Girls Can Do Anything?

A South Korean politician elevated the ‘women who are out late and wearing short dresses will be raped’ illogic to absurd new heights. He said the country had “begun to change into a female-dominant society” and that this might be partly responsible for an increase in male suicide. Translation: women are realising they are better off without men who have a long and violent history of abuse and the gents can’t deal with this rejection of their abusive ways so they are dying of suicide. As if that were not enough, a South Korean YouTuber with 10 million followers revealed this week that she had been the victim of abuse and extortion for four years by her long-time partner. Intimate partner violence is a favourite pastime of South Korean men (#notallmen). The YouTuber filed a case against her abuser but that was closed when he took his own life. She also shared that she was blackmailed by a group of male YouTubers who found out about the abuse, which included forced prostitution. 

It’s worth knowing what women face in the country that lies on the other side of China, 5,000 km from us. If India fights the horror crime of acid attacks by men who feel spurned by women they barely know, South Korea battles with femicide by ex-boyfriends. ‘Safe breakups’ are a real worry for women there. 

As bad as things are in South Korea, the country ranks 94th on the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2024. India is at 129. So even if by some double engine miracle we do manage to climb 35 places, we will still only be a South Korea? 

As the #MeToo movement began to spread across the world in 2017, it was a time of great upheaval in South Korea. A country that was outraged by a K-pop singer’s “feminist” phone cover with the generic ‘Girls Can Do Anything’ sticker was suddenly speaking out against high profile perpetrators of sexual abuse and harassment. A presidential hopeful, a famous poet and a Venice Golden Lion winner were accused of rape. At My Life Is Not Your Porn rallies, thousands of women marched against Korea’s pandemic of spy cams which record them illegally in hotels, restrooms and changing rooms. Men, of course, pay to see these videos. That was also the time the Economist magazine’s Glass Ceiling Index ranked South Korea the worst developed nation to be a working woman. Even today, women earn 69.9% of men’s salaries, the worst among 38 developed OECD countries. Remember the recent research that highlighted the ideological divide between young men and women? It’s starkest in countries like South Korea. 

The 4B movement (bisekseu, bichulsan, biyeonae and bihon) consisting of no sex with men, no children, no dating and no marrying men respectively, was born in 2019. Its pre-cursor was the Escape the Corset movement that rejected South Korean society’s bizarre beauty standards for women where mothers have been known to offer their daughters surgery for rounder eyes as a graduation gift. Click on the hashtag #탈코르셋_인증 on X to see images of women, their heads shorn and their mountain of beauty products, bought under pressure to follow multiple-step skin routines for flawless skin, happily trashed. 

Of course the backlash against speaking up is huge in South Korea. Earlier this year, all the misogynists successfully united to elect a president who is allergic to the term ‘violence against women’ and who said he wanted to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. He blamed South Korea’s low birth rate on feminism that, he added, was responsible for the destruction of healthy relationships between men and women. 

It’s clear that even if women have the courage to say they want to live without men, their countries will not allow it—or at least make it as difficult as possible for them. As the global backlash against women’s rights intensifies, we will need all our wits and strength to build a better future for ourselves. An Asian country as developed as South Korea offers such a bleak vision of life for women. So tell me, what does living in a developed nation mean for half its population? Let’s at least create spaces to have those conversations as we climb up the ladder of gender parity.

Priya Ramani is a Bengaluru-based journalist and is on the editorial board of Article-14.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of NDTV Profit or its editorial team.