WHO IS YOON SUK YEOK, NEW PRESIDENT OF SOUTH KOREA

Yoon Suk-Yeol, a member of the Conservative party in South Korea and a violent anti-feminist, was just elected as president today.

Yoon ran his campaign on a promise to eliminate the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and his views have been popular among anti-feminists.

Conservative Yoon called his victory a "victory of great men". Both candidates have been accused of running a negative campaign. The election on Wednesday (9/3/2022) ended with a margin of less than 1% of the vote. Turnout was high, with more than three-quarters of eligible voters casting their ballots. Voters' main concerns are skyrocketing house prices, stagnant economic growth and youth unemployment.

Yoon ran his campaign on a promise to eliminate the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and his views have been popular among anti-feminists While antifeminists say that protections toward women are unnecessary and discriminatory toward men, HANKYOREH reported an increase in violence toward women last year, with nearly 500 violent femicides in 2021 alone. Per the IAR, South Korean courts are notably lenient in conviction and sentencing of sex crimes, and one woman is murdered due to sexual or gender-related violence every 1.8 days. This is statistically higher than most nations of the same size. The courts have done nothing to deter these crimes, and their silence has emboldened the anti-feminist movement.

South Korea's likely new President, Yoon Suk-yeol, believes:

-The work week should be 120 hours, not 52

-Food safety standards should be eliminated because "poor people should be allowed to eat substandard food for lower prices"

-There should be no legal minimum wage

The White House has sent its congratulations to Yoon, saying US President Joe Biden hopes to further expand ties between the two countries.

Violence against women is a relatively normalized trope in Korean media as well. In 2016, Kim Byeong-ok posed on a cover of Maxim magazine with a woman bound and naked in the trunk of a car, with the caption 'real bad guy'. With the election of Yoon, women in South Korea fear that discrimination and violence will rise more than it has in the past few years, and the slim protections that they do have, could be eliminated.