Angry young men hold aces in S Korea poll

WHEN Kang Han Byul was harassed by a man in a supermarket in Seoul, she quickly guessed it was because of her short hair and feminist views.

“I run a community of women who chose a life without marriage, so my personal information such as my photos and names are on the internet. I face a lot of harassment and verbal abuse online,” she said.

Ms Kang is just one of a growing number of women facing abuse and derision from angry young men in South Korea, amid an “anti-feminist” movement seeping into politics and threatening to reverse the small gender equality gains made in recent years.

Despite being the world’s 10th largest economy, the country has stymied women’s progress in the workplace for generations, with many still expected to care for their families above all else.

Some 80 per cent of South Korean men in their 20s agree that “feminism is aiming for female supremacy”, according to a survey. More than 60 per cent disagreed that “feminism is aiming for gender equality”.

Those sentiments have fuelled an increasingly toxic war of the sexes.

An San, South Korea’s 20-year-old triple Olympic archery champion, was heavily bullied online last year after cutting her hair short – a look labelled as too “feminist” – with some telling her to return her three gold medals.

The growing popularity of anti-feminist views led to a victory for the conservative People Power Party (PPP) in last year’s mayoral by-election in Seoul.

Lee Jun-seok, 36, a leading member of the campaign, claimed the ruling Democratic Party lost because of a “fixation on a pro-women agenda”. Lee was promoted to party chairman and analysts dubbed the result as the birth of “angry young men” as a crucial swing voting bloc for the Left or the Right.

It’s a bloc that both of the main candidates are trying to win over before the election on March 9. The PPP’s Yoon Suk-Yeol has pledged to bring in tougher penalties for false reports of sexual assaults and dismantle the gender equality ministry, established in 2001.

Lee Jae-myung, from the ruling Democrats, has also got involved, posting on social media: “Just as you should not be discriminated against for being a woman, it’s not right to be discriminated against for being a man.”

That sort of rhetoric is now considered the easiest way to rally support from young male voters, said Hawon Jung, author of a book on South Korea’s MeToo movement.

“Galvanising the young men angry at feminists has become a key political strategy of the Right-wing party,” she said. “Many worry this shift in political mood will cast a pall over the hard-won progress women have achieved against all odds.”

‘Many worry that this shift in political mood will cast a pall over the progress women have achieved’