#south korea presidential election

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Alaina Demopoulos at The Guardian:

McKenna, who is 24 and lives in a rural, conservative state, recently got back on dating apps after a year of finding herself. She had two first dates planned for this weekend, but after Donald Trump won the election, she cancelled both. “It’s heartbreaking to know that in this country you only matter if you’re a straight white man,” she said. “It’s just devastating that we’re at this point. So I will not let another man touch me until I have my rights back.” McKenna, who did not want her last name published for privacy reasons, first heard about 4B a few months ago, via a TikTok video referring to the South Korean social movement. The basic idea: women swear off heterosexual marriage, dating, sex and childbirth in protest against institutionalized misogyny and abuse. (It is called 4B in reference to these four specific no-nos.) The mostly online movement began around 2018 protests against revenge porn and grew into South Korea’s #MeToo-esque feminist wave.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, 4B is once again on McKenna’s mind – and she’s not the only one. Trump’s embrace of manosphere figures such as Joe Rogan, the Nelk Boys and Adin Ross means he has strong support among their evangelists – mainly, young men. But for young women, the former president’s long history of misogyny means a vote for Trump is a vote against feminism, especially with reproductive rights as a key issue in 2024. Ahead of the US election, pundits predicted a history-making gender gap, and early exit polls support that prediction: women aged 18-29 went overwhelmingly left, while Trump picked up ground with their male counterparts compared with 2020. With the race called, TikToks viewed hundreds of thousands of times offered one way for women to go for the jugular: 4B, specifically cutting off contact with men. “Girls it’s time to boycott all men! You lost your rights, and they lost the right to hit raw! 4b movement starts now!” one creator wrote on TiKTok in a video viewed 3.4m times. In another video, a woman exercises on a stair climber machine. “Building my dream body that no man will touch for the next 4 years,” reads the caption. The top comment on her post: “In the club, we all celibate.” On Wednesday, Google searches for “4B” spiked by 450%, with the most interest coming from Washington DC, Colorado, Vermont and Minnesota. In South Korea, 4B began as an offshoot of national protests against the spycam epidemic, in which perpetrators filmed targets – most of whom were women – during sex or while urinating in public bathrooms without their knowledge or consent.

[...]

As with #MeToo in the US, men have called 4B an overreach, and discriminatory. South Korea’s conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, ran on a platform of abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which protects against gender-based violence and discrimination, saying feminists were to blame for the country’s economic woes.

Haein Shim, a South Korean activist and current undergraduate researcher at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, said in an email that women who participated in 4B protests faced cyberbullying, harassment, stalking and threats of violence. “Many of us wore masks, sunglasses, and hats to cover our faces, and it was common practice to dress differently before and after a protest to minimize being stalked.” There were more nuanced critiques, too. “Some debated if it was a sustainable way to participate in feminism, because it was a total disconnect with men, and some people believe there have to be productive conversations among people with different world views in order for society to move forward,” Lee said. Feminists expressed concern over whether 4B “disregarded heterosexual women’s desires, in order to punish men who may or may not have participated in misogyny”.

Shim, the activist, says that 4B goes beyond just boycotting men, and encourages women to find solidarity with each other. “It’s a new lifestyle focused on building safe communities, both online and in-person, and valuing our existence in this crazy world,” she said. “What we want is not to be labeled simply as some man’s wife or girlfriend, but to have the independence to be free from the societal expectations that often limit women’s potential to be fully acknowledged as human beings.” Second wave feminist groups of the 1960s and 70s such as Cell 16, which advocated celibacy and separation from men, and political lesbians, who opted out of heterosexuality, were historically deemed as extreme – or simply trendy. 4B, a more contemporary movement that mostly lives online, may seem more accessible to gen Z women. On TikTok, 4B posts play as communal and therapeutic, a way to take back control during a time when basic rights are at stake.

Donald Trump's election, combined with the erosion of abortion access post-Roe, has fueled an angry backlash among feminist-inclined women by importing the South Korean 4B Movement to the States.

[kpoploverfrevr]

Netizens React To US Network’s Coverage Of The “4B” Movement

Over the past few years, talks about a certain “4B” movement emerging in South Korea have been circulating online, though it has been unclear how popular it actually is on the ground. Regardless, the buzz around the movement online has gradually increased, leading to many international eyes on it.

Recently, the American news channel, NBC, reported on “4B,” elaborating on the four tenets starting with “bi,” a Korean prefix that means “no.” These fundamental principles are said to be “bi-hon” (no marriage), “bi-chulsan” (no giving birth), “bi-yeonae” (no dating), and “bi-sex” (no sex). The movement has gotten significant attention in the US recently following the presidential elections

The coverage went viral in South Korea, with a related post garnering over 50,000 views at the time of writing. But instead of a mixed political opinion about the movement itself, netizens were preoccupied with the typos in the report. NBC not only misspelled “bihon” as “bihno” but also used a botched spelling of “sex,” trying to emulate the Korean pronunciation, and wrote it as “sekseu.”

