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WTF is going on in Korea?
Meta: I haven't posted in the CWT in a minute, Life gets in the way. This post is going to be mostly copy pasted content from elsewhere. I will attempt to consolidate some of it here. It's probably going to be a very sparse list compared to all the relevant pieces of context, but I attempt to shed some light and discuss nevertheless.
TLDR: The "Gender War" is a significant aspect of the Korean culture wars. And it seems to be more pronounced in Korea than any other society. I really want to know why. I think this bears studying given gender relations are deteriorating globally, and if Japan is 10 years ahead in neetdom, South Korea is definitely 10 years ahead in whateverthefuck dom this is. Their infamously low birthrate is also an elephant in the room, whilst we have this discussion.
Exhibit A
This culture war survey:
Page 12, We can see that Koreans most of all nationalities think there is significant tension between men and women. Koreans tend to top the charts for other questions as well, so it might just be the case that the Korean social fabric is especially frayed, or Koreans are just especially neurotic or self-critical.
However, it does seem that the social fabric is fraying like no other on multiple fronts in Korea:
Exhibit B
Just simple web searching. If something is in the air, people are probably talking about it. Or inversely, if people are taking about it, it stinks.
It does seem that the Gender War is becoming more "interesting". Not especially so in Korea however. But try the search term "reddit war $COUNTRY", and lo and behold, you actually get posts about it when you try with
COUNTY='Korea'.Some examples from the first page: https://old.reddit.com/r/Hangukin/comments/1708gpj/can_people_explain_to_me_wtf_is_going_on_with_the/, https://old.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/18cnto9/whats_going_on_with_the_gender_conflict_and_it/, https://old.reddit.com/r/korea/comments/18qlyqe/why_does_the_battle_of_sexes_seem_more_pronounced/, https://old.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/19bvpjq/whats_the_deal_with_feminism_and_antifeminism_in/, https://old.reddit.com/r/SingaporeRaw/comments/192yymo/do_you_think_singapore_will_face_a_south_korean/
Exhibit C
"The incel election" Enough said? I don't think there is much other evidence required that this is a significant CW front in Korea.
Youtube video - Gacha Drama and the Korean Gender War (You can disagree with thesis, I'm just linking to show its a thing people are picking up on)
Study - The Gender War and the Rise of Anti-family Sentiments in South Korea (You can disagree with thesis...)
Exhibited D
This is totally comprised of anecdotes, but I buy it.
Some comments from the reddit posts above: Common theme, Korean feminism dials the man-hate up to 11.
So what gives? Why did the gender war hit Korea like a truck?
Korea is already on its way to extinction, so at least this won't be a problem for that long, but still, I am really left scratching my head. Are there any historical examples of this ?
One running theory other than the normie, "It's because they work really long hours hurr durr" (which does have a massive nugget of truth to it), is that Korea is especially unfathomably status obsessed. All that exam cramming, all that plastic surgery, it's all indicative.
I point out the above because most countries the gender war is more along the lines of "incel men" vs "feminists". Men are usually the active camp complaining about not getting anything from women, women complain about not getting anything from society, men take the aggressive stance. However, in Korea women are on the offensive as well, this seems unique to me.
Someone told me once that Korea is a very trend-following society, perhaps more than any other country on Earth. Something comes along, it gets trendy, and then the entire nation gets crazy into it, for good or ill. Like, Kpop wasn't always a thing, it just exploded in the 2000s. They also have these weird food trends that seem to come and go like lightning (right now "salt bread" is a thing, with huge lines at popular bakeries. i have no idea why.)
This isn't a new phenomenon, and it also applies to religion. Buddhism spread to Korea in like 300 AD, and they immediately got super into it and it became the state religion in 372 and then was launched to other east Asian countries through Korea. Same with Taoism, and with Christianity in the 19th century, it just hits like a tidal wave. And, apparently, the same thing with Feminism and gender wars.
I would guess that it's just part of being a small, homogenous, tightly-knit country. Since they have their own language, they're a bit isolated from the larger Chinese and English speaking worlds. Culture just spreads and evolve really rapidly there. I guess it's sort of like how evolution happens fastest in small isolated populations, and much slower in larger populations.
It's not that small. If South Korea got teleported to Europe, it would be the 7th largest country by population. It is small by area and has a very high population density, though I'm not sure if urban population wouldn't be a bigger factor in ease of fashion spreading. And South Korea is surprisingly far from the top on that metric.
Its different though. Europe is all connected by the Eurozone, geography, and so many of them all speaking English. South Korea is effectively an island, walled off by the no-man's-land of North Korea, and no common language with any neighbor except really strange English
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