Could Yong Hye-in’s Nomination as Minister of Gender 

Equality and Family Reignite Gender Conflict?

Son, Sook-mee

Chairperson, Gender Equality Committee

< Table of Contents >

1. Risks of an Excessively One-Sided Appointment

2. Fairness Controversy over Reelection through Satellite-Party Proportional Representation and Concurrent Service as Minister

3. The Problem of Life Partner Laws and Property Division That Ignore Reality

4. The ‘Non-Consensual Intercourse Offense’ and the Risk of False Accusations Without Regard to Cultural Context

5. Doubts About Capacity to Advance Work-Family Balance

Yong Hye-in, a lawmaker from the Basic Income Party, has been nominated for Minister of Gender Equality and Family. As a young female politician born in the 1990s, a sitting member of the National Assembly, and a working mother raising a child, her symbolic profile has raised expectations that she could bring fresh energy to a large bureaucratic organization. Yet the concerns and controversy voiced across political circles and various sectors of society immediately after her nomination have been far more intense than such expectations. A minister is not simply an advocate for minority rights, but a member of the State Council who must mediate the interests of men and women, conservatives and progressives, and different generations, while building social consensus. However, the excessively one-sided legislative record and pronounced ideological orientation that nominee Yong has demonstrated to date raise doubts that the reorganized Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, rather than easing tensions, could instead become a spark that reignites one of the most sensitive forms of gender conflict in Korean society.

1. Risks of an Excessively One-Sided Appointment

In governing the country, personnel appointments send a message. The selection of the head of the newly reorganized Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, following changes to the former ministry’s name and functions, should demonstrate a policy direction aimed at addressing the sense of alienation and concerns about reverse discrimination felt by young men and at establishing universal policies that both men and women can experience in practice.

However, nominee Yong has strongly represented intersectional feminism and particular ideological values. Appointing to the head of the ministry a figure who has been criticized for viewing the voices of young men through a framework that casts them as potential perpetrators or treats them as a group to be excluded carries a substantial risk of entrenching confrontation rather than restoring trust between men and women. A ministerial post is not that of an activist for a particular civic group. An appointment that is excessively tilted to one side risks reducing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family from a ministry for the entire public to the exclusive domain of a particular faction.

The sudden nomination of Representative Yong, a feminist, as Minister of Gender Equality and Family may also be intended as a political move to recover the Democratic Party’s low support among women in their 20s and 30s in the June 3 local elections. However, the young feminism among women in their 20s and 30s that had intensely animated Korean society since 2015 gradually receded from public view through the COVID-19 period. Most importantly, as women have come to recognize that openly identifying as feminists may instead put them at a disadvantage in employment or the marriage market, a growing number are erasing or concealing traces of their past feminist identity. At such a time, would the current government’s returning to the posture of a feminist government, as in the past, really help increase support among women in their 20s and 30s? On the contrary, Yong’s appointment could provoke strong opposition among men in their 20s and 30s and further depress support among young voters overall.

Representative Yong recently supported the Democratic Party’s proposal to abolish prosecutors’ authority to conduct supplementary investigations. This overlooks the possibility that sexual-offense cases could remain buried after an inadequate initial investigation, leaving women or other vulnerable people as the ultimate victims of such crimes. Citing this concern, even some women’s organizations have come out in opposition to Yong’s nomination as minister.

2. Fairness Controversy over Reelection through Satellite-Party Proportional Representation and Concurrent Service as Minister

When assessing nominee Yong’s political stature and qualifications, the first issue raised is the process by which she was elected through an exploitation of weaknesses in the electoral system. In both the 21st and 22nd general elections, Yong won consecutive terms as a proportional-representation member of the National Assembly through proportional-representation satellite parties led by the major opposition party. Rather than undergoing direct public scrutiny by running in a constituency, she cannot avoid criticism that she rose suddenly to political prominence through a politically engineered alliance involving a satellite party, justified as a seat allocated to a minor party. This also runs counter to fairness, an important value emphasized by younger generations.

More serious still is the fact that she seeks to serve as minister while retaining her status as a proportional-representation member of the National Assembly. In Korean political practice, constituency lawmakers have to some extent been permitted to serve concurrently as ministers. For proportional-representation lawmakers, however, because there are next-in-line candidates who can succeed to the seat, it has long been a legal and political convention to resign from the National Assembly before entering the Cabinet. For nominee Yong to retain both the ministerial post and her proportional-representation seat because resignation could cause the party to lose a seat or complicate succession on the party list would amount to a clear form of preferential treatment and an unprecedented attempt to hold both positions, with little precedent in Korea’s constitutional history. An approach to joining the Cabinet that cannot escape controversy over special treatment undermines the very principles of morality and fairness required of a member of the State Council.