Over 500 comments under the viral post on Theqoo quickly got busy clowning the American network’s reporting, while a few of them were amused at how far the movement had spread.

“Bi-sekseu is f*cking funny.”

“Why did they write bi-seksu like that, LMAO.”

“ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ.”

“But what’s really interesting is that in the early days when radical feminists created 4B, they got beaten up like crazy and were often advised not to make a fuss or make it obvious, just practice it quietly. But now it’s even been exported overseas, LOL.”

Meanwhile, in addition to the question about the on-ground popularity of “4B,” international netizens have also criticized it for its exclusion of transgender women and its overall lack of intersectionality.

[trendynewsnow]

Trump's Critique of U.S.-South Korea Relations and Concerns Over North Korea Diplomacy

Trump’s Perspective on U.S.-South Korea Relations During his campaign for the 2024 presidential election, Donald J. Trump has characterized the United States’ alliance with South Korea as a questionable deal for the American taxpayer. He has criticized the South Korean government for not contributing adequately to the expenses related to the 28,500 American troops stationed on their territory. In…

[blaze-papers]

North Korea Unveils First Weapons-Grade Uranium Facility

North Korea has revealed its first-ever facility for manufacturing weapons-grade uranium, marking a significant escalation in its nuclear weapons program. The disclosure, which was broadcasted by state media on Friday, features North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspecting the newly unveiled centrifuge plant—a crucial element in uranium enrichment.

During his visit, Kim Jong-un urged the facility’s engineers to ramp up production to significantly expand the country’s nuclear arsenal. This announcement comes amidst rising global tensions and the upcoming U.S. presidential election, highlighting North Korea’s ongoing defiance of international regulations and United Nations Security Council resolutions aimed at curbing nuclear development.

The centrifuge facility, previously shrouded in secrecy, was shown to the international community for the first time through state media photos depicting long rows of centrifuges designed to enrich uranium to weapon-grade levels. Although a similar plant was briefly disclosed to a U.S. delegation in 2010, this is the first time such a facility has been revealed to a broader audience.

North Korea’s nuclear program has faced widespread condemnation and numerous UN sanctions intended to halt its progress. The country has conducted six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017 and is estimated to have around 50 nuclear warheads, with sufficient material to produce an additional 40.

In recent months, North Korea has also tested a range of ballistic missiles and increased its production of short-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Kim Jong-un has stressed the importance of boosting production to enhance North Korea’s tactical nuclear capabilities, particularly with short-range missiles.

The timing of North Korea’s announcement aligns with intensified U.S. presidential campaign debates, where North Korea’s nuclear threat has become a focal point. Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have both addressed the issue, with Trump reflecting on his previous interactions with Kim and Harris critiquing Trump’s approach to the North Korean threat.

In response to North Korea’s latest development, South Korea has condemned the continued advancement of its nuclear program and pledged to fortify its alliance with the United States. Joint defensive plans are being developed to counter potential nuclear aggression from Pyongyang.

As the international community closely examines the implications of North Korea’s newest move, global leaders remain focused on managing the escalating nuclear threat posed by the regime.

[maaarine]

A new global gender divide is emerging (John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times, Jan 26 2024)

"In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries.

That gap took just six years to open up.

Germany also now shows a 30-point gap between increasingly conservative young men and progressive female contemporaries, and in the UK the gap is 25 points.

In Poland last year, almost half of men aged 18-21 backed the hard-right Confederation party, compared to just a sixth of young women of the same age.

Outside the west, there are even more stark divisions.

In South Korea there is now a yawning chasm between young men and women, and it’s a similar situation in China.

In Africa, Tunisia shows the same pattern.

Notably, in every country this dramatic split is either exclusive to the younger generation or far more pronounced there than among men and women in their thirties and upwards.

The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices.

That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.

In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.

Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways.

Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world. (…)

It would be easy to say this is all a phase that will pass, but the ideology gaps are only growing, and data shows that people’s formative political experiences are hard to shake off.

All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the proliferation of smartphones and social media mean that young men and women now increasingly inhabit separate spaces and experience separate cultures.

Too often young people’s views are overlooked owing to their low rates of political participation, but this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts."

[mariacallous]

A majority of respondents in a global poll said they would prefer a Ukrainian victory in the war against Russia, the Economist reported on Nov. 3.

In a survey conducted jointly with the polling firm Globescan, the Economist asked 30,000 people in 29 countries and one territory, Hong Kong, whether they would rather see Russia or Ukraine win the war.

An average of 54% of those surveyed said they wanted a Ukrainian win, compared to only 20% who supported Russia. More people supported Ukraine over Russia in 25 of the 30 countries or territories polled.

