China Power | Society | East Asia

Why China’s Internet Is Talking About ‘Korean Women’

The term Hannü is not really about Korean women at all. It’s a stand-in for sentiments Chinese women long to express.

“My womb cannot give birth to the knife that will one day stab me.”

Over the past couple of years, this line has spread widely across China’s social media. It is almost always presented as something “Hannü” (韩女, literally “Korean women” in Chinese). 

Whether the quote actually originated in South Korea – or how widely it is known there – is impossible to verify. Yet its factual origins have become almost beside the point. The quote resonates with many Chinese feminist internet users because it expresses a radical refusal of motherhood in response to male violence. Rather than risk giving birth to a future perpetrator, better not to give birth at all. On Chinese social media, it has even been cited as an explanation for South Korea’s ultra-low birth rate.

The quote is provocative, unsettling, and memorable. It also fits neatly into the highly polarized gender discourse that dominates much of China’s online space. That is precisely why it has been embraced as a kind of iconic slogan.

But how many South Korean women actually hold this view? No reliable data can answer that question. And how many Chinese people have had enough direct contact with South Korean women to know whether such statements are actually common? Probably very few. 

As more and more such quotes and stories – whether verified or not – circulate online, Hannü has gradually ceased to mean South Korean women in the literal sense. It has become a symbolic figure onto which many Chinese women project another possible version of themselves.

Why Not American or European Women?

If Chinese women are looking abroad for feminist inspiration, there is no shortage of historical examples in the West. Women in New Zealand were the first to win the right to vote in nationwide elections. Feminists in Europe and North America challenged long-standing social norms, from what women could wear to whether they could control their own bodies. Throughout the 20th century, activists in countries such as France, Britain, and the United States campaigned for reproductive rights, workplace equality, and legal reform. They wrote manifestos, organized protests, entered politics, and helped reshape the societies they lived in.

Yet on China’s social media, the figure most often celebrated as a particular “state of mind” is neither American women nor French women. It is Hannü.

Although many feminist ideas first entered the Chinese-speaking world through Western scholarship and activism, Western women often feel distant to many Chinese readers. Their societies are shaped by different political institutions, religious traditions, racial dynamics, and histories of social movements. Their struggles are admired, but they can also seem to belong to a different world.

South Korea, by contrast, feels familiar. Both China and South Korea are East Asian societies influenced by Confucian family values. Both place heavy expectations on marriage, childbirth, education, workplace hierarchy, and women’s appearance. Chinese internet users often joke that East Asia’s three major societies (China, Japan, South Korea) are “holding hands together” – bound by similar pressures and anxieties.

As a result, many Chinese women do not see South Korean women as distant pioneers. They see women living in a social structure that looks remarkably similar to their........

© The Diplomat