Heterosexual Refusal as Feminist Labor Resistance: Witch Hunts, Reproductive Politics, and Precarity in South Korea

• In Event: 40417 - Global Feminisms in Action: Resistance, Identity, and Solidarity Across Borders

Abstract

This study examines the scapegoating and retaliation against feminists in South Korea over the past decade, a period during which the country’s historically low fertility rate has been framed as a national economic crisis. As reproductive labor is increasingly instrumentalized within the state and economic discourse, feminist women who reject heteronormative relationships and traditional reproductive roles face heightened social and economic marginalization. Through an analysis of public backlash against feminism and in-depth interviews with 75 feminist-identified women in their 20s and 30s, this research explores how contemporary witch hunts operate at the intersection of demographic decline, neoliberal precarity, and anti-feminist political projects. Foregrounding heterosexual refusal—a practice of rejecting marriage and family structures that reinforce patriarchal labor expectations—this study highlights how South Korean feminists are resisting not only gendered social norms but also the capitalist state’s biopolitical demand for reproductive labor. As a form of labor resistance, heterosexual refusal aligns with broader feminist efforts to disrupt work-as-usual approaches to gender, labor, and economic survival. By situating these gendered struggles in Korea within transnational feminist movements, this study underscores the urgent need for comparative research on feminist resistance to capitalist labor regimes, reproductive coercion, and neoliberal governance.

Author

• Meera Choi, Yale University