Popular support for Ukraine was strong even in countries that are not traditional allies of Kyiv. Respondents in Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and Hong Kong were pro-Ukraine, despite their governments' neutrality or support of the Kremlin.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has positioned himself as a neutral party and mediator between Kyiv and Moscow, joining China in backing a six-point peace plan that does not mention Ukraine's territorial integrity.

South Africa has claimed neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war but continued to strengthen its economic and political ties with Moscow. The country is a member of the BRICS group alongside Russia, China, and others, and even carried out joint naval drills with the two countries last year.

Public support for Ukraine's victory was strongest in the United States and South Korea.

The surveyed countries in which people were more likely to support Russia include Egypt, India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam. In the same poll, respondents in all five countries said they would prefer a Donald Trump win in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.

Respondents were polled in July and August of 2024.

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

NATO has confirmed that North Korean troops have been sent to help Russia in its almost three-year war against Ukraine and says some have already been deployed in Russia's Kursk border region, where Russia has been struggling to push back a Ukrainian incursion.

Adding thousands of North Korean soldiers to Europe's biggest conflict since World War II will pile more pressure on Ukraine's weary and overstretched army.

"Today, I can confirm that North Korean troops have been sent to Russia, and that North Korean military units have been deployed to the Kursk region," NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters.

Rutte said the move represents "a significant escalation" in North Korea's involvement in the conflict and marks "a dangerous expansion of Russia's war".

It will also stoke geopolitical tensions in the Korean Peninsula and the wider Indo-Pacific region, including Japan and Australia, Western officials say...

...Ukraine, whose defences are under severe Russian pressure in its eastern Donetsk region, could get more bleak news from next week's US presidential election. 

A Donald Trump victory could see key US military help dwindle.

In Moscow, the Defence Ministry announced on Monday that Russian troops have captured the Donetsk village of Tsukuryne — the latest settlement to succumb to the slow-moving Russian onslaught.

Rutte spoke in Brussels after a high-level South Korean delegation, including top intelligence and military officials as well as senior diplomats, briefed the alliance's 32 national ambassadors at NATO headquarters... MORE

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

One of the most well-established patterns in measuring public opinion is that every generation tends to move as one in terms of its politics and general ideology. Its members share the same formative experiences, reach life’s big milestones at the same time and intermingle in the same spaces. So how should we make sense of reports that Gen Z is hyper-progressive on certain issues, but surprisingly conservative on others?

The answer, in the words of Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and one of the leading researchers on the topic, is that today’s under-thirties are undergoing a great gender divergence, with young women in the former camp and young men the latter. Gen Z is two generations, not one.

In countries on every continent, an ideological gap has opened up between young men and women. Tens of millions of people who occupy the same cities, workplaces, classrooms and even homes no longer see eye-to-eye.

In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. That gap took just six years to open up.

Germany also now shows a 30-point gap between increasingly conservative young men and progressive female contemporaries, and in the UK the gap is 25 points. In Poland last year, almost half of men aged 18-21 backed the hard-right Confederation party, compared to just a sixth of young women of the same age.

Outside the west, there are even more stark divisions. In South Korea there is now a yawning chasm between young men and women, and it’s a similar situation in China. In Africa, Tunisia shows the same pattern. Notably, in every country this dramatic split is either exclusive to the younger generation or far more pronounced there than among men and women in their thirties and upwards.

The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices. That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.

In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.

Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world.

Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining. Survey data show that in many countries the ideological differences now extend beyond this issue. The clear progressive-vs-conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused — or at least is part of — a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues.

In the US, UK and Germany, young women now take far more liberal positions on immigration and racial justice than young men, while older age groups remain evenly matched. The trend in most countries has been one of women shifting left while men stand still, but there are signs that young men are actively moving to the right in Germany, where today’s under-30s are more opposed to immigration than their elders, and have shifted towards the far-right AfD in recent years.

It would be easy to say this is all a phase that will pass, but the ideology gaps are only growing, and data shows that people’s formative political experiences are hard to shake off. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the proliferation of smartphones and social media mean that young men and women now increasingly inhabit separate spaces and experience separate cultures.

Too often young people’s views are overlooked owing to their low rates of political participation, but this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts.

[source]

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: John Burn-Murdoch

Published: Jan 26, 2024

One of the most well-established patterns in measuring public opinion is that every generation tends to move as one in terms of its politics and general ideology. Its members share the same formative experiences, reach life’s big milestones at the same time and intermingle in the same spaces. So how should we make sense of reports that Gen Z is hyper-progressive on certain issues, but surprisingly conservative on others?

The answer, in the words of Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and one of the leading researchers on the topic, is that today’s under-thirties are undergoing a great gender divergence, with young women in the former camp and young men the latter. Gen Z is two generations, not one.

