hankyoreh

Participants in the “2022 Feminist Voters Action” hold a rally in central Seoul on Feb. 12, where they hold up signs with their messages to presidential candidates. (Park Jong-shik/The Hankyoreh)

The morning after Korea’s presidential election, 29-year-old Park Ho-yeon woke up and immediately let out a deep sigh. Park had intended to cast her vote for Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung, whose platform promised policies for women and minorities. But her conviction had faltered as the election day drew close. The hurt she felt when People Power Party (PPP) candidate Yoon Suk-yeol wrote the words “Abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family” on Facebook turned into rage when Yoon later said that “structural sexism doesn’t exist.”

“Even on International Women’s Day (March 8), he said on social media that he would abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. He was basically saying that the votes of women in their 20s and 30s didn’t matter. After really thinking about it, I changed my mind and decided to vote for Lee Jae-myung,” Park said.

She continued, “Even at the polling station, I kept changing my mind. It sounds funny, but I teared up as I voted for No. 1,” referring to Lee’s candidate number.

After results indicated that the winner of this year’s election secured his victory by the slimmest margin in the history of the direct presidential election system — a margin of 247,077 votes — analysts say the last-minute mobilization of women in their 20s like Park was what enabled such a razor-thin race. Among the women in their 20s the Hankyoreh interviewed between Wednesday and Thursday, many admitted that they turned up to vote for precisely the reason Park gave: they couldn’t stand and do nothing while Yoon and PPP leader Lee Jun-seok created an election environment based on the exclusion of women to a never-before-seen degree.

According to the exit poll conducted by the three major South Korean broadcasting companies SBS, KBS, and MBC, 58% of female voters in their 20s voted for Democratic Party candidate Lee Jae-myung, while 33.8% voted for Yoon.

In contrast, 58.7% of male voters in their 20s voted for Yoon, while 36.3% voted for Lee. Though several opinion polls conducted immediately before election day indicated that less than 30% of women in their 20s supported Lee Jae-myung, this voting bloc overwhelmingly showed up at the ballot box for Lee Jae-myung on the day of the election, the percentage of Lee Jae-myung supporters among them having almost doubled overnight.

The young women who cast their vote for Lee after tortured deliberation voiced their anger against President-elect Yoon and Lee Jun-seok who maintained a strategy of “gender division” throughout their campaign.

Han Hyeon-ji, a 21-year-old college student, said, “I got worried watching Lee [Jun-seok], who argued for the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family based on the abolition of women’s student unions at universities. He seemed to not only lack an awareness of gender equality issues but also be clouded by misogyny.”

Twenty-year-old Kim Yu-seon said, “I wanted to show that Lee’s strategy of gender division was a miscalculation. Watching the PPP’s election campaign, I was reminded of the various populist campaign promises and statements former US President Donald Trump made in order to shore up support from white male voters.”

Some said that “Nth room” activist Park Ji-hyeon joining the Democratic Party’s campaign committee persuaded them to vote for Lee.

Lee Eun-gyeol (23) said, “I think Park Ji-hyeon and Democratic Party lawmaker Kwon In-sook helped Lee become an ‘overnight feminist.’ I began thinking that Lee was slowly changing his views on women’s issues. I cast a strategic vote in order to prevent Yoon [from becoming president].”

However, the women stressed that they didn’t actually endorse Lee Jae-myung nor the Democratic Party despite their vote.

Han Hyeon-ji said, “I’m worried that some would say that [women] voted for Lee [Jae-myung] because [they] like him and he did a good job. I hope people understand that [we] shed tears of blood in deciding to change [our] mind about who to support.”

Lee Hyeon-jeong (21) said, “I think some men will say the election result indicates a victory for them. I hope they don’t believe hate won out.”

Park Ho-yeon said, “I hope President-elect Yoon takes to heart the fact that he won by a slim margin of 0.7 percentage points and engages in politics that don’t exclude women.”

An interviewee with the surname Kang said, “It’s time for politicians who stoke the flames of conflict to rally support instead of trying to resolve it to disappear from politics.”

Women who were forced to vote for Lee Jae-myung as their second-best option sent words of encouragement and donations to Justice Party candidate Sim Sang-jung, expressing their heartfelt support. Sim received close to 1.2 billion won, or roughly US$972,000, in donations between 7:30 pm on Wednesday, when exit poll results were announced, and the early morning hours of the following day.

Even those within the PPP are pushing for a shift in strategy after Lee Jun-seok’s politics centering young men yielded no gains and instead backfired. Meanwhile, President-elect Yoon said after his winning remarks on Thursday, “I never sowed division according to gender or sex. That was never the case, so please don’t misinterpret.”

By Lee Woo-yun, staff reporter; Ko Byung-chan, staff reporter

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