The Full Story is a partnership between The Fuller Project and Foreign Policy.

They took to the streets en masse through last winter, braving icy weather, sitting on freezing pavements through snowy nights to call for the ouster of then-South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. Politicians praised them as “the hope for the whole nation” who “saved our democracy.”

Young women were a major force behind the months-long protests that helped bring down Yoon in April after his unconstitutional declaration of martial law last December. Waving bright K-pop light sticks that turned the streets into a sea of colorful lights, their presence was so overwhelming that the anti-Yoon protesters became known as the “light stick troops” and their movement the “light stick revolution.”

They took to the streets en masse through last winter, braving icy weather, sitting on freezing pavements through snowy nights to call for the ouster of then-South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. Politicians praised them as “the hope for the whole nation” who “saved our democracy.”

Young women were a major force behind the months-long protests that helped bring down Yoon in April after his unconstitutional declaration of martial law last December. Waving bright K-pop light sticks that turned the streets into a sea of colorful lights, their presence was so overwhelming that the anti-Yoon protesters became known as the “light stick troops” and their movement the “light stick revolution.”

Yoon had risen to power on an anti-feminist platform in 2022, riding a wave of misogynistic sentiment among young men in South Korea—no surprise, then, that young women were highly motivated to remove him from power. But while Yoon’s brief, shock imposition of martial law triggered an ongoing political crisis, it also put the spotlight on one of South Korea’s biggest political failures. Despite the prominent role played by women in pro-democracy demonstrations, both past and present, there are barely any women in positions of political power.

This is no accident but the result of deep, structural inequities. South Korea is the world’s 12th-largest economy as well as a tech and pop culture powerhouse—it also has one of the worst records on women in the industrialized world. The country has the largest gender pay gap among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with women earning under 70 percent of what men earn. Women make up only 6 percent of corporate boardrooms.

The political sphere is no different—women account for 20 percent of parliamentary seats, only slightly higher than the share in North Korea and well below the OECD average of 34 percent. When South Koreans hit the ballot box in Tuesday’s presidential election to select their replacement for Yoon, all seven of their options will be men.

The recent outburst of female activism was driven by anger over Yoon’s martial law as well as his anti-feminist policies. But it also highlighted many young women’s desire to challenge the country’s deeply male-dominated politics.

© Foreign Policy