In countries on every continent, an ideological gap has opened up between young men and women. Tens of millions of people who occupy the same cities, workplaces, classrooms and even homes no longer see eye-to-eye.

In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. That gap took just six years to open up.

Germany also now shows a 30-point gap between increasingly conservative young men and progressive female contemporaries, and in the UK the gap is 25 points. In Poland last year, almost half of men aged 18-21 backed the hard-right Confederation party, compared to just a sixth of young women of the same age.

Outside the west, there are even more stark divisions. In South Korea there is now a yawning chasm between young men and women, and it’s a similar situation in China. In Africa, Tunisia shows the same pattern. Notably, in every country this dramatic split is either exclusive to the younger generation or far more pronounced there than among men and women in their thirties and upwards.

The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices. That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.

In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.

Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world.

Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining. Survey data show that in many countries the ideological differences now extend beyond this issue. The clear progressive-vs-conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused — or at least is part of — a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues.

In the US, UK and Germany, young women now take far more liberal positions on immigration and racial justice than young men, while older age groups remain evenly matched. The trend in most countries has been one of women shifting left while men stand still, but there are signs that young men are actively moving to the right in Germany, where today’s under-30s are more opposed to immigration than their elders, and have shifted towards the far-right AfD in recent years.

It would be easy to say this is all a phase that will pass, but the ideology gaps are only growing, and data shows that people’s formative political experiences are hard to shake off. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the proliferation of smartphones and social media mean that young men and women now increasingly inhabit separate spaces and experience separate cultures.

Too often young people’s views are overlooked owing to their low rates of political participation, but this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts.

==

On average, men are more moderate and centrist in their views while, on average, women are more extremist in their views. Anyone suggesting that men as a whole, or on average, have shifted is gaslighting you, as the evidence does not support this assertion.

"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy." -- George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four"

[darkmaga-returns]

Do they actually think that their plan will work?  During this election, women overwhelmingly supported Kamala Harris and men overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump.  So now some liberal women have decided that it is time for a nationwide sex strike in order to punish men for voting for Trump.  Yes, they are quite serious about this…

Liberal women have sworn to go on sex strike over Donald Trump’s election win. Mr Trump swept to victory in Tuesday’s presidential race that Democrats cast as a referendum on abortion rights and protections for women.

So let me get this straight.  In order to “punish” us, these women are going to quit engaging in sexual immorality and start acting like chaste conservative Christian women?

And since they won’t be having sex, liberal women won’t be having as many abortions either.

I think that we can all live with that.

The women that are going on strike are taking inspiration from the “4B movement” in South Korea…

In short, the 4B movement is a vow to swear off men. It is called the 4B movement because in Korean, the four tenets each begin with bi, which means no, according to a paper published by two South Korean researchers at Yonsei University’s Institute of Humanities.

Apparently there are four primary pillars of the “4B movement”…

[nerdyenby]

2024 US Presidential Candidates policies (as per their official websites)

Note that I am quite liberal but this is me trying to summarize how our major candidates represent themselves and their goals, as to understand what factors make them appealing to voters

Harris

Affordable living (cutting taxes for middle class families, lowering rent, bringing down cost of healthcare, supporting small businesses and innovators, affordable and accessible education, and more)

Protecting fundamental freedoms and human rights (restoring reproductive freedom and access to safe abortions, protecting voting rights, and defending LGBTQIA+ rights)

Promoting safety (preventing gun violence, supporting local law enforcement and community safety programs, securing our borders — going after human traffickers and drug dealers as well as creating better paths to citizenship for immigrants —, fighting the opioid and fentanyl crises, holding the Supreme Court accountable to the same standards and laws as other US judges, and ensuring that no one is above the law)

Security (dedicated to keeping both america and the international community safe, has positive relations with South Korea, Ukraine, and NATO, is working to end the Israeli/Palestinian war, standing up against Iranian terrorist groups and China, and supporting veterans and their families and caregivers)

Trump

Immigration: “Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion,” “Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history,” “Stop the migrant crime epidemic,” “Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again”

Economy and labor: “End inflation,” “Make America the dominant energy producer in the world,” “Turn the United States into a manufacturing superpower,” “Large tax cuts for workers, no tax on tips,” “Keep the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” “Protect social security and Medicare with no cuts, including no change to the retirement age,” “Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations”

Fundamental freedoms and human rights: “Defend our fundamental freedoms including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms,” “Cut federal funding for any school pushing Critical Race Theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children,” “Keep men out of women’s sports,” “Secure our elections”

International policies: “Prevent world war 3, restore peace in Europe and the Middle East, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country,” “Strengthen and modernize our military, making it — without question — the strongest and most powerful in the world”

Misc: “End the weaponization of government against the American people,” “Rebuild our cities, making them safe, clean, and beautiful again,” “Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success”

[planetofsnarfs]

When I sit down at a bar in Brooklyn with my cousin — a recent college grad from Korea who is visiting America for the first time — I have one burning question: How’s your love life? She keeps her ballcap pushed down low and presses her lips into a tight line.

