28 votes

As 4B takes the world by storm, South Korea is grappling with a backlash against feminism

9 comments

  1. chocobean
    Link
    Excerpt on wider view, from link within link of a young woman being attacked and left with hearing loss for having short hair Folks, strap in. As wealth inequality worsens, as the ultra rich...

    "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.

    Excerpt on wider view, from link within link of a young woman being attacked and left with hearing loss for having short hair

    A spate of high-profile deepfake pornography cases were uncovered this summer, targeting female students and staff at the country's schools and universities.

    A Seoul court jailed one perpetrator for 10 years last month for assaulting women who attended the nation's top Seoul National University, saying his actions stemmed from "hatred toward socially successful women".

    One victim, whose campaign name is Ruma, told AFP that her assailant "wanted to emphasise that no matter how accomplished a woman is, she can be trampled on and treated like a prank by men.

    Folks, strap in. As wealth inequality worsens, as the ultra rich steals more and more, we're going to see society fracture deeper and the Mob become violent against not those at the top but those at the bottom.

    30 votes
  2. [2]
    Fiachra
    Link
    I don't really get how the label "backlash" is being used here. There was discrimination and violence against women, the 4B movement formed as a reaction, and now angry men are doing...

    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.

    I don't really get how the label "backlash" is being used here. There was discrimination and violence against women, the 4B movement formed as a reaction, and now angry men are doing discrimination and violence as a reaction to that. Can you really call the discrimination and violence "backlash" when it's been going on the entire time? I'd be more likely to call the 4B movement backlash, personally.

    16 votes
    1. chocobean
      Link Parent
      preach! Bit "to the choir" here, but in other places, folks were very eager to prematurely advertise "Mission Accomplished!" and that gender inequality had been "solved". I think that's how we're...

      preach! Bit "to the choir" here, but in other places, folks were very eager to prematurely advertise "Mission Accomplished!" and that gender inequality had been "solved". I think that's how we're seeing the usage of "backlash" instead of "lashing continues after a partial pause" and other things like "new movement" instead of "new slogan of the same continuing pressure".

      2 votes
  3. [6]
    Moonchild
    Link
    4b seems to me to be a relatively content-free meme—its popularity more a reflection of the zeitgeist than an actual instigator of action. i hear on tiktok lots of people are asking if they can...

    4b seems to me to be a relatively content-free meme—its popularity more a reflection of the zeitgeist than an actual instigator of action. i hear on tiktok lots of people are asking if they can still do 4b if they have boyfriends. and

    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

    is the flip side of that

    i've seen it compared to political lesbianism, which seems somewhat apt. but 1) most people are over 2nd-wave feminism by now, and 2) even insofar as they're not, 4b does not have enough substance to be a meaningful separatist movement with teeth or legs

    i think it doesn't really mean anything and the comparison to metoo does not make much sense

    12 votes
    1. [5]
      sparksbet
      Link Parent
      It's also worth noting that, much like lesbian separatism and political lesbianism were in the West, the 4b movement is extremely transphobic and full of TERFs.

      It's also worth noting that, much like lesbian separatism and political lesbianism were in the West, the 4b movement is extremely transphobic and full of TERFs.

      10 votes
      1. [4]
        Moonchild
        Link Parent
        https://pastebin.com/kKKJMrJZ or so
        5 votes
        1. [3]
          sparksbet
          Link Parent
          I'm significantly more skeptical than the author about whether radical feminism is compatible with trans people more broadly, and I don't agree with her that 4B's transphobia "doesn't mean it...

          I'm significantly more skeptical than the author about whether radical feminism is compatible with trans people more broadly, and I don't agree with her that 4B's transphobia "doesn't mean it shouldn't be tried". I'm honestly not particularly convinced that lesbian separatism and political lesbianism aren't inherently transphobic, and I find the gender essentialism they are based on more or less revolting.

          8 votes
          1. [2]
            Moonchild
            (edited )
            Link Parent
            for clarity: i didn't mean to make any value judgments in either of my comments, and i don't think anything particular about the thing i linked; i just think it's interesting some value judgments...

            for clarity: i didn't mean to make any value judgments in either of my comments, and i don't think anything particular about the thing i linked; i just think it's interesting

            some value judgments now. i think separatism is always bad. i think whether something is 'transphobic' or not is usually beside the point (i find words like this are frequently used as thick ethical concepts when they should be only ontological). more to the point: insofar as it is not separatist, i'm comparatively sympathetic to political lesbianism. why do you object to it? i guess—i am identifying political lesbianism as a particular woman's choice to avoid engaging in romance or sex with men as a political statement. it could also be a prescription that all women should engage in political lesbianism, which i do agree is bad, but that is just because it is unreasonably authoritarian. but either way, i don't see how political lesbianism can be more gender-essentialist than lesbianism or feminism

            why do you think radical feminism is incompatible with trans people? when trans people do it, are they alienating themselves, or other trans people, or something else? (i recently had the displeasure of reading a trans woman who was spouting off mackinnon—gauche; unbearable!—but i didn't really get that from it.)

            unless—are you equating sexism with transphobia? (valid imo but unusual)

            5 votes
            1. sparksbet
              (edited )
              Link Parent
              Political lesbianism seems pretty inherently separatist to me -- I don't think a single woman deciding not to pursue romantic or sexual relationships with men for any reason is political...

              Political lesbianism seems pretty inherently separatist to me -- I don't think a single woman deciding not to pursue romantic or sexual relationships with men for any reason is political lesbianism. Political lesbianism is an ideology, not a description of what a given woman is doing. I think that the idea that the solution to misogyny is for women to cut themselves off from men is fundamentally flawed, and political lesbianism is merely one variation on that theme. I find that political lesbianism also tends to fall into a "women are perfect, pure beings" pattern that I think is ultimately pretty sexist. Women are just as capable of being villains and doing abhorrent, horrible things as men are when given the opportunity. The idea that refusing to have relationships with men is the solution and that lesbianism is inherently better and more pure denies that reality.

              I think any gender essentialism is transphobic by definition, and there's really no way to get to political lesbianism or lesbian separatism without a heaping helping of it. Building an ideology around some inescapable taint of evilness that's inherent to being a man is going to inherently be transphobic -- there simply isn't a way to have that ideology that doesn't classify some subset of trans people as ontologically evil. More often than not, political lesbians and other TERFs happily throw all trans people under the bus rather than bother to include any subset thereof.

              For context, I'm non-binary and trans masculine (though the details of my gender identity are more complex than I'll get into here). My wife is also non-binary, but she's transfeminine. We have a lesbian flag hanging in our entryway atm. I've never encountered a political lesbian who doesn't hold beliefs that exclude and demonize at least one of us, and more often it's both of us -- me as a traitor to womanhood, transitioning to avoid misogyny, and my wife as a man trying to coopt women's spaces. More candidly, I've never encountered a political lesbian who wasn't an avid TERF who made their hatred of trans people very clear.

              EDIT TO ADD: for the record, I didn't take either of your previous comments as endorsing these ideas, I mostly used them as a jumping off point to discuss the problems I have with the ideas. So no worries on that front, I think it was pretty clear you weren't necessarily advocating for these things.

              16 votes