Liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung has received South Korea’s snap presidential election with a transparent lead. With all the ballots counted, Lee received virtually 50% of the vote, forward of his conservative rival Kim Moon-soo on 41%. He takes over a rustic that’s deeply divided alongside gender traces.
Lee’s marketing campaign successfully channelled voter anger. He centered on resetting South Korea’s politics after impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was from the identical occasion as Kim, unleashed chaos by declaring martial regulation in December 2024.
Nevertheless, gender battle has continued, subtly however powerfully, to form voter behaviour, marketing campaign methods and the nationwide debate about who’s responsible for the shortage of alternatives in South Korea for younger males.
The election occurred three years after Yoon pipped Lee to the presidency by only a quarter of one million votes – the closest margin within the nation’s historical past. Yoon’s victory was, as has been famous by researcher Kyungja Jung, “the epitome of the utilisation of gender wars”.
A key a part of Yoon’s technique was fostering a way amongst younger Korean males that it was now them, slightly than girls, who have been the victims 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.
Within the newest election, gender was in every single place and nowhere . On the one hand, not a single candidate put ahead a significant coverage to handle structural gender discrimination within the office, home violence or public sexual harassment.
None even talked about the gaping absence of ladies candidates, regardless of 1000’s of largely younger girls having stuffed the streets demanding democracy after Yoon’s martial regulation declaration. It was the primary time in practically 20 years that not a single girl stood among the many contenders for the very best position within the nation.
The presidential candidates of South Korea’s main political events – (left to proper) Lee Jae-myung of the liberal Democratic occasion, Kim Moon-soo of the conservative Folks Energy occasion, Lee Jun-seok of the Reform occasion and Kwon Younger-kook of the Democratic Labor occasion.
Yonhap / EPA
Lee, positioning himself because the consensus candidate, tried to neutralise gender as a marketing campaign concern. When reporters 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 comment might sound inclusive. But it surely alerts a technique to declare the gender concern off-limits for the sake of the higher good, thus sidestepping the precise inequalities that proceed to divide the nation. It’s a type of unity by erasure.
Lee Jun-seok of the right-wing Reform occasion, then again, tried to resurrect the identical playbook that delivered Yoon to energy in 2022. He tried to impress, polarise and win the loyalty of disaffected younger males.
As Yoon had executed three years in the past, he referred to as for the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Household. And 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 a nod to a controversial on-line comment Lee Jae-myung’s son had made years earlier.
Lee Jun-seok’s remark drew widespread condemnation and, finally, he solely scraped about 7.7% of the whole vote. This included over 37% of males of their 20s, whereas 58% of ladies in the identical age group backed Lee Jae-myung. Gender is a extremely political matter in South Korea whichever approach you take a look at it.
Gender wars
This gender divide is now one of the constant options of South Korean politics. Ladies are vocal and visual in public to safeguard not simply their very own rights, but in addition South Korea’s democracy.
But populist politicians have cultivated a notion amongst younger males – squeezed by stagnant wages, fierce competitors over jobs and social expectations – that their diminishing alternatives are as a result of insurance policies they see as favouring girls.
This has resulted in lots of younger South Korean males seeing feminism not as a motion for equality however as an impediment to their very own progress. In actuality, their wrestle has much less to do with gender and extra to do with structural inequalities in earnings 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 folks even from the most effective universities in Korea really feel they can’t compete within the job market it doesn’t matter what they do. South Korea now has one of many highest charges of younger folks not in schooling, employment or coaching among the many OECD international locations. This has given rise to the so-called “N-Po” era, who really feel so deprived that they’ve given up on all future desires of marriage, household and a profession.
South Korea isn’t alone in mobilising backlash towards feminism and gender equality. Across the globe, gender has turn into one of many main fault traces in politics. Within the November 2024 US election, Donald Trump led amongst younger males by 14 factors, whereas Kamala Harris had an 18-point edge with younger girls.
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, regardless of being a girl herself, reduces girls to their roles as moms and homemakers.
Younger girls performed a key position within the protests towards Yoon’s martial regulation declaration.
Icelander / Shutterstock
One mannequin for change in South Korea may very well be to introduce quotas for girls in politics to make their voices heard. Ladies solely occupy round 20% of the 300 seats in South Korea’s Nationwide Meeting, trailing properly behind the worldwide (27.2%) and Asian (22.1%) averages. If girls should not in politics making choices about themselves, then their voices is not going to be heard past the streets.
Lee Jae-myung’s win has given South Korea a second to breathe. However the fault traces stay. When a complete demographic, be it younger males or girls, feels systematically unheard or structurally discriminated towards, opportunistic voices can transfer in to fill the void.
Gender is political. Ignoring it might be simply as dangerous as confronting it head-on.
