According to Kim Ju-hee, the founder of Haeil: “Korea is a country with a long history of male supremacy that favours boys and aborts a large number of girls,” which, she says, has naturally spurred a “brutal patriarchy”. Easy Scapegoatsįor Suk-yeol, women were an easy scapegoat. “There have been men who have been following women's demonstrations and acting threateningly since then, this was the first time that they have made money by following them in groups and broadcasting them in real-time,” says Yujin. According to Yujin, women were filmed without permission, accosted with murder threats and chased with water guns that they feared may have been loaded with diluted semen because of previous such attacks. In August 2021, at a Haeil demonstration that Yujin attended, the president of the New Men’s Solidarity Movement, a misogynistic website with 360,000 subscribers, mobilised his followers to harass protesters. Unfortunately, the retaliation against feminist movements has only increased. Women attending protests are often are forced to wear masks, sunglasses and caps to conceal their identity and evade surveillance. Yujin, a feminist who has protested before with Haeil, recalls how in 2019, she was followed by “one or two incel men” on her way to a protest. While the likes of economic discrimination and sexual harrassment dogs women in the country, rising anti-feminst sentiment means their physical safety and security is also constantly threatened. Their struggle does not come without risk, however, and on multiple fronts. Sign up now A worsening situation for women Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Despite the new reality of an incoming president who doesn’t believe gender-based structural discrimination exists in South Korea, the country’s feminist movement is determined to fight back. But it was Suk-yeol’s active misogyny that won him the day, carried to victory on the backs of male voters in their 20s and 30s. Suk-yeol’s opponent, Lee Jae-myung of the previously ruling Democratic Party, didn’t instill much hope either in recent years, the party has seen a slew of sexual harassment scandals. But central to his campaign were pledges to address the grievances of young Korean men who consider themselves anti-feminists, including abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. He ran on a platform of promising to tackle class inequality and get tough on China, while aligning more with the US. Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s incoming president, is a controversial figure. “No candidate sees women as they really are.”
“We have to choose the head of the state, but there is no candidate for women to choose from,” says Haein, who originally hails from Gwangju in south-west South Korea and now lives in the US. But ultimately it was Yoon Suk-yeol of the People Power Party – in Haein’s eyes, the worse of two evils – who won. As the senior director of foreign media of Seoul-based feminist group Haeil (translated as ‘Tsunami’), Haein had felt neither candidate was necessarily a strong or progressive choice. “I threw up and cried.” This was 30-year-old Haein Shim’s reaction to the results of South Korea’s presidential election, held on 9 March.