this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2024
83 points (91.9% liked)

News

23275 readers
3877 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

A politician in South Korea is being criticised for making dangerous and unsubstantiated comments after linking a rise in male suicides to the increasingly “dominant” role of women in society.

In a report, Seoul City councillor Kim Ki-duck argued women’s increased participation in the workforce over the years had made it harder for men to get jobs and to find women who wanted to marry them.

He said the country had recently “begun to change into a female-dominant society” and that this might "partly be responsible for an increase in male suicide attempts”.

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among the world’s rich countries but also has one of the worst records on gender equality.

Councillor Kim’s comments have been criticised as the latest in a series of out-of-touch remarks made by male politicians.

all 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world 58 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Couldn't possibly be the soul crushing society we've created, or their absolutely insane academic regimen

[–] blaine@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

It is true that women generally want a partner who makes the same or more than them, while men generally find income/career status less important in mate selection. That is a scientific fact before you politicize it. And it's also a fact that as more women receive higher education and fair pay, the pool of men who make the same or more than the average woman will shrink pretty dramatically.

So it is true to say that as women become empowered and more able to care for themselves without the help of a man, the majority of lower-income and males with a lower socioeconomic status will have a much harder time finding a mate. This mostly affects men negatively at a younger age when their earnings are lowest and they sit closest to the bottom of that hierarchy. Conversely, the negative impacts hit women later on when the end of their child-bearing years approaches and they realize that putting a family on hold to focus on their career may have been a more permanent decision than they'd intended now that they've moved up the economic ladder and the small proportion of men at or above their level are either already taken or happy to play the field non-monogamously.

It hits both genders just as hard and it's an issue we need to solve. Our evolutionary psychology and mate selection processes just haven't caught up with modern society. And since males are more prone to isolation and suicide, we see the affects against them more readily. But the affects to women will become more apparent in the next few decades.

I know this is politically charged territory, but it's pretty well established from a sociological and evolutionary psychology perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mating_preferences#:~:text=Mate%20preference%20priorities,-Research%20has%20been&text=In%20the%20study%2C%20it%20was,attractiveness%2C%20as%20the%20highest%20priorities.

Edit: Changed "lower-status males" to "males with a lower socioeconomic status" since that seems to be a trigger-word for some folks.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This is supercharged in Korea because it's a very traditional society. Not only are women not able to find compatible men, but they also have to give up the careers they built in order to stay home and raise kids.

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

I don't know about Korea specifically, but it's pretty common in SE Asia to have live in nanny's from poor countries to child rear when both parents are power career players. It's this not the case in Korea?

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

It's hard to talk about this without people getting upset but I think you were pretty genuine in trying to talk about it.

[–] DessertStorms@lemmy.blahaj.zone -3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

lower-status males

That's a lot of extra words to say you, knowingly or otherwise, buy in to incel rhetoric..

[–] blaine@lemmy.ml 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm linking to peer-reviewed scientific studies over here. If you want to dispute what I'm saying, avoid the genetic fallacy and engage with the substance.

By "lower-status", I meant lower socioeconomic status. Less education and less income. The two things women primarily judge potential mates on.

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

I agree with you, though its all a symptom of the larger class war and the market capitalist owners need for mooaaaaaaar that required almost everyone to work to support a household. Same reason they limited abortion for poor women here in the US, the need for more desperate workers.

The sad reality is the truths you lay out are just not palatable to the current culture, despite being true. They also will not even begin to improve until the larger global class ~~war~~ occupation is addressed and the greed of the owners is put into check by force.

Even that is a losing battle, but at least it has meaningful support. If you're going to fight a just but losing battle, fight the one that informs all others that won't get rotten fruit unfairly pelted at you in the public square.

[–] blaine@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

If you’re going to fight a just but losing battle, fight the one that informs all others that won’t get rotten fruit unfairly pelted at you in the public square.

Love this line. I've been eating a lot of fruit here on Lemmy. Going to have to put some thought into this one.

[–] Allonzee@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I did as well when I started pontificating on the current gender conflict, only to be rebuked not on the facts or the data, but on the feels with ad hominems directed at me.

But the thing is, in addition to dictating all poors must work in the wake of the loss of their jim crow pseudo-slave workforce, the market capitalists want us divided in every conceivable way so we never look up at them basking in the dragon hoards we never stop growing for them with our bodies.

They use the media they own and the curriculum they inform through captured governments to stoke racial/political/sex/cultural divides. It is in their interests to keep us ignorant, largely devoid of critical thinking, and hostile towards one another.

Neither men nor women are setting these terms on the basis of their inherent drives, their drives are being manipulated to serve the market by a few thousand sociopath families with aligned interests based in unquenchable avarice. All of us without considerable net worth are less than human to the market capitalist owners.

[–] DessertStorms@lemmy.blahaj.zone 39 points 4 months ago
[–] TheFrogThatFlies@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

I'd like to remind everyone who's coming here for the men vs women fight that not so long ago only men worked and they were still able to afford everything for their family. Now both work and can't afford the same as men alone did then. We should be fighting such that either man or woman work alone and can still afford a home, not fight between us.

Men vs women, left vs right politics, black vs white, Christian vs Islamic,... we're too blind with these petty fights among ourselves to see that we are all alike and there's a different third party that is playing us like a fiddle.

[–] VirtualOdour@sh.itjust.works 10 points 4 months ago

Korea has a huge problem with toxic masculinity and shame culture, it's started to come to a head as more Korean women grow up using tiktok and Twitter which gives them a more global perspective and makes them less likely to accept bullshit.

The rule for women has been 'we don't care what happens to you as long as no one finds out about it, and if they do its your fault' which is tied strongly to their very competitive culture. One 'stain' on your record snd you're ruined. Tiktok is spreading a more western expectation in Korean women and some Korean men which angers the traditionalist element and results in headlines like this.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 8 points 4 months ago

Could it be the stress of hyper competition to get the best grades in school in order to enter the best universities?

Could it be the korean social pressure that is always reiterating and reinforcing that those older and/or above you should never be questioned?

Could it be that salaries just aren't enough anymore to pay for their own needs, plus their parents' (since most retirement pensions don't even cover the basic cost of living), as is expected from korean society?

Nah, it's the wimmin dominating society and making this gesture 🤏

Moonie has a very good 2 part video that does explain a lot about South Korea

[–] Wrench@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

It couldn't possibly be that their entire country is basically oriented around one massive Corp that has infamously bad working conditions / office politics.

[–] Thorny_Insight@lemm.ee 3 points 4 months ago

Well it wouldn't exactly be the women's fault but it is true that women are in general higher educated than men and what is also true is that in general women want a man whose higher educated than them. This is going to be a major issue in the future though in the case of south korea they're absolutely screwed anyway due to aging population and ever decreasing birth rates.

[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

If you commit suicide just because your boss got no pp, you kinda deserve it. The much more obvious reason would be broadly gestures around tho