In the wake of Yoon Suk-yeol’s failed self-coup on December 3, South Korean citizens took to the streets to protect the country’s democracy, staging a massive protest led by women in their 20s and 30s. The participation of young female K-Pop fans in particular has drawn attention to women’s role in the peaceful protests, while images of Democratic Party spokeswoman Ahn Gwi-Ryeong defiantly grabbing a soldier’s rifle inspired worldwide admiration.
The strong political consciousness of South Korean women is far from a new phenomenon.
Women have historically been at the forefront of resistance and activism, from women-led labor organizing in the 1970s under the Park Chung-hee dictatorship, to the 2016 protests against his daughter, former President Park Geun-hye. Candlelight movements – a repeated form of peaceful protest in South Korea – originated in vigils held in memory of two middle school girls accidentally killed by a U.S. military vehicle in 2002, and gained prominence during the protests against U.S. beef import (largely led by teenage girls) in 2008 and again during the protests leading up to the impeachment of Park in 2016.
Yet women are also persistently sidelined in Korean politics, all while bearing the brunt of the country’s socio-economic woes.
Since the 1997 financial crisis, the rise of labor market inequality has disproportionately affected women, who are concentrated in irregular work and thus more likely to be excluded from labor protections and benefits. Recent data shows that women are paid on average 31 percent less than men in South Korea, in addition to being the primary targets of gender-based violence and online sex crimes such as deepfake pornography.
In recent years, the plight of women has been compounded by an anti-feminist backlash, which denies the very existence of gender inequality and discrimination. It is therefore no surprise that women are at the core of the movement for the impeachment of Yoon, a president whose election was explicitly premised on anti-feminist rhetoric, fueling a gender war that sharply divided the country.
The present moment is critical not only for South Korean democracy but also for women’s struggles for equality and justice. As such, recognizing the centrality of women’s role in the recent events is crucial, though not sufficient, to move beyond toxic patriarchy and reinstate gender equality into the country’s political agenda.
Anti-Feminism and Crisis Under Conservative Rule
Women’s rights have suffered a serious setback under the conservative Yoon government. Upon his election in 2022, Yoon set out to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, claiming that it caused reverse discrimination against men and portrayed them as potential sex criminals. Such claims align with anti-feminist ideas prevalent among young men aged 18-29, Yoon’s primary voter base, who see themselves as the victims of women’s empowerment and blame feminism for the country’s severely low birth rate.
While the ministry still exists, it has effectively been sabotaged through the elimination of women-centric initiatives and failure to appoint a minister for over 10 months. Adding insult to injury, the government’s strategy to address the fertility crisis rehashed unpopular measures that disregard women’s reproductive rights and the deeper structural issues of permanent economic insecurity, unequal care burdens, and discrimination against women.
Statements by conservative party members condoning misogyny and fostering anti-feminist tendencies originated in online alt-right communities such as Ilbe in the 2010s. Whereas misogyny was co-opted, radical feminist groups such as the now defunct Megalia became conflated with all types of feminism, leading to paranoid allegations of misandry. Anti-feminist censorship and gaslighting became rife on social media and creative content industries such as gaming and webtoons/web novels, where many women faced harassment and lost their jobs as a result.
Education has also been mired in gender conflict. Since November, students have been protesting against Dongduk Women’s University’s plan to transition toward mixed sex education as a way to strengthen its competitiveness. Critics point out that other reform plans should be considered and deem it as an attack on feminism, as women’s universities in South Korea play an important role not only in promoting equal educational opportunities, but also as sites of women-led politics and feminist solidarity.
Not Just Conservatives – Systemic Sexism and Women’s Struggles
Young women’s overwhelming presence at the recent protests against Yoon is the culmination of a long-term struggle for gender equality. However, the movement itself has also not been immune to gender conflict, despite its strong display of solidarity and diversity.
Controversy was recently sparked by a comment made on an episode of an online podcast, the Maebul Show, by Park Gu-yong, a professor of philosophy at Jeonnam University and head of the Democratic Party’s Education and Training Institute. Expressing his surprise at the large number of women at rallies, Park encouraged young men to show up, adding with a suggestive laugh that “there will be a lot of women there.” This was largely interpreted as a distasteful joke that objectifies women as an instrument for men’s entertainment and devalues their political participation.
In the face of heated criticism, Park posted an apology claiming to have been misunderstood, and the Democratic Party issued an official statement enjoining its members to be respectful in public discussion. Nevertheless, veteran women activists expressed their disappointment at the continuous lack of respect for women and their dignity in public spaces, even amongst progressives.
Patriarchal and sexist attitudes toward women in protests are not new. Women also confronted sexist remarks during the 2016 Candlelight Movement, as gendered hate speech against former President Park was emboldened by popular anger. Criticism against Park was often loaded with misogynistic language and indiscriminate women bashing, becoming entangled with emerging anti-feminist rhetoric at the time.
