By Jason Lim
As the South Korean elections get closer, one must make allowances for seemingly outrageous promises by candidates vying for last-minute votes. Even by that standard, the policy position by Lee Jae-Myung, the presidential candidate for the ruling progressive party, to cover hair loss treatment under public health insurance was a bold move that captured lots of attention.
Ahn Cheol-soo, the perennial political hanger-on who is currently running as a third-party candidate, responded by criticizing Lee on his plans to use the national health coverage for a less than necessary "health" treatment. Instead, he promised to leverage market power to make generic hair loss drugs available for less and prioritize scientific research into hair loss that could even lead to a national export industry to cure baldness across the world.
This was followed by a cryptic Facebook post by Yoon Suk-yeol, the opposition conservative party presidential candidate, who posted the simple phrase, "Shut down the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family." The full connotation of this post is difficult to understand, but you catch the drift if you translate the English name of the ministry to its more literal (and much more loaded) translation of "Ministry of Women and Family."
Basically, one of the leading candidates proposed eliminating the ministry whose primary function is listed as "planning and coordination of women's policy, and improvement of women's status through the enhancement of women's rights."
There was no explanation to his post, but everyone understood it to be a dog whistle to the 20- and 30-something young men in Korea who are seen as the crucial swing vote in the upcoming presidential election in March.
All politics is local. But all politics is also identity politics. The easiest and tried-and-true way to fashion a cohesive fighting force from a very heterogeneous groups of people and have them all pulling in the same direction is to create an effective "us vs. them" framework. The "us" is always the wronged, persecuted, and powerless while "them" is the powerful, entrenched, corrupt, and unfairly privileged group.
In any dynamic society, there are multiple, complex, and overlapping layers of "us vs them" that are always in play and affecting policies in different ways. However, in elections, some "us vs them" issues become more crucial than others due to the depth of the perceived injustices and the corresponding capacity to vote as a bloc by the "us" to redress the wrongs done against "us." For this upcoming presidential election, it seems that the most important "us vs them" is the 20- and 30-something young men versus what they brand as radical feminism in Korea.
Viewed from this context, the hair loss electioneering makes sense. I mean, who would be concerned about hair loss except for young men in their 20s and 30s? Older men have already gone through the five stages of grief over their hair loss and come to terms with it. Also, they will tend to have families to care for and jobs they have to hang on to, which leaves them little time to be concerned about receding hairlines.
However, for young men who have grown up in a Korean culture that unashamedly prizes looks as a competitive advantage, hair loss can be a serious issue having to do with self-esteem and chances for future happiness. It also feeds into the inequality narrative of Hell Joseon, in which only the kids with rich parents can afford to be young, pretty, and handsome while those less fortunate are relegated to face the cruel vagaries of time without any help.
This is an almost inevitable result of the lessons learned from last April's special elections in which Oh Se-hoon retook the Seoul Mayor's seat by receiving 72.5 percent of the vote from men in their 20s. This was a higher percentage than men in their 60s, the traditional support group for the conservative party, who went 70.5 percent for Oh.
For men in their 30s, 63.8 percent voted for Oh. In fact, the ruling progressive party squeezed out a higher percentage of male voters (51.3 percent vs. 45.8 percent) only for the 40 somethings, which is the generation that came out of the democratic activist past of late 1980s and early 1990s.
You don't have to be a political operator to see the obvious picture. 60s and older will vote for the conservative candidate no matter what. 40s and 50s will lean toward the progressive party candidate. Who's left? The 20s and 30s. Within this demographic, the men seem to want to vote with a single voice, and they seem increasingly characterized by a collective, ardent opposition against what they view as unfair victimization of males by the feminist aligned with the progressive powers that be.
This narrative seems especially ironic and discordant in a country that's at the bottom of OECD countries for gender equality, but it is a narrative that's very real and impactful in today's Korea. The candidates are choosing to cater to this narrative in order to win.
