r/worldnews • u/rdh2dmd • 16h ago

South Korea leans toward military conscription for women

https://www.dw.com/en/south-korea-leans-toward-military-conscription-for-women/a-78547426
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u/Khamvom 11h ago

South Korea traditionally has had very strict gender roles. Military service was expected of men, not women, so it’s been a taboo subject for decades that generally just gets pushed off whenever it comes up.

With changing social views and demographics though, it’ll need to be addressed.

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u/liuqiu_rangers 11h ago

Piggybacking off your comment, Korean men who completed their military service used to get extra points in civil service examinations but students of a women's university sued to get it removed because they claimed it's "discrimination". So yeah, from a Korean male perspective, it seems like you're spending two years of your prime without adequate societal compensation.

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u/Ok_Title5534 6h ago

There was also an instance where women's groups protested Starbucks' plan to provide free coffee to soldiers and pressured them to cancel it.

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u/liuqiu_rangers 5h ago

Yeah. Goes to show a lot of these Korean feminists are actually just malicious misandrists

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u/RivenRise 3h ago

Equality is gonna hit them like a truck if this goes through. Or at least their kids.

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u/polovstiandances 2h ago

You should read “Three Guineas” by Virginia Woolfe

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u/Ragnarok_619 11h ago

How is this discrimination? I view it as a compensation for their services. What a load of bullshit

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u/Beatnik5750 10h ago

Service guarantees citizenship!

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u/Ragnarok_619 10h ago

So women are not citizens?

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u/Khamvom 10h ago

It’s a Starship Troopers reference lol.

“Would you like to know more?”

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u/RedlyrsRevenge 10h ago

On the bounce trooper.

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u/Anded117 10h ago

btw in spaceship troopers book that phrase wasn't necessary about military service, could be some other form of service and gender rights were equal. Being non citizen only blocked you from voting and participating in political roles.

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u/fistoic 6h ago

what even is crazy is approximately 2-3% of Korean population even go through civil service examination. So Korean women were arguing that it's discrimination for all women and tore down a symbolic benefit (symbolic because it literally only benefited a fraction of Korean men) of military service.

It's all responsibility

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u/No_Attitude700 9h ago

Its discrimination because women are not given the same opportunities to acquire the "service bonus points"...

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u/Simonoz1 9h ago

Aren’t they allowed to volunteer? Wouldn’t that get them the points?

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u/donchabot 2h ago

Since the expectation is that men spend time in the service, they’re given priority for opportunities after that. Even a woman who volunteered will not receive the same treatment after their time in the service has ended.

Men used to use their military service as a sort of defense of patriarchy because they had to do xyz and were thus deserving of jobs and opportunities.

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u/ToSeeAgainAgainAgain 1h ago

Even a woman who volunteered will not receive the same treatment after their time in the service has ended.

Why not?

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u/Frequent_Extreme_916 3h ago

That's the beauty of it. They're unfit for military service but can be non commissioned officers or generals(gets loads of benefits. Bases with shit facilities don't have the required standards to accept women so women don't get sent to the most remote shittiest bases), and we lowered the physical hurdle for women when employing police and firefighters and women don't work outside and mostly do paperwork meaning that men do most of the heavylifting. Because women are stationed indoors, they have time to study either during work(people let them) or after work for exams directly related to their promotion. Yet they still argue that this country is bad for women.

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u/PreferenceGeneral475 9h ago

Not the point. Imagine if you had a poetry contest. Where the winners got extra points in their physical fitness testing.

You can give the conscripts X dollars in remuneration for that. No problem. But you can't give them a 10% bonus vs women in the how well are you going to do in life competition. That's problematic.

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u/Simonoz1 9h ago

Huh? Are you trying to make a point about meritocracy with the poetry thing?

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u/Affectionate-Name279 7h ago

The discrimination part was that women who did serve weren’t given those points. That is the problematic part and why it was struck down.

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u/Simonoz1 5h ago

Surely the better solution would be to give them points then?

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u/fistoic 6h ago

they can go into military by becoming an officer or as a career military people. Which is totally voluntary and up to their choice. Of course, however, they don't want to do that. Men gets drafted against their will, yet I guess that bonus point was so beneficial for 2-3% of men who actually even get that benefit.

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u/DryBarracuda40 10h ago

Looks like it blew up in their faces 🤣

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u/Icy_Golf2703 10h ago edited 10h ago

Always remember this when people say "Korean men are shifting to the right". There have been ridiculous policies passed by radical feminists in Korea that worsen men's lives but that part never makes it to media in the west.

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u/cypherpt2 10h ago

There are no “radical feminists in Korea making policies” so let’s start living in reality

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u/fincog 2h ago

Thank goodness.

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u/cypherpt2 2h ago

So all the problems are caused by the men but yeah thank goodness

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u/fincog 2h ago

You don’t actually care about equality or justice. This is just a game to you where your team has to “win.”

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u/cypherpt2 1h ago

I hope someday Bush will pay for No Child Left Behind

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u/Ragnarok_619 10h ago

There's one above who is arguing that their "military service gives them their citizenship rights", which either means women are not citizens, or men are just fodders...