“I’m not interested,” she says. “I just don’t trust men. You don’t know what they’re thinking these days — whether they’re one of the guys with misogynistic thoughts. It’s so normalized. Why would I even risk it?” she says.

She does not want to date. She feels no need to get married. Her ideal life is to form a tight-knit community with other single women. “It’s not just me,” she says. “All my friends rarely date these days for that reason. These issues are all we talk about when we get together.”

My cousin and her friends are not alone. Across Korea, young women are swearing off men, influenced by the 4B movement, a radical feminist campaign that originated in Korea in the late 2010s. The four Bs stand for bi-hon (no marriage), bi-yeonae (no dating), bi-chulsan (no birthing) and bi-sex (no sex).

The movement formed in response to growing gender inequality and violence against women: Korea has one of the largest gender pay gaps in the world, and brutal murders of women — in subway stations, on rooftops and in their own homes, often at the hands of men they were dating — headline news shows daily. Amid so much political turmoil and bloodshed, 4B activists say the only way to make women safe — and convince society to take their safety seriously — is to swear off men altogether until something changes.

And now, in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection, 4B is going viral on U.S. social media among women who are furious with the men who helped the former president clinch a win. On TikTok alone, top videos have gained millions of views, and one widely shared tweet about the 4B movement post-election now has 450,000 likes and 21 million views at time of writing.

It’s too soon to say if the 4B movement is here to stay in the United States. But even if it isn’t, the surge in interest says something about the social forces unleashed by the 2024 presidential election. An uptick in misogyny has already been evident — just look at the “your body, my choice” comments by men online — similar to what’s been seen in Korea, suggesting that this kind of feminist reaction could take hold. And even if women don’t explicitly take on the 4B label en masse, the movement’s message of bodily autonomy, and the anger that drove the conversation in the first place, could have a major impact not just on American politics, but on American life overall — just as it has in Korea.

Think of the movement as a labor strike, says Soha, a Korean feminist who provided only her online nickname for fear of being harassed for supporting feminism. She says it’s about rejecting the additional work women put in to appeal to men, maintain a household and follow patriarchal values — the kind of work that is more widespread in South Korea’s more socially conservative society. It’s the type of labor all women can identify with and push back against with one powerful voice. Many women eschew the 4B label, often in fear of harassment, but still live by its principles. My cousin describes it as an act of survival, a way to shield women from rapidly rising violence, avoid toxic conversations with misogynistic men and resist an anti-feminist government that is actively trying to roll back women’s rights.

Just as gender has become a political predictor in Korea, it’s shaping elections in the United States. The turnout demographics from the U.S. presidential election are still being sorted out, but a few things are crystal clear. The Republican ticket used male identity and gender grievances as a successful political tool, courting the “bro” vote and attributing Kamala Harris’ success to her identity. Young men helped Donald Trump win the election. Many young women are distraught. It’s an acceleration of the already widening gender gap in American politics, including an increasing number of young men rejecting feminism. An NBC News pollfound that 57 percent of women backed Harris, compared to 40 percent of men — with women sprinting to the left while men flirt with the right.

Some U.S. women are seeking both revenge and relief from the consequences of a Republican trifecta, including a rollback of reproductive rights and a broader cultural acceptance of sexist rhetoric. For some online, the answer is right in front of them: the 4B movement from South Korea.

Like the U.S., South Korea’s gender divide played a striking role in South Korea’s most recent presidential election. Yoon Suk Yeol, then the conservative candidate, secured a victory in 2022 by catering to young men who felt left behind during a rapid push for gender equality, especially after the country’s #MeToo reckoning in 2018 tanked the careers of several actors and politicians. Young men cheered on Yoon’s declarations of being an “anti-feminist,” saying that “structural discrimination based on gender” does not exist, despite the fact that the country regularly ranks near the bottom in the World Economic Forum’s gender equality index. To this day, young men perceive that discrimination against men is more serious than against women, even though 50 percent of women between the ages of 19-29 say they’ve experienced sexual discrimination at work, compared to 30 percent of their male peers. From 2021 to 2023, female sexual assault victims saw a 15 percent rise. Many American women fear the same could happen here.

4B messaging is already echoing on U.S. social media. One X user advertises the 4B movement as a way to “take control of your life under *him*.” Another user writes, “We need to start considering the 4B movement … We can’t let these men have the last laugh … we need to bite back.” One TikToker has posted she’s joining the 4B movement after breaking up with her Republican boyfriend.