I guess we can take small comfort that, whoever wins, Korean men will have fuller heads of hair at the end of the day. K-Hair, anyone?
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
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Ahn Cheol-soo, the perennial political hanger-on who is currently running as a third-party candidate, responded by criticizing Lee on his plans to use the national health coverage for a less than necessary "health" treatment. Instead, he promised to leverage market power to make generic hair loss drugs available for less and prioritize scientific research into hair loss that could even lead to a national export industry to cure baldness across the world.
This was followed by a cryptic Facebook post by Yoon Suk-yeol, the opposition conservative party presidential candidate, who posted the simple phrase, "Shut down the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family." The full connotation of this post is difficult to understand, but you catch the drift if you translate the English name of the ministry to its more literal (and much more loaded) translation of "Ministry of Women and Family."
Basically, one of the leading candidates proposed eliminating the ministry whose primary function is listed as "planning and coordination of women's policy, and improvement of women's status through the enhancement of women's rights."
There was no explanation to his post, but everyone understood it to be a dog whistle to the 20- and 30-something young men in Korea who are seen as the crucial swing vote in the upcoming presidential election in March.
All politics is local. But all politics is also identity politics. The easiest and tried-and-true way to fashion a cohesive fighting force from a very heterogeneous groups of people and have them all pulling in the same direction is to create an effective "us vs. them" framework. The "us" is always the wronged, persecuted, and powerless while "them" is the powerful, entrenched, corrupt, and unfairly privileged group.
In any dynamic society, there are multiple, complex, and overlapping layers of "us vs them" that are always in play and affecting policies in different ways. However, in elections, some "us vs them" issues become more crucial than others due to the depth of the perceived injustices and the corresponding capacity to vote as a bloc by the "us" to redress the wrongs done against "us." For this upcoming presidential election, it seems that the most important "us vs them" is the 20- and 30-something young men versus what they brand as radical feminism in Korea.
Viewed from this context, the hair loss electioneering makes sense. I mean, who would be concerned about hair loss except for young men in their 20s and 30s? Older men have already gone through the five stages of grief over their hair loss and come to terms with it. Also, they will tend to have families to care for and jobs they have to hang on to, which leaves them little time to be concerned about receding hairlines.
However, for young men who have grown up in a Korean culture that unashamedly prizes looks as a competitive advantage, hair loss can be a serious issue having to do with self-esteem and chances for future happiness. It also feeds into the inequality narrative of Hell Joseon, in which only the kids with rich parents can afford to be young, pretty, and handsome while those less fortunate are relegated to face the cruel vagaries of time without any help.
This is an almost inevitable result of the lessons learned from last April's special elections in which Oh Se-hoon retook the Seoul Mayor's seat by receiving 72.5 percent of the vote from men in their 20s. This was a higher percentage than men in their 60s, the traditional support group for the conservative party, who went 70.5 percent for Oh.
For men in their 30s, 63.8 percent voted for Oh. In fact, the ruling progressive party squeezed out a higher percentage of male voters (51.3 percent vs. 45.8 percent) only for the 40 somethings, which is the generation that came out of the democratic activist past of late 1980s and early 1990s.
You don't have to be a political operator to see the obvious picture. 60s and older will vote for the conservative candidate no matter what. 40s and 50s will lean toward the progressive party candidate. Who's left? The 20s and 30s. Within this demographic, the men seem to want to vote with a single voice, and they seem increasingly characterized by a collective, ardent opposition against what they view as unfair victimization of males by the feminist aligned with the progressive powers that be.
This narrative seems especially ironic and discordant in a country that's at the bottom of OECD countries for gender equality, but it is a narrative that's very real and impactful in today's Korea. The candidates are choosing to cater to this narrative in order to win.
I guess we can take small comfort that, whoever wins, Korean men will have fuller heads of hair at the end of the day. K-Hair, anyone?
Jason Lim (jasonlim@msn.com) is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture.
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