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| Lee Jun-seok, head of the main opposition People Power Party, has proposed the idea of abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. Yonhap |
By Scott Shepherd
With eight long months to go before the presidential election, politics is already becoming somewhat strange if not going pretty mad.
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Clearly, the young men of today do face real issues. Education is horrifically competitive, the job market is hard, housing is impossibly expensive, and a global pandemic continues to disrupt and end lives. These issues are hardly gender-specific, of course, but men do face a number of specific difficulties: conscription is mandatory only for Korean men, and men have higher suicide rates and shorter lifespans than their sisters. Have no doubt: these are real problems that need serious people to search for solutions.
However, this is not what is happening. Moreover, the fact that men face problems does absolutely nothing to mitigate the discrimination and mistreatment that women face in Korea.
There's no room here to enumerate all the forms of unfair treatment both subtle and overt that women deal with on a daily basis. One obvious example is how workplace cultures make pregnancy such a taboo that it pushes women simply to quit their job soon after they conceive. This is, by the way, the single most self-destructive aspect of Korean society. No wonder that the birthrate is so low.
There are so many more ways that women are disadvantaged or mistreated or disregarded, but what's the point enumerating them all here? Anyone who has experienced Korean culture knows. From the office to the home, from the way job candidates are selected to the way characters are portrayed on film, women are so often treated as inferior to men. Though it's an uneven picture, of course, it holds true as a general rule.
And so the Ministry for Gender Equality has its work cut out for it. To be sure, there are ways that the ministry could be reformed; it's not a perfect organization ― as I wrote last month, its measures to prevent sexual harassment in universities are underwhelming to say the least. But it's crucial that the government tries to protect women, which is the central purpose of the ministry. This week's attacks on the institution are not based on a real desire to bring about equality; they are little more than cynical ploys to win votes.
Maybe it's just the media or maybe I'm getting old, but it seems like societies around the world are fracturing into smaller and smaller cliques every day. Whether it's nationality or gender or religion or race or creed or class or money or hobby or favorite K-pop act or football team, there will always be some difference or schism that can divide us if we let it.
In this ever-fractious world with so much hatred and conflict, politicians have a solemn duty to unite their country, not divide it further. The problem is that dividing people is so much easier than uniting them. Anger is so easy to stir, especially when times are tough; unity, by contrast, is very hard to foster.
The contenders for president should be above this kind of petty vote-mongering. By appealing to the baser instincts of frustrated young men instead of presenting real solutions to their problems, these politicians are showing that they are not worthy of the job.
I don't believe that any of them, if they are elected, will really abolish the ministry. They are canny politicians, fully aware that the country needs change. Instead, they're seeking to take advantage of the young men's anger for the sake of gaining political power.
To be honest, this manipulation of the young men's anger and disappointment will probably work at the ballot box. In fact, it already has: Lee Jun-seok was elected head of the PPP after using exactly the same tactic as we're seeing right now. Hopefully by the time we finally get around to the presidential election, things will be different ― but I wouldn't bet on it. Alas, we've still got eight long months of politics to go.
Dr. Scott Shepherd is a British-American academic. He has taught in universities in the U.K. and Korea, and is currently assistant professor of English at Chongshin University in Seoul. The views expressed in the article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.
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