Esther Kim was at a recent demonstration in the center of Seoul, South Korea, calling for the removal of President Yoon Suk-yeol.
Thirty-year-old Kim was part of a small group of mostly young, self-described feminists protesting with purple signs that read, “Yoon out, end sexual violence.”
Kim, a progressive, said that she took part in the demonstrations that led to the ouster of South Korea’s previous president in 2017. But this moment, she said, feels different.
“We have realized that just impeaching a president isn’t enough,” she said. “We have to keep fighting, keep the struggle on the streets to make a better place.”
Last month, Yoon was impeached, arrested and indicted after briefly declaring martial law. South Korea’s Constitutional Court is expected to decide in the coming weeks whether or not to formally remove him from office in March.
Yoon’s disastrous attempt to impose martial law in early December sparked an instant reaction from the public. Many South Koreans saw it as an anti-democratic power grab. And many women, like Kim, are at the forefront of near-daily protests against the president.
They say that they see Yoon as an obstacle to women’s rights, which is hardly surprising since he got elected on a promise to fight back against feminism.
During his 2022 campaign, the conservative Yoon promised to shut down the country’s Ministry of Gender Equality. He blamed the country’s low birth rate on feminist ideology, and he won the support of many young conservative South Korean men.
Yoon failed to close the Ministry of Gender Equality because the political opposition stopped him. Though, he effectively hobbled the ministry by refusing to appoint anyone to lead it.
He also did things like remove the term “gender equality” from new textbooks, and, some say, helped encourage a backlash against anyone who even suggests they might be a feminist.
Some women in South Korea say that these actions have been detrimental to them.
A video game developer, who didn’t want to be named because she has been a target of online harassment and abuse, said that the attacks began after she posted on then-Twitter, now known as X.
Someone dug up an old Twitter post of hers from years ago that said, “I will never stop being a feminist.”
That was enough to fuel a barrage of threats and vile comments emanating from male-dominated gaming sites. And it got much worse when someone took a screen grab from the video, showing the game’s main character holding up her thumb and forefinger close together, a gesture that anti-feminists in South Korea say is meant to mock the size of men’s penises.
The woman said that her photo and mobile number were posted online while the gaming company she worked for took the video down.
“I hope more people around the world find out about this kind of harassment toward women in South Korea,” she said in an intervew. “It’s especially bad in the gamer community, with young males. I cannot even imagine what kind of men they will grow up to be.”
Now, she’s got a lawyer, and she’s suing dozens of men who threatened her online.
“The kinds of violence that this one woman experienced is certainly not unique,” said Ju Hui Judy Han, who teaches gender studies at UCLA.
“This is widespread. There is a lot of, you know, vicious online harassments and even physical violences and backlash that take place, which is all the more reason that the the dismantling of the Ministry of Gender Equality was a slap in the face for women who continue to actually face violence and to try to find some way for the state for the government to address these issues.”
Han said it’s hard to wrap your head around what women in South Korea are facing and that the current president has only made things worse.
“You know, we’re talking about a climate where to even say anything about women facing discrimination is somehow violence against men’s rights. Like, that’s the politically skewed and volatile context that Yoon helped create.”
Han said that it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone to see women at the forefront of the ongoing protests calling for Yoon to be removed from office.
After all, they’ve been part of past political movements in South Korea.
Park Yeon-sil, who was at a recent rally in Seoul, said that she’s been out protesting almost every day.
“I don’t know about politics, but I could not live with the idea of my daughter growing up in this kind of country,” she said.