It's news you can use from places with different views! (Don't misuse or abuse you yahoos.)
I disagree that China is a Communist state.
If my studies are correctly recalled, Karl Marx's vision for communism was one of equals and communal sharing of goods and services. What you see in PRC is more like a planned capitalist economy with fascist elements which were reactionary to the ejection of the former imperial government (the one that was inept and was trampled on by European and Japanese imperialists for centuries and which retreated to Taiwan). It has shifted closer to a totalitarian state in the past decade.
If PRC was communist there wouldn't be problems with pensions, childcare and the same socioeconomic inequalities you find in capitalist economies.
Maybe wrong thread for this but yeah I think Communism in its late 18th century conceptualisation is demonised and made out to be something it isn't. True communism would have free education, health services, and a concept of a universal income.
This is why it is antithetical to capitalism which asserts the free market can make everything better for more people than any other economic or governmental system; capitalism then justifies inequity on the grounds more people would be better off anyway.
I disagree that China is a Communist state.
If my studies are correctly recalled, Karl Marx's vision for communism was one of equals and communal sharing of goods and services. What you see in PRC is more like a planned capitalist economy with fascist elements which were reactionary to the ejection of the former imperial government (the one that was inept and was trampled on by European and Japanese imperialists for centuries and which retreated to Taiwan). It has shifted closer to a totalitarian state in the past decade.
If PRC was communist there wouldn't be problems with pensions, childcare and the same socioeconomic inequalities you find in capitalist economies.
Maybe wrong thread for this but yeah I think Communism in its late 18th century conceptualisation is demonised and made out to be something it isn't. True communism would have free education, health services, and a concept of a universal income.
This is why it is antithetical to capitalism which asserts the free market can make everything better for more people than any other economic or governmental system; capitalism then justifies inequity on the grounds more people would be better off anyway.
I agree with you. China isn’t a state doing Communism, (though on Marx’s original conception the state would wither away under Communism so if the state still exists it isn’t 100% original Communism). When I say the Chinese state is Communist, they are officially working towards that as a goal. But they also aren’t Capitalist (big C).
In Marx’s framework, a society has to go through a period of capitalism in order to build up the productive resources to make communism possible. He thought that the communist revolution would happen first in Britain, Germany or France. Wealthy countries with the resources to do the allocations to make his Communism possible. Of course that means they have societies where the majority of people are benefiting from the status quo. So the only counties that ended up having Communist revolutions are those where a capitalist system didn’t bring broad based benefits for society and the challenge for Marxists there is how do Communism without the productive resources already there.
The ideology of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party remains Marxist as its original ideology, with various Chinese adaptations made over the past hundred years. They don’t have the social welfare system you mention because they think they are in the building productive capacity stage and a strong welfare system would delay. Like all utopians (derogatory), they are willing to sacrifice real people today for a hypothetical paradise.
Everything they do should be viewed through that lens. Hence you don’t really have the social and economic rights that you have in our Liberal societies (assuming you’re in a Western country). They have markets and people have accumulated capital but the investment decisions in China are tightly regulated by the CCP. It is not the capitalists who have final say over investment, so I don’t think you can call China Capitalist.
Yup the society in China does not fall neatly into a convenient historical category and honestly neither does any country if we look closely enough and are critical of the real issues plaguing every society. The closest it ever was to falling within a description such as a command economy was post Mao to pre Xi.
Another good example is RUS and calling it a Communist state. If it were so, it begs the question how it is a hybrid oligarchy with a dictator and the cross section of their population that is being conscripted to Ukraine.
Then we look at the US and the democratic republic model and the rule of law, see voter suppression, district drawing making a mockery of the electoral college, Citizens United, the overturning of Roe v Wade, insurrection and more with little consequences, the erosion of the separation of church and state...and you wonder why people despair the country may be in its fall of Rome phase and is a country governed by money. By the way, Australia has its own myriad problems in governance not unlike the US.
Reminds me of George Carlin saying, "Even in a fake democracy, the people should get what they want once in a while." And that was 50 years ago.
Men are not doing great pretty much anywhere. But holy shit are men in Korea not well.
the fact it’s big enough to serve as a voting bloc actual precinct elections cater towards is terrifying. did research on it for a gaming company a year ago & the number of times “a angry dude showed up at a woman developers house because of a forum thread” was double digits
Dude's likely to get a visit from some polite, burly men in mid-range suits, who will invite him to have a chat with them in their office...
