Witch hunt against feminists in South Korea

[DisappearingGirl]

Terrifying article about the witch hunt against feminists - or actually all women under the guise of anti-feminism - in South Korea.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2621gzvkdo

"Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked."

Horrific, and awful that these men are just capitulated to

Not directly related to the trans issue, but very similar in the sense that males performing an online witch hunt are able to influence companies and government.

There is some relation to the trans issue

Feminists are now busy brainstorming ways to put an end to the witch hunts. One clear answer is legal change. In South Korea there is no blanket anti-discrimination law to protect women and prevent them being fired for their views.

It has been repeatedly blocked by politicians, largely because it would support gay and transgender people, with anti-feminists, and even some trans-exclusionary feminists, now lobbying against it.

Ironically, feminists are caught in a pincer movement 🤏

I caught part of a radio 4 (possibly R5) piece about a female game designer in SK who got trolled relentlessly after a game she helped design released a preview / demo video.

One of the female characters she designed and animated used a gesture that a lot of male gamers decided was similar to a ‘feminist’ hand signal mocking tiny penises… or something. Very odd.

I can’t see legislation fixing the problem in South Korea as it’s not going to address the root of the issue - that SK young women don’t want to marry and have children (or even to start relationships, preferring to focus on career growth) which is leaving young men there feeling bitter and socially restless.

That will eventually translate into an increase in suicide, but also crimes of rape and SA, as it did for China when the one child policy and female infanticide led to an overwhelming imbalance between the sexes.

They partly resolved it by sending their surplus young men off to client countries in, eg, Africa to work on their big civil engineering projects and to effectively colonise. South Korea doesn’t have that type of pressure valve available.

MapleStory: 'I got rape threats over claims I put feminist symbol in video game', says South Korea designer - BBC News

PaterPower .. the root of the issue - that SK young women don’t want to marry and have children (or even to start relationships, preferring to focus on career growth) which is leaving young men there feeling bitter and socially restless...
That will eventually translate into an increase in suicide, but also crimes of rape

The root of the issue, in this interpretation, is that men in SK, as elsewhere, believe they are entitled to sex, relationships, marriage, children with women. If women have other, independent ideas, they are denying men their 'rights', and this is used to 'explain' increased violence against women including rape (which is going on all the time anyway, regardless of women's career choices in SK or anywhere else) , and in some cases suicidal violence against themselves.

This is the basis of incel thought: that women are there for us, they owe us everything we ask of them, and if whichever one of them we choose refuses to have sex with us, regardless of what she thinks, rape or death will follow.

The problem is men's behaviour. The solution is changing men's behaviour, not women's. Men need to learn to take responsibility for themselves, and become solid balanced human beings, instead of being so pathetically, and dangerously, dependent on controlling women's behaviour in order to make them feel like 'proper' men.

There used to be men's groups which worked on just that: how to be strong independent men while respecting strong independent women. One of their slogans was:
TO WOMEN, THEIR RIGHTS AND NO LESS. TO MEN, OUR RIGHTS AND NO MORE.

As has often been said here: women are not support animals for men, not in South Korea, not anywhere.

In every country, all over the world, there are large numbers of men who hate women...

I don’t disagree with any of what you’ve said. In an ideal world that’s absolutely what would happen.

Meanwhile, in this world, the problem will get worse and SK’s proposed anti-online abuse laws won’t have much, if any, impact on it. Perhaps the approach you’ve suggested would be the better route, but it’s not (AFAIK) on the table there.

South Korea’s other pressing problem will be who will pay the taxes to support, and provide the care for, their older population. Their population growth rate has stalled completely, also as a result of young SK women not wanting to have families.

"They" don't like man hating women? Who is they? Oh yea the women hating misogynists.

So what should SK women do? You seem the imply their career ambitions were the chicken and misogyny is the egg, but cohldn"/ it also be the other way?

No one wants to marry under threat of rape if they don't!

Another example of men simply ignoring women until they want marriage and children then wondering why they aren't exactly the way they imagined them. I think it starts with education.

From what I have seen the culture is still very conservative, which we know enables miscommunication and suspicion to thrive. I think if I were in any position of power and wanted an increase in birth rate I would be looking at this from an early education initiative. Starting with team work, showing how families are built on trust, then as teens explaining female body issues like periods and having discussions about the enlistment of men - is this another pressure valve or is it undermining trust and dividing the sexes? Most of these subjects are bought up in clickbait articles in the West and because they are emotional they become divisive. What you need is to bring them into the light in an educational setting where debate and different opinions can be thought through without polarising.

Great post, I totally agree. According to this recent article some groups of both men & women are trying to promote better understanding.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/sep/20/inside-saturday-south-korea-gender-war

I read 'Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982' recently and it painted a bleak picture of the everywoman's life there. Hopefully things will improve soon! 🙏

I can't help wondering if that horrible Kim Jong-Un & maybe Jinping are trying to exacerbate online misogyny to destabilise the country

@MusettasWaltz you're reviving an awful lot of zombie posts, which isn't really the done thing on Mumsnet. Were you aware?

Sorry, I knew zombies were frowned on but this isn't that old, it's still this year & I'm pretty interested in SK..I'm sorry, I won't do it again

@MusettasWaltz very likely. Every country has to be aware that the internet and psyops from China/Russia are there to divide democracy.

I know there's a similar thing going on in the West because in US you have the anti-abortionists and Tradwife supporters and we have the whole steroid muscle man push under the guise of men being "healthy" but they fall into Andrew Tate clickbait online instead.

On the whole they struggle to get women to be as wound up as young men. Unfortunately we know men are more likely to be violent so violent crime against women and femicide is rising globally. Women tend to retreat and stay away from confrontation and the violent men they've wound up which then reinforces the fear from us and the anger from the men...this is just one part of why there are population issues in so many countries.

South Korean women should do whatever they feel best for themselves.

The South Korean Government, on the other hand, could more usefully concentrate on how the office culture in SK makes it difficult for women to have fulfilling careers AND have families. They could make it financially more rewarding to have children.

They could also attempt to swing (male) public opinion away from sexist, outdated, stereotyping. And punish physical and online attacks more effectively, to send a message that they won’t be tolerated.

Tea, this poster has the feel of the last couple of necromancers who said exactly the same thing - oh, I didn’t know, I promise not to do it again - and then promptly did it again. I smell a bot, or at least a rat.

Totally agree, I hope they do....

I'd be lying if I said it hadn't occurred to me too.

Men are getting on my last nerve...

It’s the shoehorning in “let’s blame China for all society’s ills” that has me going 🧐. I’m not saying China is perfect but I firmly believe that men all around the world are more than capable of rampant, nasty misogyny without any extra help from the conspiracy bingo card.

It's not a 'bingo card'. I'm sure SK would have these issues without China, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're fanning the flames. We know they're using TikTok to disrupt the US at least somewhat, and it would be odd if Xi DIDN'T want to muck things up in SK given he's allied with Kim.

We know there's been bot activity on contentious issues here, from Russia for one.