3. The Problem of Life Partner Laws and Property Division That Ignore Reality

The ‘Bill on Life Partnership Relationships’ (hereinafter, the ‘Life Partnership Act’), introduced by Representative Yong as the lead sponsor, defines a life partnership one form of a diverse family not as a relationship between a man and a woman but simply as a relationship between two adults, thereby leaving open the possibility of including same-sex partners. Although the bill formally recognizes cohabiting relationships formed by two adults regardless of sex, in practice it appears likely to function as a gradual, indirect means of granting same-sex couples legal rights comparable to those of marriage, including legal protection, tax benefits, and powers of representation. It is characterized as an irregular attempt at legalization that runs counter to the principle of marriage between men and women set out in Article 36(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea: “Marriage and family life shall be entered into and sustained on the basis of individual dignity and equality of the sexes.”

The Life Partnership Act promoted by nominee Yong also contains serious legal limitations in terms of both its original purpose and practical effectiveness. The bill stipulates that when a life partnership is dissolved, either party may claim a division of property, as in a divorce from a legal marriage, and that the family court may intervene if the parties cannot reach agreement. The bill claims to reflect the realities of cohabiting households among younger people, but in practice it mechanically extends to cohabiting relationships a compulsory property-division system comparable to that of legal marriage. Today, the overwhelming majority of people who enter into life partnerships are young couples in dual-income households who manage their property independently. Requiring property division when the relationship ends directly conflicts with the way many young people live today. The bill does allow the parties, by mutual agreement, to make separate arrangements regarding property or to modify such arrangements. However, given that Korean courts do not legally recognize prenuptial agreements, it appears highly unlikely that they would recognize property agreements between life partners.

Comparable systems in advanced economies, such as France’s PACS, have been able to function successfully because they are based on a separate-property regime for couples regardless of whether they have children, and because they use a relatively light-touch framework that allows the parties to arrange their property relations freely and clearly through prior agreements. Only by minimizing legal and property disputes at the time of separation can a non-marital cohabitation system fulfill its original usefulness as a ‘stepping stone to marriage.’ Nominee Yong’s bill, however, imposes excessive constraints on property rights, which could discourage men and asset holders from registering life partnerships (cohabitation) and thereby create legislative overreach that undermines the usefulness of the system itself.

4. The ‘Non-Consensual Intercourse Offense’ and the Risk of False Accusations Without Regard to Cultural Context

The ‘non-consensual intercourse offense’ advocated by nominee Yong which would change the elements of the offense of rape from violence or threats to whether consent was given also gives rise to serious practical concerns. In Western societies such as Sweden and the United Kingdom, a culture has long been established in which sexual relations are understood as a freely exercised, contractual right between equal adults.

By contrast, in Confucian cultures in the East, including Korea, there remains a perception that sexual relations involve a woman giving up her chastity or body, making a strong expectation of compensation or a sense of victimization more likely to arise after a relationship. If a man becomes distant after sexual relations or the relationship deteriorates, the resulting hurt and sense of betrayal may, after the fact, lead to psychological self-rationalization or gaslighting around the idea that ‘I did not truly consent at the time,’ creating a substantial risk that the situation could develop into a complaint against the man.

Moreover, in Korea’s criminal justice environment where, compared with Western countries, punishment for false accusation is limited in practical effectiveness and proving the offense is extremely difficult making consent in an intimate private setting the sole standard for criminal punishment would leave men entirely exposed to subsequent changes in statements. Men could ultimately face a troubling environment in which recordings or written acknowledgments before sexual relations become effectively essential, and this would undermine a culture of intimacy and trust in relationships between men and women.

5. Doubts About Capacity to Advance Work-Family Balance

The contemporary mission that Korean society now demands of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family is not an expansive ideological struggle over gender. It is to overcome the low-birthrate crisis and build an environment in which working mothers and fathers can balance work and family life while raising children with peace of mind.

Nominee Yong emphasizes that she herself is a working mother and invokes her direct personal experience. Yet work-family balance policies cannot be achieved simply through slogans. Practical measures such as expanding parental leave, reducing working hours, supporting replacement personnel, and expanding care infrastructure require changes to systems under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the securing of substantial budgetary resources by persuading the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Welfare. As a progressive politician from a minor party, she has not yet demonstrated whether she possesses the administrative negotiating ability and political capacity to overcome the barriers of a large bureaucracy and the Ministry of Economy and Finance and secure concrete institutional changes and budgetary resources.

The position of Minister of Gender Equality and Family is not one for a combative politician who stands on one side and fuels conflict. It is a post for a broadly capable administrator who must pursue practical and balanced policies that men and women, working mothers and full-time homemakers, and younger and older generations can all support. If nominee Yong insists only on the clearly gender-biased convictions she has expressed in the past, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family will once again find itself at the center of social conflict. This is precisely why the confirmation hearing must rigorously examine whether she can move beyond being a one-sided politician and demonstrate the balance and administrative capacity needed to embrace the public as a whole.

※ The views expressed herein may differ from those of the Hansun Foundation.