And people wonder why the fertility rate is plummeting...
Japan, JNN Exit Poll:
Seat projection
LDP (Conservative): 181 (-78)
CDP (Centre-left): 159 (+63)
Ishin (Libertarian): 35 (-6)+/- vs. 2021 election
Fieldwork: 27 October 2024
Sample Size: N/A
Japan election: voters have issued ‘severe judgment’, PM says after ruling coalition loses majority
Japan’s political future was shrouded in uncertainty on Monday after voters punished the ruling coalition over rising prices and a funding scandal, paving the way for days of wrangling as party leaders try to form a government.
The Liberal Democratic party (LDP) and its longtime junior coalition partner Komeito failed to secure a majority in the lower house on a bruising night in which the main opposition Constitutional Democratic party (CDP) made significant gains.
The result – which left no single party with a clear mandate – is the LDP’s worst performance since 2009, when it was cast into the wilderness for three years before mounting a comeback under the leadership of Shinzo Abe.
A chastened prime minister Shigeru Ishiba, who was due to give an address on Monday afternoon, said voters had issued a “severe judgment” against the LDP.
They had “expressed their strong desire for the LDP to do some reflection and become a party that acts in line with the people’s will”, he told the public broadcaster NHK.
Uncertainty over whether the coalition can reach a deal with a third party and secure a working majority sent the yen to a three-month low against the dollar on Monday as investors braced for a period of political and economic uncertainty.
The LDP and Komeito won a combined 215 seats, down from 279 and well below the 233 they needed to retain their majority. Two cabinet members lost their seats, as did several other candidates implicated in a slush fund scandal that has battered the LDP’s approval ratings in recent months. The biggest winner was the CDP with 148 seats, up from 98.
Having seen his snap election gamble fail spectacularly Ishiba must now attempt to cobble together a three-party coalition that could include MPs from the centre-right Democratic party for the People or the populist Japan Innovation party.
Few analysts expect the opposition parties, which range from conservatives to communists, to unite to form an alternative coalition given their policy differences.
But the CDP’s leader, Yoshihiko Noda, said the result was proof that the LDP-Komeito coalition could not continue. “This is not the end, but the beginning,” Noda told a press conference, adding that his party would work with other opposition parties to aim for a change of government.
Under Japan’s constitution, the parties now have 30 days to put together a coalition, but pressure is expected to mount on senior politicians to act quickly. The gridlock comes as a time of uncertainty for Japan’s economy, growing concern over China and North Korea, and just days before the U.S. presidential election.
There will be questions, too, about the decision by Ishiba, who became prime minister only a month ago, to call an early election while his party was embroiled in a major funding scandal.
“Whether or not Ishiba resigns as LDP leader today, it seems unlikely that he will survive to lead a new government as prime minister … although it is possible he could stay on as caretaker,” said Tobias Harris, founder of the political risk advisory firm Japan Foresight.
Masakazu Tokura, the chair of Japan’s most influential business lobby, called for a quick return to political stability for the sake of the economy. “We strongly hope for policy-oriented politics through the establishment of a stable government centred on the LDP-Komeito coalition,” he said in a statement.
Watching the parade of athletes in NYC before the Marathon, and realized that even thought they were listed as "Hong Kong, China," HK athletes marched separately from the Chinese delegation. Geopolitics is weird.
(Also, mildly amused that this could fairly be called "a collection of people from 194 countries who will be happy to finish, and then the actual winners, the Kenyans.")
EDIT v2: I know this is going alphabetically, so it's not THAT close, but I also feel like Israel and Lebanon appeared a little close for comfort right now.
Global analysis on (likely) Trump victory:
- Unlike 2016, he has allies in many more countries who are celebrating right now
- He's likely to be untethered. Who knows what the State Department will be doing, how they'll be supporting those people, etc
- A Trump loss had the potential to derail, globally, the far-right. A lot of this is boosted by social media; a Trump victory helps ratify an international right-wing ecosystem. Two consecutive Trump losses could have resulted in some losing interest
- But not so. Instead this is a huge shot in the arm for nationalists around the world, with the potential to power the movement into the future
- Many dictatorships were rooting for this as Trump basically gives a blank check for ignoring things like human rights
- In the short-term, you could actually see prospects for nationalist parties *fall back* given the salience of a new Trump administration. He's not popular around the world and doesn't create a positive association for his allies
- That was the case in 2017; but maybe not againBasically I would really emphasize that long-term this is a result that points towards the far-right remaining relevant and deepening its roots in many countries including the US, where Trumpism is likely to be woven into the political culture for the next few decades, at least
A perfectly stupid ending to this story:
India’s ban on Salman Rushdie ‘The Satanic Verses’ may end — thanks to missing paperwork
NEW DELHI (AP) — The decadeslong ban of Salman Rushdie’s “The Satanic Verses” in his native India is now in doubt — not because of a change of heart more than two years after the author’s near-fatal stabbing, but because of what amounts to some missing paperwork.