This legacy continues to shape women’s place in democratic struggles today. As feminist activist Shim Mi-Seob pointed out, “At the time of Park Geun-hye’s impeachment, Assemblyman Park Jie-won said ‘don’t even dream of a female president for a hundred years.’ Now he is not saying ‘this is why we shouldn’t have a male president.’ Instead he calls Yoon a ‘crazy idiot.’ Women’s failure is blamed on gender, but men’s blunders are just individual flaws.”
According to Shim, allegations that First Lady Kim Keon-hee was behind Yoon’s declaration of martial law encouraged displays of hostility toward women at the impeachment rallies. Shim herself was shouted down by voices from the audience calling “take down the feminists!” as she was giving a speech.
While the first lady’s involvement in several corruption scandals is a legitimate cause for outcry, her detractors have verged on misogyny by using terms such as “Julie’s martial law,” invoking an unverified rumor that Kim used to work as a salon hostess under the name of Julie.
The normalization of slander against women runs against democratic aims and risks reinforcing misogynist tendencies, thereby posing a threat to women’s safety and psychological wellbeing. Already, concerns about violence against women in public protests have been raised after a male teenager was arrested for assaulting two women at an impeachment rally in Ulsan, reportedly shouting at them to “shut up” while they were distributing leaflets.
What Lies Ahead: No Democracy Without Women’s Rights
In a society where gender discrimination and sexism are deeply ingrained, the struggle for women’s rights clearly extends beyond Yoon’s impeachment. As such, the celebratory narrative of South Korea’s democratic victory should be counter-balanced with a sober assessment of the concrete challenges faced by women and marginalized groups on the ground.
The country now confronts the difficult task of transcending the divisions that have torn the country apart over the past few years. The present conjuncture seems to offer a precious chance to do so. The national shock in the aftermath of the failed self-coup, exacerbated by the ruling People Power Party’s refusal to take part in the first impeachment vote, has generated a collective sense of betrayal and disillusionment toward conservatives. According to Gallup poll results, the Yoon government’s approval rating fell to an all-time low of 11 percent in the week following the martial law declaration, while 75 percent of respondents were in favor of impeachment.
In addition, the political crisis has brought together a diversity of actors, including feminists, labor unions, farmers’ groups, as well as civic and minorities’ advocacy groups in an impressive show of solidarity. In Daegu, a city long considered as conservative stronghold, citizens showed up to impeachment rallies holding banners that read “Daegu is not the conservatives’ bastion” and “the heart of conservatism will grow old and die.”
On the other hand, it is not guaranteed that such solidarity can mend the faultlines of gender conflict in South Korea. The rate of participation in the Yoon impeachment protests by men in their 20s was 3.3 percent according to the latest estimate, which is a significant decrease compared to similar protests in the past including Park’s impeachment in 2016.
The anti-Park movement itself started as a student sit-in at Ewha Women’s University, which was repressed by the police and branded by the media as a privileged women’s club, before it grew into a large-scale popular movement. Subsequently, women’s voices at the heart of social resistance were not only marginalized, but were met with growing resentment and hatred during the progressive Moon Jae-in administration.
Although self-branded as feminist and pro-labor, in practice Moon’s government failed to institutionalize the rights of women, irregular workers, and minorities, which worsened social polarization and provided a basis for right-wing populism to gain momentum. Despite holding the majority in the National Assembly, the Democratic Party dragged its feet on urgent bills at the time, including the Anti-Discrimination Law, which promises much needed protection against gender and sex-based discrimination, as well as the “Yellow Envelope” bill, which aims to expand the country’s narrow labor rights coverage. The former did not even get a chance under the conservative government, while the latter was stricken down by Yoon’s presidential veto.
In this context, the struggle for democracy embodied in the ongoing candlelight movement can only be realized if its forces grow beyond a momentary outburst of emotions and create resilient solidarities across social and political divides. As the young feminist writer Ha Min-Ah argued, “There can be no fundamental change if we are indifferent to injustice in our daily lives,” emphasizing the need for the fight against oppression to outlive the impeachment protests.
Whoever governs next, there is the risk that women’s struggles will serve as a political instrument, only to recede into the background again as they have in the past.
But South Korean women are looking to the future with hope. Beyond a mere response to crisis, many headed to the impeachment rallies with the firm determination to use them as an opportunity to voice their long-neglected demands. On December 14, indie feminist artist Lang Lee powerfully expressed such demands by performing “There Is a Wolf,” a folk song which explicitly denounces social inequality and calls for a people’s revolt against the powerful. The song had been banned from the Busan-Masan Democratic Protests Ceremony in 2022 for being too seditious, only to come back with a vengeance right in front of the National Assembly where the president was being impeached.
At the picket line, the Feminist-Queer Network for Democracy made it clear that impeachment is only the beginning of genuine democratization, captured in their slogans “democracy starts from women’s rights” and “the era of unrestrained masculinism is over.”