SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s choice to use the nation’s gender wars as a marketing campaign platform for his profitable election earlier this month could have backfired.
Yoon, who gained an unprecedented tight March 9 election, had promised to abolish the federal government’s gender ministry, a pledge that helped interact younger male voters spearheading a backlash in opposition to feminism in South Korea.
Fulfilling the pledge, nevertheless, requires approval from parliament, which is managed by the Democrats, who presently oppose the thought. Opinion inside his personal People Power Party (PPP), in the meantime, is break up amid considerations about additional alienating ladies forward of key native elections in June.
Cho Eun-hee, a newly elected feminine PPP lawmaker, is amongst these calling for the Ministry of Gender Equality & Family’s mandate to be boosted, through the creation of a brand new company if essential.
“Despite its quite a few constructive features, the ministry has been criticised for fuelling gender conflicts … nevertheless it’s not all or nothing, we’d like to collect knowledge to discover a forward-looking different,” Cho mentioned.
The ministry has turn out to be a lightning rod for an more and more acrimonious gender debate within the nation of 52 million the place a number of inequalities stay – the ladies’s labour market participation price is under the OECD common and it has the worst gender pay hole in the identical group.
However, in a post-pandemic cutthroat job market, some younger males really feel that makes an attempt to redress the steadiness have gone too far. Mandatory navy service for younger males – and never ladies – has come beneath the highlight, whereas measures corresponding to monetary subsidies for girls dwelling alone have been dubbed “reverse discrimination.”
Yoon, who additionally vowed to elevate wages for navy conscripts and scrap gender quotas for public sector jobs after he takes workplace in May, was backed by round 60% of male voters of their 20s.
On the flipside, simply 34% of ladies of their 20s voted for Yoon, defying pre-election polls projecting a lot increased assist amongst that demographic.
The Democratic Party, eyeing the gender challenge as a driving pressure to regroup following the election defeat, has appointed as its new interim chief a 26-year-old feminist who has been a pointy critic of Yoon’s insurance policies.
“FEMINIST RHETORIC”
The origins of the ministry date again to 1988 when an workplace was arrange beneath the prime minister to promote ladies’s standing in a male-dominated Confucian society, earlier than it was scaled up in 2010 to incorporate broader gender and household affairs.
While some blame its “feminist” rhetoric for stoking anti-men sentiment, it has additionally come beneath fireplace throughout the political spectrum in recent times for defending high-profile ruling social gathering politicians accused of intercourse abuses. It was additionally criticised for serving to the outgoing Democrat Party devise insurance policies in the course of the election marketing campaign, as a substitute of remaining impartial.
A Realmeter ballot launched in January confirmed round 52% of Koreans supported shuttering or refurbishing the ministry.
“The ministry had failed to deal with requires reform, which eroded public belief and raised considerations about intensifying gender divide,” mentioned Koo Jeong-woo, a sociology professor at Sungkyunkwan University.
“Some folks concern that they could lose their advantages and indispensable assist, and that is the place the president-elect ought to play his position, to alleviate their considerations.”
The ministry additionally works to stop intercourse crimes and home violence and shield victims, and assist kids, single mother or father and different needy households – programmes supporters say can be undercut if parcelled out to different ministries.
Many ladies are involved scrapping the ministry can be regressive at a time when extra work was wanted on gender equality.
“The ministry must be gone sooner or later, however we aren’t there but,” mentioned Kim Ji-yun, 22, who voted in opposition to Yoon.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Additional reporting by Yeni Seo, Minwoo Park and Sunghyuk An; Editing by Jane Wardell)