Earlier this week, a court in New Delhi closed proceedings on a petition filed five years ago that challenged the then-government’s decision to ban the import of the novel, which enraged Muslims worldwide because of its alleged blasphemy, just days after its 1988 publication. In a ruling issued Tuesday, according to the Press Trust of India news agency, a bench headed by Justice Rekha Palli said authorities had failed to produce the notification of the ban.
“We have no other option except to presume that no such notification exists,” the judges concluded.
The petitioner, Sandipan Khan, had argued that he couldn’t buy the book because of a notification issued by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs on Oct. 5, 1988, which forbade its import into India, adding that he was unable to locate the notification on any official website or through officials. Khan’s lawyer, Uddyam Mukherjee, said that the court’s ruling meant that as of now, nothing prohibits anybody from importing the novel into India.
“But whether this means it will be sold in bookstores — I don’t know, that depends on the publishers or sellers,” he told The Associated Press.
As 4B takes the world by storm, South Korea is grappling with a backlash against feminism
As Donald Trump secured victory in the US presidential election, an unexpected phenomenon began trending on social media: young American women declaring their commitment to “4B”, a fringe South Korean feminist movement advocating the rejection of marriage, childbirth, dating and sex.
The movement has sparked intense global interest, with millions of views on TikTok and viral X posts heralding it as a women’s rights revolution.
Yet within South Korea itself, the picture is more complex and in some places the feminist movement is under attack.
“I had never heard of 4B until recently,” says Lee Min-ji, an office worker in Seoul who was surprised at all the international attention. “I understand where all the anger comes from, but I don’t think avoiding all relationships with men is the solution.”
Park So-yeon, a publishing professional in Seoul, says she does not date because she is prioritising her professional life.
“Like me, most of my female friends are more focused on their careers than dating right now, but that’s not because of 4B, it’s just the reality of being a young professional in Korea,” she says.
Pushing back against an unequal society
The 4B name stems from four Korean words beginning with “bi” (meaning “no”): bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating), and bisekseu (no sex). As with past “separatist” feminist movements, 4B represents a rejection of heterosexual relationships as a means of resisting patriarchal structures.
The movement emerged in the mid-2010s amid growing online feminist activism in South Korea, a country where women face the widest gender pay gap among OECD nations and persistent discrimination.
Several high-profile incidents have galvanised feminist activism in recent years. In 2016, a woman was murdered near Gangnam Station by a male stranger who said he did it because women had “ignored” him. The case sparked nationwide protests against misogyny-driven violence.
Digital sex crimes have further fuelled the feminist movement, from widespread illegal filming through hidden cameras to the latest epidemic of AI-generated deepfake pornography targeting young women.
Online activists have also challenged South Korea’s demanding beauty standards. In 2018, some young women began posting videos of themselves destroying makeup products and cutting their hair short in what became known as the “escape the corset” movement.
But there has been a backlash, to the point where the word “feminism” itself has virtually become a slur in South Korea, carrying connotations far removed from western views of gender equality advocacy.
“Unlike the west’s long history with feminist movements, Korea is experiencing these changes in a very compressed way,” says Gowoon Jung, assistant professor of sociology at Korea University. “This has led many to view feminism only in its most radical form.”
President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office in 2022, partly rode to victory on anti-feminist sentiment, courting disgruntled young male voters by denying the existence of structural gender discrimination and promising to abolish the country’s gender equality ministry.
“4B is more of a feminist statement that represents young digital feminists’ grievances and frustration about Korean society,” explains Minyoung Moon, a sociology lecturer at Clemson University who studies online feminism in South Korea. “However, its radical nature has contributed to serious backlash, with many young men and some women equating all feminists with man-haters, which deepens societal divisions.”
Lee Jeong-eun, who lives in Busan, says that openly feminist women face backlash on and offline. “You’re treated like the devil,” she says.