“When I saw the movement go viral in the U.S., I thought, even U.S. women must be at their limit,” says Yeonhwa Gong, a Korean 4B follower who has written on the topic. “But I don’t feel too bad that it has come to this point — if anything, I think of it as a necessary action that had been pushed back for a while and is now finally happening.”

For women who adopt the 4B mindset, not even men who claim to be on the same political spectrum can provide a safe space. With so many men opposing feminism, and even a video on how pro-Trump men could hide their political beliefs from the women they date going viral, how do you know if he’s telling the truth? “A lot of women are just tired of men, and worrying about ‘what if?’” my cousin told me. “I had thought at some point I’d want to find a good man, no matter how hard that would be. At this point now though, I don’t feel that need.”

The 4B movement might seem too radical to get far in the U.S., but the fact that it’s gained traction suggests that at least a number of young women feel more vulnerable since the reelection of Donald Trump than they did before it. The 4B discourse in the U.S. “prompts us to reflect on how much society has taken for granted or overlooked the rights and the freedoms that women rightly deserve,” says Hyejin Jeon, a University of Maryland doctorate student from Korea who is currently analyzing her country’s feminism movements.

If the movement takes hold, it could potentially lead to some of the same outcomes as have been seen in Korea, where women are reconsidering dates with men out of suspicion and lack or trust, young people are marrying and having children at lower rates, and both men and women are expressing deep loneliness. Politicians could take advantage of the divide for their own gains, leaning harder into gender-divide politics, and even outright sexist rhetoric. And even women may turn against one another; American women are already arguing about the inclusivity of the movement, with some saying that women with male partners have no part in 4B. Such discourse has long fractured feminist groups in Korea, according to Minyoung Moon, a Clemson University lecturer who published a report about the backlash against feminism in South Korea. Married women are seen as "serving the needs of men," she says, alienating the group from what could be a more inclusive movement.

And then there’s the danger of backlash from the right. “The long-term effect I see is very negative, because they chose the radical strategy, giving men and anti-feminists reason to hate them even more,” Moon says. “And when I look at the 4B movement … on YouTube, I already see the conservative party people bashing against liberal women.”

Still, at least for now, the movement appears on the upswing in both countries as women say that the model of life they’d expected — dating, marriage, house, kids — looks, increasingly, like a trap set by men who don’t see them as equals. And women like my cousin want alternatives.

“To live with friends that are close to me, to have the ability to live on my own — living like that is my dream,” she says.

[head-post]

Biden, Xi to meet in Peru as US-China relations tested by Trump’s return

A meeting between incumbent US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Lima, Peru’s capital, on Saturday.

Officials told reporters that President Biden wants to discuss military-to-military interaction between the two countries.

Biden is likely to emphasise the importance of maintaining peace and security in the Taiwan Strait and express concern over China’s actions in the South China Sea.

The US president is also expected to express deep concern over the increased co-operation between Russia and North Korea.

The leaders are also expected to discuss bilateral cooperation in the fight against drugs. Fentanyl overdoses are a serious problem in the US. There have been several cases where fentanyl manufactured using materials originating in China has been smuggled into the US.

Biden and Xi Jinping last met on November 15, 2023 on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in San Francisco.

China, commenting for the first time on the recent US election, said it hoped for continued peaceful and mutually beneficial co-existence. Beijing declined to comment on Donald Trump’s threats to increase tariffs on Chinese goods.

Xi Jinping had a telephone conversation with Trump the other day. The Chinese leader hailed the Republican on his victory in the US presidential election.

Read more HERE

[storkmuffin]

Conversations among Korean workers in an office in South Korea on this day (Our Nov 6, the Americans' Nov 5) in 2024 watching the US Presidential elections.

Trigger warnings. Dead Dove Do Not Eat.

A: Trump is going to win. I just saw. New York Times called it.

B: Welp. Palestinians are screwed. So are the Ukranians.

C: Why are you worried about other people? He's going to hype up Kim Jong Eun again.

B: Oh, so true. Well no, actually. Taiwan is screwed more than us.

C: Oh that's right! I forgot about Taiwan.

B: So it'll be Palestinians, the Ukrainians, the Taiwanese, and then us.

D: Well, maybe not screwed. We will just have to pay a lot more for the military stuff.

B: I wonder if Poland is going to be OK. Isn't that how all the world wars start? By Poland getting run over by someone?

C: Maybe the EU can just cede Poland and like, Finland, too, to Russia, and be done with it.

B: It's either Poland or the Baltics, right? Yugoslavia doesn't exist anymore. Romania vs Bulgaria or something this time, maybe? Do you think maybe there will be another pandemic too?

A: The Republicans got the senate too.

B: How is it they couldn't find even ONE white man to be the presidential candidate on the Democratic side? Why is there no talent whatsoever there? Because every American election is purely racial, right? Did the Democrats really think a black woman could win?