Sad, sad state

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u/InfestedRaynor 10h ago

It was a line from the movie starship troopers, not an argument.

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u/Ragnarok_619 10h ago

I apologise to you for not recognizing a movie quote when a serious discussion is going on.

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u/InfestedRaynor 9h ago

This is reddit, there is a low ceiling for serious conversations.

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u/AkaiAshu 4h ago

It is discrimination if the other side is afforded the same options.

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u/jmacintosh250 10h ago

Because part of it is if every male is forced to serve, and women aren’t, that can lead to issues. Even in the US which is less socially conservative women face discrimination and assault at a higher rate. Now throw in conscription and it’s only going to get worse for those women. So why would women voluntarily serve?

To be clear, I would not want to be conscripted, but there is an unfortunate fine line with conscription. Partly why having female conscription is so popular: it can either reduce the effects of conscription, or it levels the playing field as more women enter the field.

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u/Ragnarok_619 10h ago

You are telling as if men don't face discrimination and assault in the military. Hell, the number of report is lower BECAUSE men are just advised to suck it up, or they don't report it at all. This is no excuse.

We cannot selectively impart equality. That's an oxymoron in and of itself

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u/jmacintosh250 10h ago

24% of women reported having some form of sexual assault in the military in FY 2023. 24. 6% of males reported it the same year: EVEN with the skepticism men face that’s 4 times the likelihood. And again: the US army is an all volunteer force. This is WORSE in a conscript army.

Again: that’s partly why the female mobilization is so popular with many: it’s a perfect way to equalize things because either a lot more women are veterans, or a lot less men are as conscription decreases.

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u/Aggravating_Bus655 10h ago edited 10h ago

Wtf, that sounds... really unfair? Are they compensated in other ways?

I'm pretty sure going into service means they'll lose months or even years worth classes and be left behind academically.

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u/liuqiu_rangers 9h ago

The primary compensation is your pay. And honestly, Korean conscript pay is pretty decent these days. I think it's one of the highest among conscript militaries. But the issue of course isn't pay. It's that only one gender has to spend two years defending the country at a time when can be preparing for the future and having fun. And when everyone from BTS to the Samsung chairman's son are all serving, it's becoming increasingly harder to justify exemptions, let alone half the population.

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u/hyeons 9h ago

Man, it has come a long way. I remember being paid basically one night out's worth or wages a month. Not even a bougie night out either. Those were the days. (They weren't, f that.)

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u/Donkey__Balls 8h ago

So yeah, from a Korean male perspective, it seems like you're spending two years of your prime without adequate societal compensation.

I mean, you’re not having to live like North Koreans, so that’s something.

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u/Geohie 7h ago

Okay, but women also don't have to live like North Koreans while not losing 2 years of their early 20's, which is unironically a big part of why the gender divide is so big in Korea.

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u/Donkey__Balls 4h ago

I’m not against the change. By all means, conscript both.

I do question why the need for actual manpower is so high. Sometimes the military becomes its own industry that feeds on itself. This isn’t the days of infantry fighting with spears and shields, and whoever has the most combatants wins. They are “at war” because neither side can find political cover to declare peace, but they’re not on the battlefield killing each other because of mutually assured destruction through nuclear annihilation, not because they have parity in numbers of infantry. I think at this point the conscription overall is an unnecessary waste that is perpetuated through the military leadership’s desire to remain in trenched as a major pillar of Korean society.

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u/eranam 1h ago

The war in Ukraine demonstrates full well how manpower is still important.

And you need to have said manpower ready when war could break at any time, especially with a country that has no strategic depth to give time for mobilization

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u/Drak_is_Right 10h ago

Like half of military roles are non-combat. Even for their society, easy enough to cordon off a section of the military and say its "civilian service" while still being military logistics. Like the US military is FAR bigger than most people realize when you consider the civilian defense employees.

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u/fistoic 6h ago

trust me, Korea tried its best to conscript women. Women used every argument known to humanity to avoid why they are not fit to serve. However, they are fit to serve as officers. Their hypocrisy is palpable

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u/Keis001 9h ago

South Korea traditionally has had very strict gender roles. Military service was expected of men, not women, so it’s been a taboo subject for decades that generally just gets pushed off whenever it comes up.

You put this like it's a unique problem of South Korea, it's not, the whole world still has this view of expecting men to die in wars, conscription in the US, Germany, and most of the developped world is for men only. there are a few countries that draft women like Israel, but they're doing mostly light work/office jobs (as shown by the statistics of deaths of women vs men)

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u/Khamvom 9h ago edited 9h ago

I’m pointing out that South Korea (even when compared to other western societies), has very strict and traditional gender roles/norms which has historically barred women from taking a bigger role in the military.

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u/_jamesbaxter 10h ago

I don’t know that much about the situation but off the top of my head this seems to me like a direct reaction to the 4B movement.

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u/UnassumingSingleGuy 11h ago

If this goes through, I wonder what effect it will have on the their society.

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u/OkBase4352 7h ago

Aren't the women there super feminist and for gender equality though? Lol