The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices. That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.
In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.
Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world.
Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining. Survey data show that in many countries the ideological differences now extend beyond this issue. The clear progressive-vs-conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused — or at least is part of — a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues.
young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers
This is only partially true. The key swing vote in the election, that handed Trump the win were; 40+year old white women without a college education. Until this election, that group was almost entirely in the Democrat camp, but went full MAGA.
The youth vote only has a small turnout, with voting patterns locked into geographic regions, there wasn’t too much unexpected that happened with the youth vote.
Be skeptical of recent survey data, reflection on this past election, or any survey data for that matter, especially in a Medium article.
What they are explicitly saying, and not implying at all is, “Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two.”
They are not implying the specifics of how the election unfolded in South Korea bears clear resemblance to the US like you stated.
This is a silly discussion because you did read the FT article, speculated wildly, and now are defending your bad take with a vague and baffling two sentence defense. Construct an actual argument.
It’s a shitty article, that uses shitty polling data.
What it means to be lib vs. con in different time periods and different countries is a complex question. I guarantee you that in absolute terms, white boys from the Midwest are much less racist than they were 40 years ago.
It misses the biggest swing from lib to conservative that happened, that older white women, without a college education, flipped to conservative, from consistently voting Democrat.
The article implicitly is trying to cast blame on young white boys, turning conservative, and therefore pushing the country into being regressive. It misses that the biggest regressive block are still the elderly white folk, and that that block is also the biggest voting block.
Both the articles were written in January 2024, ten months before the election. They weren’t analyzing the 2024 elections. There is no possibiliy of mentioning elderly white folks ev
They never mention whiteness anywhere in either article and the FT article is explicitly a global take mentioning Germany, UK, South Korea, Tunisia, and China.
There is nothing in the FT article implicitly or explicitly blaming “young white boys”. It is saying that when there is an ideological gap between young men and women, it has sociological implications.
I agree that the larger media narrative blames young white men’s regressive turn for the Trump presidential win and not elderly white folks or white Gen X women, but this is not that article.
The article is referring to South Korea, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, 4 countries. I’d argue that the youth vote never really mattered to turn these elections. You have to examine who actually voted, turned out to the ballot box.
The flaws in their culture, where they’re expected to be invaded by North Korea at anytime, and nearly all the males – even pop stars – are also expected to do military service. Of course the men have become deeply reactionary, what with anti-communist propaganda heavily embedded throughout, and they’re not happy with South Korean women being more assertive now than 50 years ago.
It’s not helping that South Korea is so much of a horrifyingly thinly-disguised corporate dystopia.
South Korea, what the fuck?
From the article:
This is only partially true. The key swing vote in the election, that handed Trump the win were; 40+year old white women without a college education. Until this election, that group was almost entirely in the Democrat camp, but went full MAGA.
The youth vote only has a small turnout, with voting patterns locked into geographic regions, there wasn’t too much unexpected that happened with the youth vote.
Be skeptical of recent survey data, reflection on this past election, or any survey data for that matter, especially in a Medium article.
This quote comes from the graph’s source article from the FT. They are talking about South Korea and not the US.
The author is discussing several countries, including the U.S.A., saying that it is the same trend for each. So yest they are implying the US.
What they are explicitly saying, and not implying at all is, “Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two.”
They are not implying the specifics of how the election unfolded in South Korea bears clear resemblance to the US like you stated.
This is a silly discussion because you did read the FT article, speculated wildly, and now are defending your bad take with a vague and baffling two sentence defense. Construct an actual argument.
It’s a shitty article, that uses shitty polling data.
What it means to be lib vs. con in different time periods and different countries is a complex question. I guarantee you that in absolute terms, white boys from the Midwest are much less racist than they were 40 years ago.
It misses the biggest swing from lib to conservative that happened, that older white women, without a college education, flipped to conservative, from consistently voting Democrat.
The article implicitly is trying to cast blame on young white boys, turning conservative, and therefore pushing the country into being regressive. It misses that the biggest regressive block are still the elderly white folk, and that that block is also the biggest voting block.
Both the articles were written in January 2024, ten months before the election. They weren’t analyzing the 2024 elections. There is no possibiliy of mentioning elderly white folks ev
They never mention whiteness anywhere in either article and the FT article is explicitly a global take mentioning Germany, UK, South Korea, Tunisia, and China.
There is nothing in the FT article implicitly or explicitly blaming “young white boys”. It is saying that when there is an ideological gap between young men and women, it has sociological implications.
I agree that the larger media narrative blames young white men’s regressive turn for the Trump presidential win and not elderly white folks or white Gen X women, but this is not that article.
This makes no sense. Since when do countries other than the US exist?
The article is referring to South Korea, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, 4 countries. I’d argue that the youth vote never really mattered to turn these elections. You have to examine who actually voted, turned out to the ballot box.
So what the article is saying is, saying “sexual harrassment/assault is bad” radicalized all the men?
it’s crazy to me that that was as late as 2018. i definitely felt that circulating in school in 2012.
The flaws in their culture, where they’re expected to be invaded by North Korea at anytime, and nearly all the males – even pop stars – are also expected to do military service. Of course the men have become deeply reactionary, what with anti-communist propaganda heavily embedded throughout, and they’re not happy with South Korean women being more assertive now than 50 years ago.
It’s not helping that South Korea is so much of a horrifyingly thinly-disguised corporate dystopia.
it could be noted, maybe, that in case of a war, probably only men would have to go to the frontline. so much for equality.