As South Korea's birth rates continue to decline, reporter JiHye Jeong highlights the rising tide of young feminists who are staging a strike against patriarchy. Despite relentless cultural and political backlash, the surge in South Korea's women's resistance movements - from the 2015 feminist 'reboot' to 'escape the corset' and 4B - offers a radical response to the misogynistic forces that compel women into marriage and motherhood. Highlights include: How strong cultural expectations in South Korea pressure women toward marriage, motherhood, and male approval from an early age, How women's high educational achievement contrasts sharply with persistent gender inequality in pay and leadership roles; How the 2015–2018 feminist 'reboot' emerged and was fueled by events like the Gangnam Station murder and #MeToo; How spy cams in public and private spaces and the widespread distribution of these materials combined with weak government responses fueled feminist anger and 'my life is not your porn' protests; How despite intense political and media backlash, there is a dramatic rise in women-led resistance movements like 'escape the corset', which challenge both the outward corset of beauty norms and the inner corset of gendered behavioral expectations, and the 4B movement, which represents a radical rejection of dating, marriage, sex, and childbirth under patriarchy; How the ideal of a normal, desirable life centered on motherhood fuels South Korea's growing IVF industry and makes critical media coverage of the industry nonexistent; How media narratives frame low birth rates as an economic issue rather than a gender inequality problem; What JiHye's upcoming film, No-Birth Generation, reveals about a growing generation of women rejecting patriarchal life paths and pushing for greater autonomy in their lives. See episode website for show notes, links, and transcript: https://www.populationbalance.org/podcast/jihye-jeong OVERSHOOT | Shrink Toward Abundance OVERSHOOT tackles today's interlocked social and ecological crises driven by humanity's excessive population and consumption. The podcast explores needed narrative, behavioral, and system shifts for recreating human life in balance with all life on Earth. With expert guests from wide-ranging disciplines, we examine the forces underlying overshoot: from patriarchal pronatalism that is fueling overpopulation, to growth-biased economic systems that lead to consumerism and social injustice, to the dominant worldview of human supremacy that subjugates animals and nature. Our vision of shrinking toward abundance inspires us to seek pathways of transformation that go beyond technological fixes toward a new humanity that honors our interconnectedness with all beings. Hosted by Nandita Bajaj and Alan Ware. Brought to you by Population Balance. Subscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.populationbalance.org/subscribe Support our work with a one-time or monthly donation: https://www.populationbalance.org/donate Learn more at https://www.populationbalance.org Copyright 2016-2026 Population Balance