Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
Lin South Koreaa state that has about 52 million inhabitants, is a country full of fascinating contradictions. Discovered and pampered by the West, also thanks to the recent K-pop phenomenon and its refined cinema, despite being among the most modern and richest in Southeast Asia, it maintains a rigidly patriarchal culture.
And it is precisely from a rigorously macho approach that some of his problems derive, such as that of very marginal role of women, forced by aesthetic stereotypes to take great care of their appearancetreated as sex objects, confined to the home or discriminated against at work.
Of course, a lot has changed since, in the 1960s, every woman in the countryside produced an average of six children. The industrial revolution and the population of cities have favored schooling and the inclusion of women in the labor market.
So is South Korea today it became the country with the lowest birth rate in the world: 0.78 children for each woman. And there hasn’t been a successful birth campaign.
Women aim for economic independence to escape marriage and family life too often characterized by abuse and domestic violence.
A problem that has now gotten so out of control that some women have reacted by founding an ultra-feminist movement that rejects marriage, children, love affairs and sex. Four “no”, hence the name of the movement, 4B, which rejects any relationship with men.
The reaction could appear disproportionate were it not that the female condition is truly unbearable. And it has become dangerous with the birth, for about ten years now, of ultra-right antifeminist movements that have targeted women.
Which? Obviously the educated ones who don’t want to have children out of selfishness. Sound familiar to you? Certain, in all misogynistic countries, the first front of attack for women is education and the strongest instrument of pressure is the blackmail of the birth rate.
Think about it the next time you hear seemingly innocuous slogans placing the weighty question of humanity’s future only on women.
Do you want to share emotions, memories, reflections with us? Write to us at [email protected]
All articles by Antonella Baccaro
iO Woman © REPRODUCTION RESERVED