Women's groups in the area are encouraging President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol to be mindful of this before carrying out his "anti-feminist" campaign promises. Yoon Suk-tactic yeol's of essentially ignoring the female population in pursuit of male voters almost lost him in the election.

A statement issued on the heels of Wednesday's presidential election, in which Yoon escaped with the lowest margin of victory in Korea's history (a 0.7 percentage-point victory against Lee Jae-Myung of the governing Democratic Party of Korea) was criticized by the Korea Women's Associations United. They pushed Yoon to rescind his contentious commitments, which included one to eliminate the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family (MGEF).

As the KWAU noted on Thursday, "the People Power Party and the president-elect actively used a fabricated and backward (strategy) of using frames such as "instigating via hatred" and "gender conflict" during their campaign, leading to disappointment from many citizens." The KWAU added that Yoon should be mindful of why young women rallied against him during his campaign. "They should reflect on the significance of their exceedingly tiny, less-than-1-percent triumph, which came amid widespread support for a change in administration."

According to polls, there is no significant gender discrepancy across most age groups, with the exception of 30-something males who lean somewhat more toward Yoon and women in the same age range who tilt the opposite way.

However, among males in their 20s, Yoon had a significant lead over Lee, winning by a margin of 58.7 percent to 36.3 percent, while women backed Lee by a margin of 58 percent to 33.8 percent.

As a result of widespread opposition to Yoon's anti-feminist overtures and remarks, the conservative candidate retracted his claims of being a feminist and reiterated his pledge to abolish the Gender Ministry on Tuesday, the day before the election as well as International Women's Day, which has been widely interpreted.

As part of Yoon's pledges, he committed to toughening penalties for false accusations of sexual violence. Local women's groups and political rivals, including Sim Sang-Jung of the Justice Party, who was one of two female presidential candidates, criticized the pledges as a gender-biased attempt to win over young male voters.

“We encourage the next administration to create its policies based on democracy and gender equality, and vigorously endeavor to remove the systemic discrimination,” the KWAU went on to declare.

When asked about claims of gender prejudice during his first news conference as president-elect, Yoon responded affirmatively and stated that he is attempting to rectify "unfairness" in society. According to him, "the legislation and system (for gender equality) have already been created to a certain extent, so rather than concentrating on problems such as collective equality, it is more vital for the state to concentrate on individual situations of unfairness."

It was an extension of Yoon's previous stance, which had gained widespread support among young male voters who believe they are being left out and discriminated against by the Moon Jae-in administration's policies labeled as feminism, particularly those from the Gender Ministry. Yoon's comment was met with widespread approval.

President Kim Dae-Jung established the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in 2001, replacing the Ministry of Gender Equality, which had taken over female-specific tasks and child care functions from the Labor and Welfare ministries. Following numerous rounds of reorganization, policies pertaining to teenagers, families, and multicultural families were assigned to the ministry, which resulted in the change in the ministry's name.

In 2008, the previous Lee Myung-bak administration considered dissolving the ministry and transferring its powers to other government agencies, but the plans were met with vehement resistance from women's rights organizations and the then-opposition Democratic Party.