This fear isn’t unfounded: last year, a female convenience store worker in Jinju was violently attacked by a man who assumed she was a feminist simply because she had short hair, leading to a court ruling that recognised misogyny as a hate crime motive for the first time.
This hostile environment has led many young Korean women to practise what scholars like Moon and Jung term “quiet feminism”– embracing feminist principles privately while avoiding public identification with the movement.
An impact that is hard to measure
South Korea’s digital landscape plays a crucial role in the 4B movement’s expression. Anonymous online forums and social media serve as protected spaces for feminist discourse that might be difficult to voice openly. The online nature of the movement, however, makes it nearly impossible to measure 4B’s true scale or impact.Within South Korea itself and before Trump’s victory, 4B had received relatively little mainstream attention, though internationally some media coverage has attempted to link 4B to South Korea’s record-low birthrate, which hit 0.72 children per woman in 2023. That can be problematic, says Moon.
“The low fertility rate in Korea is a complex issue, and you cannot simply argue that Korean women boycotting men leads to a low birthrate,” Moon says.
The birth rate has been dropping for decades and is frequently attributed to factors like the economic burden of child rearing, high housing costs, intense educational competition, and shifting priorities. “Women’s distrust and frustration with Korean society may have some cultural relation to it, but there is no proven correlation,” Moon says.
For Jung, the global attention on 4B reflects a shift in how feminist movements travel globally. “Many Asian social movements have historically been influenced by the west, as we saw with the #MeToo movement,” she says.
“Now we’re seeing movements that originated in Korea potentially influencing western societies.”
Feels like they're giving the US and the rest of the west way too much credit with regards to how feminism is viewed. Because this:
"many young men and some women equating all feminists with man-haters, which deepens societal divisions.”
is still incredibly common.
It's what their grandparents in the 70's taught their parents, back then... Or even add another generation. Political programming goes waaay back (hi segregation!) and authoritarian social structures replicate it, well... religiously.
The "policing" mission won't work, really.
I don't know what the answer is, because the people of Haiti absolutely do not want an occupation. But it does seem like the only way to even begin to address the issues is an all-out military occupation to allow for a semblance of stability.
Are K-pop stars workers? South Korea says no
This is insane because I've seen K-pop training and those people work three times as hard as I do.
They have sold more albums than any other K-pop girl band last year, gained tens of millions of fans worldwide and are arguably one of South Korea's hottest acts.
What the members of NewJeans are not, however, are workers, according to the government.
The country's Ministry of Employment and Labor on Wednesday dismissed claims of workplace harrassment against a member of the group, saying celebrities were not seen as workers under the country's labour law - and were, therefore, not entitled to the same rights.
The decision has drawn its fair share of scorn, with people saying they are not surprised given this is an industry known for its punishing schedules and intense competition.
This is the latest scandal to hit NewJeans, which has for months been embroiled in a public feud with its record label, Ador.
With slick pop songs like Super Shy, OMG and Supernatural, NewJeans were the eighth biggest-selling act in the world last year, and were nominated for best group at this year's MTV Awards.
Formed by label Ador in 2022, the group has five members - Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein - whose ages range from 16 to 20.
The incident started after 20-year-old Hanni and the other four members of the band raised concerns about their treatment by Ador during an impromptu YouTube livestream on 11 September.
In the band's YouTube video, which has since been deleted, they made claims of workplace harassment, among others, which culminated in Hanni saying she would testify in a hearing about bullying in the music industry.
The Vietnamese-Australian singer, whose real name is Pham Ngoc Han, told lawmakers that she felt "the company hated us".
She described how senior members of Hybe ignored her and her bandmates, and gave them cold shoulder. She also alleged that employees of the agency bad-mouthed NewJeans on internal communication app and asked a journalist to downplay the group's record sales in one article.
Hybe had previously denied the accusations. The CEO of Ador, which is a subsidiary of Hybe, said at the hearing that she would "listen more closely" to her artists.
Her allegations prompted fans to file a petition about workplace bullying to the government.
But on Wednesday, South Korea's labour ministry rejected these claims, saying given the content and nature of the management contract signed by Hanni, she is not regarded as a worker under the country's Labour Standards Act.
"Individuals must meet the criteria under the Labour Standards Act... to be considered workers. This includes having fixed working hours and providing labour under the employer’s direct supervision and control. Celebrities, including singers, are typically classified as independent contractors," Chunghwan Choi, senior partner of Yulchon law firm in Seoul explained.
