Article about the pretty amazing, strong and brave women of South Korea who opt out men.

[YouAreNotBatman]

www.thecut.com/2023/03/4b-movement-feminism-south-korea.html

Just wanted to share this.
This is what feminism looks like!

Yes! Grassroots feminism still exists, not that much among the young in the West, but in South Korea, certainly, and also in Japan and Thailand. And of course in Iran and in Afghanistan, though there the resistance is brutal and winning.

Really interesting article!

I was just going to say there's another good article about this in Feminism Chat, but then I realised it's the same one!

Really interesting article @YouAreNotBatman It is fascinating to hear what's going on outside the English-speaking world.

In their view, Korean men are essentially beyond redemption, and Korean culture, on the whole, is hopelessly patriarchal — often downright misogynistic.

this is so sad. For their experiences of men to be so bad that they just don’t want anything to do with them

A 2016 survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family found the incidence of intimate-partner violence at 41.5 percent, significantly higher than the global average of 30 percent.

holy crap

it says later in the article that the birth rate in Korea is 0.78. Practical results of men being shit and women having choices

it’s going to be fascinating to see how this goes

'When Minji and I met at a coffee shop near the city’s central train station, she told me she was worried that someone in the café might post a photo of her online because she had short hair and was speaking openly about feminism. Others I spoke with insisted on using pseudonyms for safety reasons.'

It's sad that it's come to this.

The beauty standards in South Korea are insane. And the fertility rate is an indication that traditional heterosexual models are not working there.

If the birth rate is 0.78 South Koreans will be extinct in a couple of generations. I dread to think how the current government will react to that prospect.

That sex gap in earnings is huge! I know some South Korean women who often discuss the strong male preference and sexist assumptions which prevail there.

It's also fascinating how so many men in countries with low birth rates try to force women to start making more babies without any concessions. All whip, no carrot for us.

Their choice reminds me of the limited choices in Ireland, not so long ago. The only way to avoid male abuse was to embrace all women societies, such as the nuns.

Over the last number of years I’ve read articles about S Korea that discussed the country’s toxic men problems, for example:

• Web forums/websites where girls and women are blackmailed and coerced by men into providing sexual and pornographic content (there’s real competition among the men to degrade and hurt the women who they see as their sex slaves);
• There’s the ‘molka’ epidemic of hidden cameras placed in women’s spaces with videos being uploaded to porn sites;
• Both molka and the online sex abuse forums have resulted in violated/abused women committing suicide.
• S Korea is a very patriarchal society where traditionally women are expected to move in with the husband’s family and take care of him, any children they have, and the husband’s parents.
• S Korean police don’t take violent or sexual crimes against women as seriously as they should.
• Idol culture has resulted in huge pressure on women to have plastic surgery and to conform to expensive/time-consuming beauty culture expectations.
• There is also a growing problem with male fans bullying and harassing female idols who displease them in some way (most often by the idols having a ‘secret’ boyfriend.

To be honest, I hugely admire the young Korean women who want no part of their society’s expectations for how they should live. It isn’t easy for them to try and live as single women, or to refuse to adhere to the traditional beauty standards. I wish they didn’t feel they have to practice separatism but I fully understand why some of them do.

Good for them

Reading the comments to that article is depressing. So many men spewing misogynistic bile which reinforces why women need space away from them.