C: Maybe Trump will just remake their constitution and be president for life?

D: Trump's right hand people keep screaming about how America is for Americans, and they mean white people.

.... and so on.

[meret118]

Politico's E&E News reported Thursday that when natural disasters hit states led by governors Trump disliked, he either withheld, delayed or outright denied aid for political reasons. In 2020, when Washington state was affected by wildfires, Democratic Governor Jay Inslee requested $37 million in aid for the affected areas. But even though the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) found that the Evergreen State's wildfires met the threshold for a federal disaster, Trump sat on the request for the final four months of presidency, only approving it just prior to leaving office.

. . .

Inslee, who unsuccessfully sought the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, had previously criticized the ex-president's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic when he said the federal response to the virus would "be more successful if the Trump administration stuck to the science and told the truth." Trump bristled at the critique, and called the governor a "snake" and a "nasty person."

Two days before Inslee requested federal assistance, he slammed the former president's "reckless statements" about global warming and his "gutting of environmental policies." The irony of Trump withholding aid to Washington state is that even though it's considered safe Democratic territory in presidential elections, the wildfires primarily affected the eastern part of the state, which is solidly Republican.

. . .

While Washington state eventually got aid money from the federal government, the Trump administration didn't send any aid at all to Maryland after Republican Governor Larry Hogan requested it. Hogan — who also criticized Trump's oversight during the pandemic and bought 500,000 Covid tests from South Korea — sought federal money to recover from a tropical storm that FEMA said met the disaster threshold. However, Trump never officially approved his November 12 request. Trump attacked the Republican governor from his official Twitter (now X) account, labeled him a RINO [Republican in name only] and said he was "just as bad as the flawed tests he paid big money for!"

Biden ultimately approved the aid request in February of 2021. However, the damage had already been done. Russell Strickland, the director of the Maryland Emergency Management Agency, said the "delay [in receiving aid] caused us to miss opportunities" to better protect residents against future natural disasters."Citizens do not have the ability to wait months to receive assistance and return to their homes and businesses," Strickland said.

. . .

Utah Republican Governor Gary Herbert also experienced Trump's vindictiveness when he requested federal aid in October of 2020 for a series of destructive storms. Even though FEMA estimated the storms more than surpassed the threshold to qualify for assistance, the former president still took 97 days before finally approving Herbert's request. Notably, Herbert was one of the first Republican elected officials to recognize Biden as the winner of the 2020 election, and denounced his state's Republican attorney general for adding his name to an effort to overturn election results.

[mariacallous]

Doubts over sustained U.S. support for Ukraine long predated Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential election, and they have raised concerns over Kyiv’s ability to sustain its defense against Moscow’s war. These concerns have overshadowed another important dynamic in an already complicated conflict: the increasing involvement of East Asian powers in a European war. Besides the recent arrival of at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers on the Russian side, the evolving roles of China, Japan, and South Korea raise the question of whether a widening proxy war is being fought in Ukraine. By all indications, the answer is yes: The war is setting a new precedent for Indo-Pacific nations to compete for their interests on the global stage.

A proxy war is when two countries fight each other indirectly—by supporting warring participants in a third country. Classic examples from the Cold War era include the Congo crisis in the 1960s and the Angola crisis in the 1970s, when the Soviet Union and United States each backed warring factions in a civil war with money, weapons, and sometimes troops from yet other countries but never got directly involved in combat themselves.

Not all proxy wars look alike or follow the standard pattern. Sometimes, an outside power’s support for one side leads that power to intervene directly. Think of the United States’ gradual involvement in the Vietnam War or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to prop up the embattled government there. Even as the military efforts of their proxies waned, the United States and Soviet Union maintained their participation in an attempt to prevent a victory by the other superpower’s proxy.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has all the trappings of a proxy war. The Kremlin has clearly articulated its view that Ukraine has no agency as an independent state and that the target of its invasion is the West—specifically, the United States. Members of NATO and several other Western-aligned countries, in turn, are supporting Ukraine with weapons deliveries. The West’s intention may be Ukraine’s defense, but its efforts are necessarily directed at Russia. By forcing Putin to fail in his goal of subjugating Ukraine, Western support for Ukraine undermines Russia. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin suggested as much, admitting that “we want to see Russia weakened.”

But what about East Asian states’ involvement on each side of this war? Is this a proxy war for them, too? If so, to what end?

Start with Russia’s supporters. Despite China refraining from overtly providing Russia with weapons, it has worked to ensure Moscow’s ability to continue its war. Not only has it opposed Western sanctions, but it has also used its diplomatic connections in the global south to prevent a broader condemnation of Russia. Importantly, China has stepped in to prop up the Russian economy and defense industry to ensure that Russia can withstand Western sanctions and supply its military. Russia now imports most of its battlefield goods and critical components from China; according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, China now supplies Russia with about 90 percent of its microelectronics imports and 70 percent of machine tool imports. According to customs data, Beijing ships more than $300 million worth of dual-use goods to Russia every month. As if to fire yet another warning in NATO’s direction, China this year participated in military exercises in Belarus, only a few miles from the Polish border.