The government also cites the nature of Hanni's income, which is deemed to be "profit sharing, rather than wages", according to local reports, adding that she pays business income tax rather than employment income tax.
One expert has called the response "utterly unfair and yet unsurprising".
The work for K-pop idols is "emotionally and physically exhausting", according to her, as they work "incredibly long hours, often seven days a week for months in a row...[with] no clearly defined periods of rest", says CedarBough Saeji, Assistant Professor of Korean and East Asian Studies at Pusan National University in South Korea.
"Exploitation of the workers is accepted because they are not regular employees and there is no labour union, or clearly we can now see, no governmental agency to advocate for humane working conditions for them," she argues.
There are currently no specific laws in South Korea that provide protections for the working rights of celebrities or artists, says Mr Choi, saying that this "underscores the urgent need for reforms to address longstanding issues in the entertainment industry".
One measure that could be put into place to safeguard the working rights of artists is something similar to the Talent Agency Act in Hollywood, which requires talent agencies to obtain licenses and prohibits unfair or exploitative contracts, adds Mr Choi.
However, he adds that "while there have been discussions about implementing laws similar to the Talent Agency Act, no such legislation has been enacted yet".
'Idols are Workers'
On Wednesday, New Jeans fans rallied under the hashtag "IdolsAreWorkers" in support of the band.Others pointed out that the decision had a legal basis, as celebrities were not technically seen as workers under the law, but called for greater reforms in the industry.
"I get what they're saying about the role not qualifying for the legal defintion of workplace harrassment, but this just shows the need for reform in the K-pop industry", said one user on X.
Hanni has yet to comment on the government's decision.
Hybe, which represents massive K-pop groups such as BTS and Seventeen, is South Korea's largest music firm.
South Korea’s entertainment industry is known for its high-pressure environment, where celebrities are held to strict standards over their appearances and behaviour.
Yeah. Korea really does seem to be doing everything it can to exacerbate class, race, age, and gender differences to the point that they are nearly guaranteeing social and demographic dissolution.
How much of this is traditionalist bias under cover? What was the status of entertainers historically?
How much of this is traditionalist bias under cover? What was the status of entertainers historically?
All of it. And entertainers are a low caste profession in tradKo society. What is playing out is a generational divide between old and new economy (along with social mores between the two). In times with normal demographics, the youthquake would drag the tradKos unwillingly toward modernity. But with the olds vastly outnumbering the youth in Korea, the political calculus is extremely different. Add to that the booming Incel movement among Korean men brought about by class and gender resentment that is exacerbated by the loss of opportunity and productivity from male mandatory military service and you have a toxic brew of unsustainability.
The former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and some of his closest allies are among dozens of people formally accused by federal police of being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a rightwing coup d’état.
Federal police confirmed on Thursday that investigators had concluded their long-running investigation into what they called a coordinated attempt to “violently dismantle the constitutional state”.
In a statement, police said the report – which has been forwarded to the supreme court – formally accused a total of 37 people of crimes including involvement in an attempted coup, the formation of a criminal organization, and trying to tear down one of the world’s largest democracies.
The accused include Bolsonaro, a disgraced army captain turned populist politician, who was president from 2018 until the end of 2022, as well as some of the most important members of his far-right administration.
They included Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, the far-right congressman Alexandre Ramagem; the former defense ministers Gen Walter Braga Netto and Gen Paulo Sérgio Nogueira de Oliveira; the former minister of justice and public security, Anderson Torres; the former minister of institutional security, Gen Augusto Heleno; the former navy commander Adm Almir Garnier Santos; the president of Bolsonaro’s political party, Valdemar Costa Neto; and Filipe Martins, one of Bolsonaro’s top foreign policy advisers.
Also named is the rightwing blogger grandson of Gen João Baptista Figueiredo, one of the military rulers who governed Brazil during its 1964-85 dictatorship.
The list contains one non-Brazilian name: that of Fernando Cerimedo, an Argentinian digital marketing guru who was in charge of communications for Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, during that country’s 2023 presidential campaign. Buenos Aires-based Cerimedo is close to Bolsonaro and his politician sons.
The long-awaited conclusion of the police investigation comes just days after federal police officers made five arrests as part of a roundup of alleged members of a plot to assassinate Bolsonaro’s leftwing successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his centre-right vice-president, Geraldo Alckmin, as well as the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes.
