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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023

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Stop putting words in my mouth. Birthrates can decline for other reasons than feminism

Glad we agree.

Guess what kinds of social changes happened in Japan after WW2, relating to the role of women in society?

Yes, that modernization, entry of women into the workforce, birth control and other factors has generally resulted in declining birthrates in industrial countries is not in dispute. Whether or not that is a good thing is certainly debatable. But your specific claim was that Korea is "one of the most feminist countries in the world." It's not.

The status of women is very high in Japan (that much is visible from anime)

I cannot tell if you're serious.

wives feel free to spend their husband's money, ghost them, disrespect them and so on.

Wives have traditionally controlled the household purse strings since long before Westernization. That is a very traditional gender role in Japan and Korea.

As for "ghosting and disrespecting," I'm sure that happens, just as there is a catalog of abuses and grievances about how typical Japanese men treat women.

Is it western, girlboss feminism? No. But that's not the only kind of feminism. Different cultures can express feminism in different ways. Surely you could imagine a world where men have great economic power but minimal social power, are you going to say that's a patriarchy?

No, but I'm going to say you don't have a coherent idea of what feminism is, nor of Korean (or apparently, Japanese) society. You just see anime girls and some anecdotes you don't really understand and conclude "Super feminist country."

You just see anime girls and some anecdotes you don't really understand and conclude "Super feminist country."

At least try to follow the rules of the subreddit - I refer you to the parts about 'charity' and 'unnecessarily antagonistic'. If mods can't be bothered to do this, why should anyone else? That's not remotely what I said.

Anime is a major part of Japanese culture [citation needed]. A very common theme in anime is women walking all over/being incredibly bitchy to doormat black-haired Japanese male main characters. Even in their harem fantasies, they're so unassertive that it's usually the women who decide to woo the man, they're so petrified of acting on their own initiative. I take the view that the artistic exports of a country reveal something about its culture.

Wives have traditionally controlled the household purse strings since long before Westernization. That is a very traditional gender role in Japan and Korea.

Another Japanese traditional gender role is women having no legal standing whatsoever. Japanese and South Korean gender roles are not traditional, they are the opposite of traditional. Patriarchy and high birthrates are very closely linked, this is common sense and has many examples. A common feminist goal is to get women out of the home and into the workforce and they rail against 'baby machine' rhetoric. A common patriarchal goal is that women's role is raising children and doing housework, not working formal jobs. Obviously patriarchal societies will have high fertility.

That Japan and South Korea have ultralow birth rates without some disaster is sufficient to show that they're feminist, even without groups like Megalia that are just the cherry on top. That some Korean men are very angry with the situation, or that there aren't 50% female CEOs in SK, doesn't change the fundamentals.

If mods can't be bothered to do this, why should anyone else? That's not remotely what I said.

You interpreted some anime tropes that can best be characterized as "male fantasies" as indicative of what actual (not anime) Japanese society is like. This is like claiming that sitcoms are accurate depictions of American society. While you can certainly glean a lot of information about American society from sitcoms, you'd be making a serious mistake thinking that they are realistic depictions of American life, work environments, and gender roles. You are doubling down on this because clearly you know very little about Japan other than what you can piece together from entertainment media.

Another Japanese traditional gender role is women having no legal standing whatsoever.

That was a traditional gender role in most societies historically, and if you're reaching for "Any society where women have legal standing is feminist," well, I guess, for a certain value of "feminist." But it still does not support your claim that Korea and Japan are extremely feminist societies.