North Korea has taken a far more direct approach. It was one of only five countries that voted against the U.N. General Assembly resolution opposing Russia’s aggression, and last week Pyongyang ratified a military alliance that pledges either country to aid the other in case of attack. North Korea has provided Russia with artillery shells and ballistic missiles to support dwindling munition stockpiles. But the most escalatory step occurred last month, when North Korea sent about 10,000 troops to Russia, some of whom are now reported to be fighting the Ukrainians in Russia’s Kursk region.

To support Ukraine, two stalwart U.S. allies have stepped in, albeit with much smaller steps: Japan and South Korea. Early on, Japan coordinated sanctions against Russia with Western partners. Tokyo also provides direct and indirect assistance to Ukraine, including nonkinetic military equipment—including vehicles, flak jackets, and reconnaissance drones—as well as some $12 billion in other aid, making Tokyo one of Kyiv’s top bilateral donors. Japan also revised its restrictions on weapons exports, enabling the transfer of Japanese-manufactured Patriot missiles to the United States, thereby helping to ensure U.S. stockpiles remain stable even as some of this equipment is sent to help Ukraine. And diplomatically, Japan has used its connections to act as a convening power to help Ukraine. During Japan’s 2023 G-7 presidency, for example, then-Prime Minister Kishida Fumio extended invitations to various countries from the global south so that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could engage with their representatives at the group’s May summit.

While South Korea, too, has refrained from delivering weapons to Ukraine, it has provided substantial humanitarian aid and other nonlethal support, such as mine-clearing equipment, body armor, and helmets. It has also joined in economic sanctions against Moscow. And like Japan, it has replenished U.S. weapons stocks, supplying the United States with artillery shells and thereby freeing up Washington’s ability to send shells to Ukraine. Similarly, South Korea has greatly increased defense exports to Poland, part of which backfilled the latter’s deliveries to Ukraine in the early days of the war. Following the news of North Korean troops arriving in Russia, Seoul is now considering a greater level of support, floating the idea of directly supplying Kyiv with defensive and offensive weapons.

The motivations of these four East Asian actors have all the hallmarks of their being involved in a proxy war. Both Beijing and Pyongyang have an overarching strategic interest in seeing Moscow prevail. Both share Russia’s vision of a post-Western world order, in which the United States and its allies are weakened. Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un see Putin as an ally in a global struggle against the West, which makes supporting his war in Ukraine a strategic imperative.

Similar proxy war motivations hold for Tokyo and Seoul. As a status quo power, Tokyo has a strategic interest in ensuring that the existing order does not falter, including the post-World War II proscription of changing borders by force; as Kishida famously warned, “Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow.” Seoul—in addition to its concerns about the new military alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow—is also motivated by a need to thwart attempts to change the status quo through coercion. Echoing Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol told The Associated Press last year that “the war in Ukraine has reminded us all that a security crisis in one particular region can have a global impact.” Together, their actions to help Ukraine prevail also aim to send a message to China and North Korea that any attempt to forcibly change the status quo comes with dire consequences.

Granted, the level of support we currently see from the East Asian powers will likely be a function of how committed the United States and Russia remain in the months and years ahead. Trump’s return to the White House could result in changes on the battlefield—but not necessarily in the nature of Indo-Pacific involvement. Trump has already said he could end the war in a day but has not provided details. If he can—and both sides accept the outcome—then the proxy war ends. If he cannot and the conflict continues in some manner, so does the proxy war, but the level of commitment may change. In a situation where the United States stops supporting Ukraine but European NATO members step up, it is likely that Japan and South Korea would also continue their support; their interest in pushing back against aggressors would be unchanged. However, their support could be reduced, since some of their activities have come as a request by their U.S. ally.

It is hard to see China and North Korea reducing their involvement, given that their support could help Russia succeed and advance their strategic goal of destroying the existing order. Short of a mutually acceptable end to the war, changes in the degree of U.S. involvement under a second Trump administration will not alter the fundamental proxy war constellation: All four East Asian powers are supporting a third party to undermine their competitor’s ability to undermine their national interests.

While this indicates that the security challenges in East Asia have, in part, been exported to Europe, the more concerning element is the fact that their participation adds an element of uncertainty and potential escalation to the conflict in Ukraine. Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul, and Tokyo are supporting their respective partners on European soil in order to wage a much broader struggle over the future of the international order. This, in turn, indicates the extent to which the war has become global—and has set a new precedent for how Asian nations compete for their interests in other parts of the world.