For several months, in South Korea, an anti-feminist movement has been gaining momentum in a country yet with a modern image. Worn by YouTubers and influencers, it reveals a conservative streak of young South Korean men. Feminist activists are victims of online harassment and their opponents sometimes confront them violently during their demonstrations. It should be noted that feminism has a particularly pejorative connotation in the minds of many South Koreans, who consider it to be a radical ideology.
Some men go further by fighting directly against feminism. Thus, last winter, during a demonstration for the right to abortion, a dozen men faced the activists with clear and violent slogans: “Feminism is cancer, it’s mental illness. Why ? Because they are crazy. They ask for rights, but they do not fulfill their duties as women… That’s why feminism is a cancer. “
In recent months, this anti-feminist trend has been made more visible by several online controversies. For example, An San, a three-time archery gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, has come under criticism. In question, his haircut, considered too short and therefore too feminist by some, mainly men and especially young men
A 2019 study found that nearly 60% of South Koreans between the ages of 18 and 35 said they were opposed to feminism. The leading figures of the movement are YouTubers who have made themselves very popular thanks to violent actions and comments, as during this feminist rally in Busan in the south of the country last July.
“They’re misandres, they hate men. It’s okay if you don’t know them, because I’m going to kill them all.”
A YouTuberto franceinfo
The man who speaks in this video disguised as a Joker, is called WangJa or “The Prince”, and is one of the figures of the “Male Solidarity” movement. If the group’s YouTube channel has only 400,000 subscribers, anti-feminist accounts and blogs generate several million cumulative views. These anti-feminists consider that gender equality has already been achieved in the country, even though women are paid 1.6 times less than men. Some even believe that women are favored in South Korea, as only men must complete the 18 months of compulsory military service.
There are several explanations for this reactionary and conservative surge among South Koreans aged 18 to 35. One of them is a feeling of social and economic downgrading, as this generation faces unemployment and has less opportunity than their parents who experienced the rapid growth of the country. A feeling of failure or downgrading that prompts some of them to point the finger at women, or sometimes strangers, as the cause of their failure.