms. During the 1960s and 1970s, South Korea was a post-war developmentalist nation culturally united through middle-class fantasies: a hard-working man with a stable job, his full-time stay-at-home spouse and their three kids were held up as a moral ideal of happiness and diligence. It was a mere fantasy, considering the mass of women being mobilised to work in factories from the 1960s to the 1980s. In the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, despite the mass layoffs of female workers, society only paid attention to the remaining male workers who toiled at work, glorifying them as heroes. Such patriarchal fantasies have been treated as truths, leading people to believe that women conveniently stayed at home and exploited men while men were tied down in the military and the workplace. The stereotype persists today, fuelling the assumption of antifeminist logic.
Moving forward
Both backlash from the past and present tell us that feminism — critical voices that challenge the given social order — is threatening the gender norms formed by militarism and patriarchy. The backlash shows how feminism is perceived by many as the dismantling of gender norms, such as women being attacked for cutting their hair short or challenging what is supposed to be given to men, such as the ‘point system’. To tackle the backlash, scholars and policymakers should keep tracing the historical contexts of the current backlash and provide public platforms. People who support feminism should stay optimistic nonetheless because, ironically, the backlash is a sign that the underlying institutions are being impacted by feminism. Oppressive institutions have not been unimpacted but are also desperately fighting back to maintain their authority.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
JiMin Nam is a social anthropologist who holds a Master of Philosophy in Social Anthropology from the University of Oslo, Norway. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from Underwood International College, Yonsei University, South Korea. Image credit: Unsplash/Yokeboy.