A politician in South Korea is being criticised for making harmful and unsubstantiated feedback after linking an increase in male suicides to the more and more “dominant” function of ladies in society.
In a report, Seoul Metropolis councillor Kim Ki-duck argued ladies’s elevated participation within the workforce through the years had made it more durable for males to get jobs and to search out ladies who wished to marry them.
He stated the nation had just lately “begun to alter right into a female-dominant society” and that this would possibly “partly be chargeable for a rise in male suicide makes an attempt”.
South Korea has one of many highest suicide charges among the many world’s wealthy international locations but additionally has one of many worst data on gender equality.
Councillor Kim’s feedback have been criticised as the most recent in a collection of out-of-touch remarks made by male politicians.
Councillor Kim, from the Democratic Get together, arrived at his evaluation when analysing information on the variety of suicide makes an attempt made at bridges alongside Seoul’s Han river.
The report, printed on the town council’s official web site, confirmed that the variety of suicide makes an attempt alongside the river had risen from 430 in 2018 to 1,035 in 2023, and of these making an attempt to take their lives the proportion who had been males had climbed from 67% to 77%.
Suicide prevention consultants have expressed concern over Mr Kim’s report.
“It’s harmful and unwise to make claims like this with out ample proof,” Music Han, a psychological well being professor at Seoul’s Yonsei College, advised the BBC.
He identified that globally extra males took their lives than ladies. In lots of international locations, together with the UK, suicide is the largest killer of males below 50.
Even so, Prof Music stated the explanations behind the sharp rise in males trying suicide in Seoul wanted to be scientifically studied, including it was “very regrettable” that the councillor had made it about gender battle.
In South Korea there’s a substantial gulf between the variety of women and men in full-time employment, with ladies disproportionately working short-term or part-time jobs. The gender pay hole is slowly narrowing, however nonetheless ladies are paid on common 29% lower than males.
In recent times an anti-feminist motion has surged, led by disillusioned younger males, who argue they’ve been deprived by makes an attempt to enhance ladies’s lives.
Showing to echo such views, Councillor Kim’s report concluded that the best way to beat “the female-domination phenomenon” was to enhance individuals’s consciousness of gender equality in order that “women and men can take pleasure in equal alternatives”.
Koreans took to the social media platform X to denounce the councillor’s remarks as “unsubstantiated” and “misogynistic”, with one consumer questioning whether or not they had been dwelling in a parallel universe.
The Justice Get together accused the councillor of “simply shifting the blame to ladies in Korean society who’re struggling to flee gender discrimination”. It has known as on him to retract his remarks and as an alternative “correctly analyse” the causes of the issue.
When approached for remark by the BBC, Councillor Kim stated he had “not supposed to be important of the female-dominated society”, and was merely giving his private view about a few of its penalties.
Nevertheless, his feedback observe plenty of unscientific and typically weird political proposals geared toward tackling a few of South Korea’s most urgent social points, together with psychological sickness, gender violence and the bottom start charge on the earth.
Final month, one other Seoul councillor in his 60s printed a collection of articles on the authority’s web site encouraging younger ladies to take up gymnastics and practise pelvic ground workout routines to be able to elevate the start charge.
On the identical time, a authorities suppose tank really useful that ladies begin faculty sooner than boys, in order that classmates could be extra attracted to one another by the point they had been able to marry.
“Such feedback encapsulate simply how pervasive misogyny is in South Korea,” stated Yuri Kim, director of the Korean Girls’s Commerce Union. She accused politicians and policymakers of not even making an attempt to know the challenges ladies confronted, preferring to scapegoat them as an alternative.
“Blaming ladies for getting into the workforce will solely lengthen the imbalances in our society,” she advised the BBC.
At the moment ladies account for 20% of South Korea’s members of parliament, and 29% of all native councillors.
Seoul Metropolis Council advised the BBC there was no course of in place to vet what politicians printed on its official web site except the content material was unlawful. It stated people had been solely chargeable for their content material and would face any penalties on the subsequent election.
Further reporting by Hosu Lee and Leehyun Choi
For those who, or somebody you realize, have been affected by points on this article, the next assets could assist:
Within the UK: BBC Action Line
Elsewhere on the earth: Befrienders Worldwide
