In 2019, Naksungdae researcher and former Seoul National University professor Rhee Young-hoon published Anti-Japan Tribalism. The thesis of the book is that South Korea should take a more nuanced view of its colonial history under Japanese rule. Contempt for Japan, Professor Rhee and his co-authors argue, is not a suitable foundation on which to build the modern, democratic nation of South Korea.
We have noted with regret a similar phenomenon in recent reports about South Korea being filled with misogynistic men. The charges, leveled by some South Korean women, that South Korea is a “patriarchy” are unsettling to us, because they seem to reflect a new kind of tribalism, blinding people both inside and outside the Korean peninsula to the complexity of South Korea.
One of us, Morgan, spent a year in Gyeongsangbuk-do, in eastern South Korea, some twenty years ago. While there, he met many strong, smart, independent women. He had open conversations with them about their views on any number of things, from politics and religion to history, culture, and social issues. He never got the sense that those women were victims of any patriarchy. To the contrary, many of the men Morgan met in Gyeongsangbuk-do and throughout South Korea were friendly, helpful, and kind. Many of them were sensitive to the needs of women. Some were quite shy. No one to his memory expressed negative views about women as a group. South Korea as a “patriarchy” does not fit with any of Morgan’s experiences in or with that country.
The other of us, Yoshida, has lived and worked in South Korea for over a decade, spending the past four years as a journalist covering the country’s political dynamics, among other topics. Present during the Moon Jae-in administration (2017-22), he has witnessed firsthand the intense gender divide that reemerged and how these tensions have evolved over time. While gender-motivated crimes against women have increased in recent years, and anti-feminist movements have gained traction among young Korean men, these trends do not represent the entire male population. Moreover, he believes that individuals with extremist ideologies—whether rooted in misogyny or misandry—exist within both genders but make up only a small fraction of the overall South Korean population. In short, neither of us recognizes South Korea as described by inflammatory articles in the press.
The evidence given above is anecdotal, but much more solid empirical data and much bigger trends corroborate our understanding. For example, South Korea has become world-famous for, among many other things, boy bands whose members’ lithe dance moves and affinity for hairstyles and makeup hardly place them in the machismo camp. And then there is the fact that South Korea is now in the grips of a professional sports boom–women’s pro sports, that is. Also, South Korea’s demographics, in particular its low birthrate, would seem to suggest that women control decisions about intimacy with men. The “incel” phenomenon, although also, unfortunately, often associated with South Korean society, also hints strongly at female autonomy. Even if one argues that South Korean women find South Korean men generally unsuitable as romantic partners, the fact that South Korean women appear free to make such decisions is not an argument in favor of South Korea’s being a patriarchy in which women are controlled. If anything, the “pro-natalist” policies which some in South Korea decry as evidence of misogyny are tacit admissions of female autonomy. (It is also jarring that those who criticize such policies seem to forget that men also of course fall under such policies’ purview, reproductive-biologically speaking.)
There is another, albeit circumstantial, argument against the charge of patriarchy. Namely, the universal military service requirement in South Korea, which, far from being truly universal, applies only to able-bodied men. It is difficult to reconcile charges of patriarchy with the fact that, hour by hour and day by day, an army of mainly young men stands along the border with a hostile, nuclear-armed state with a penchant for reckless ICBM launches and international terrorism. We certainly do not suggest that women should be compelled to serve in the armed forces alongside men. But in saying this, we do not believe that we perpetuate a patriarchy. By the same token, we believe that the men standing guard along the South Korean frontier do their duty in service to the country and not out of a desire to subjugate South Korean women. To put it bluntly, if South Korea is a patriarchy, then one would never know it by comparing the hard lives of male soldiers and sailors with the relatively un-threatened lives of females in the same country.
To be sure, South Korea has not always been as progressive as it is today. There were centuries before the founding of the Republic of Korea when the yangban class of aristcratic literati kept kisaeng (courtesans similar to Japanese geisha) and other women as virtual sex slaves. During the Korean War, the Korean government under President Park Chung-hee provided American servicemen with comfort women, a form of state-run prostitution from which women suffered horrifically. Many women around American military bases continue to face such degradation even today.
But the daughter of Park Chung-hee, Park Geun-hye, became president in her own right and remains the only female leader ever elected in Northeast Asia. It is true that President Park Geun-hye was removed from office by male prosecutors. But she was hardly the first South Korean president to be hounded by the law during or after her term in office. In facing a harsh post-presidential fate, Park joined a lineup of other fallen leaders, all of them men. And the current president, Yoon Seok-yeol, is beset with troubles caused by none other than the First Lady, his wife. For a patriarchy, it would seem that South Korea is filled with ambitious women who face little to no resistance or prejudice in the exercise of power, apart from the usual cutthroat politics that bedevil every would-be ruler everywhere, male or female.
In the above details, we hope one can discern a portrait of South Korea that is much more nuanced than the growing 4B global movement would paint of that country. We think identifying South Korea with this kind of extreme and flattening ideology brings disrepute and undeserved dishonor to a nation that has worked hard to join the ranks of modern democracies. We also think that it does undue violence to social complexity, as it simply will not do to say of any society anywhere that all X are Y. Human life is messy, human experience is varied, and each person lives his or her life as an individual, not as a facsimile in a herd. We should judge people as such and not indict entire countries for the actions of a disgraceful few.
Or more than a few. Yes, there have been outrageous offenses against women’s dignity carried out in South Korea lately. We hope the authorities will find out who the perpetrators are of crimes against women and punish those criminals to the fullest extent of the law. But we also hope that commentators will not sully South Korea’s reputation by insisting that such reprobates are representative of an entire nation. They aren’t. Nor do those charging all South Korean men with misogyny represent all South Korean women.
South Korean society is complex. It and its people deserve to be treated with respect and not subjected to blanket condemnations. Tribalism, whether political or gender, does not do justice to a place as rich and vibrant as modern-day South Korea.
Jason Morgan, a researcher and author based in Chiba, Japan, is co-author of The Comfort Women Hoax: A Fake Memoir, North Korean Spies, and Hit Squads in the Academic Swamp.
Kenji Yoshida is a translator and a Seoul-based associate correspondent for JAPAN Forward.