Shortly before police announced the end of their inquiry, Lula voiced gratitude that the attempt to poison him had failed. “I’m alive,” the 79-year-old leftist said during a speech.
Gen Mario Fernandes, one of the five people arrested over the alleged “Green and Yellow Dagger” assassination plan, was also among the 37 people named by federal police on Thursday – and like the others was formally accused of being part of a criminal coup attempt. “We are at war,” Fernandes allegedly said in one message discovered by police investigators.
Bolsonaro has previously denied involvement in an attempt to overturn the result of the 2022 election, which he lost to Lula. Speaking to a journalist from the Brazilian news site Metrópoles after he was named in the police report, the former president said he needed to see what was in the investigation. “I’m going to wait for the lawyer,” Bolsonaro added.
Braga Netto, Heleno and other prominent names on the list made no immediate comment about the accusations in the federal police report, which the police statement said was based on a large trove of evidence gathered through plea deals, searches and the analysis of financial, internet and phone records.
The alleged pro-Bolsonaro coup attempt allegedly played out during the turbulent final days of his four-year administration, which came to an end when he was narrowly defeated by Lula in the second round of the 2022 presidential election.
In the lead-up to that crunch vote, a manifesto signed by almost a million citizens warned that Brazilian democracy was facing a moment of “immense danger to democratic normality” amid widespread suspicion that plans were afoot to help Bolsonaro cling to power even if he lost.
After losing his re-election bid, Bolsonaro flew into temporary exile in the US while thousands of supporters gathered outside military bases around Brazil to demand a military intervention that never came.
The failed attempt to overturn Lula’s victory culminated in the 8 January 2023 riots in the capital, Brasília, when radicalized Bolsonaristas rampaged through the presidential palace, congress and supreme court.
Nearly two years later, Lula is in power but the far-right threat to his administration remains. Last Wednesday night, a member of Bolsonaro’s political party was killed after apparently blowing himself up with homemade explosives while attacking the supreme court.
During a search of the man’s trailer, police reportedly found a cap emblazoned with the slogan of Bolsonaro’s far-right movement: “Brazil above everything. God above all.”
In a video statement, Paulo Pimenta, Lula’s communications minister, said the government was “utterly perplexed and outraged” by the revelations that the former president and members of the military had allegedly been plotting to bring down Brazil’s democracy “with almost unbelievable audacity”.
“These are very grave crimes [and] very serious accusations,” added Pimenta, who said Lula’s administration would now wait for the public prosecutor’s office to decide which of the 37 would be prosecuted and put on trial. Those convicted would have to pay for the crimes they had committed against democracy, against the constitution and against the Brazilian people, said Pimenta. “Bolsonaro in Jail”, the minister wrote alongside his video, echoing a call from many progressive Brazilians.
I kept hearing "bar hostess" in how the legal guy talked about singers.
Lotta gender wars flashpoints in South Korea, honestly.
Spray paint and protest banners cover the walls and pavements of Dongduk women’s university in Seoul. “We’d rather perish than open our doors,” reads one slogan. Since 11 November, students have staged a sit-in, initially occupying the main building and blocking access to classroom buildings across campus, forcing classes to move online and a planned job fair to be cancelled.
The outcry was sparked by plans for some departments to admit male students but have since spiralled into a wider clash over the future of women-only spaces in a country that is grappling with the issue of gender equality.
“The university’s unilateral decision, made without any input from the students who actually study and live here, left us with no choice but to raise our voices,” one member of Dongduk’s student council says, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In South Korea, women’s universities were established in the early 20th century as one of the only paths to higher education for women in a strictly patriarchal society.
Today, they are seen by some as vital institutions for nurturing female talent in a country that remains deeply male-dominated. South Korea ranks 94th out of 146 countries in gender equality, according to the World Economic Forum. Women hold just 20% of parliamentary seats and make up only 7.3% of executives at the country’s 500 largest companies.
Yoonkyeong Nah, a professor of cultural anthropology at Yonsei University, says that, more broadly: “The protests reflect how young Korean women feel unsafe in public spaces”, citing the prevalence of illegal filming, stalking, and digital sex crimes, including the latest deepfake pornography epidemic.
“While providing safe spaces isn’t the primary purpose of women’s universities, students are protesting to maintain what they see as a secure environment for learning – it reveals broader problems in Korean society,” Nah says.
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