South Korean YouTubers Jung Se-young and Baeck Ha-na, who campaign against marriage on their SOLOdarity channel, pose for a photo in Seoul, South Korea December 16, 2019. — Thomson Reuters Foundation pic
The pair’s “No Marriage” movement has tapped into burgeoning feminism in South Korea, which saw tens of thousands of women protest in 2018 against a epidemic of voyeurism or “spycam porn” — where victims are secretly filmed urinating or mid-sex. Both women said their previous relationships brought them down and they had changed their appearance to please boyfriends — Jung said she even underwent minor plastic surgery.Marriage and childbirth are increasingly divisive topics in South Korea, where United Nations data shows the average woman has just 1.1 children, creating a demographic crisis which threatens to shrink its rapidly ageing population and economy.
Jung and Baeck believe marriage entrenches old-fashioned gender roles, with South Korean women spending four times longer on unpaid care — cleaning, cooking and looking after children or elderly parents — than their husbands, according to UN data. Like elsewhere in Asia, the pressure to marry someone of the opposite sex to continue the family blood line is strong in South Korea but recent surveys suggest sentiment is changing.
“Women’s rights have become an issue recently because some of them are too radical, they are not seeking gender equality but female supremacy.”