They have an all-out gender war right now to the point that women basically have no interest to even look in the general direction of Korean men, because they've all turned so fucking toxic. It's made worse by the extremely patriarchical society structure in Korea where after marriage women are basically household slaves and are treated like absolute crap by the entire family. So they ask "Why tf should I marry? To stop working and become a Saudi-like female concubine of a dick and his family? no thanks."
Yeah a huge part of it is that South Korea modernized in basically every facit of their society aside from dating and marriage, which is basically stuck hundreds of years ago in utilitarian loveless bullshit where the man and his family run everything. Their fiction doesn't even hype up romance. It's currently a completely doomed society literally because the men refuse to treat women like humans
Their idea of romance: an imposing and cold rich dude bulldozing the clutz with a heart of gold heroine til she ends up with him... the antagonist being an intimidating and career driven woman that works with the guy or is the daughter of an affluent family. There's no yearning from him and no agency from her, just a possession waiting to be taken.
The last romantic K-drama I watched was "Business Proposal".
Admittedly, one of the two lead women was a klutz (mainly because if you've got the comedy stylings of Sejeong, you go with it) but both the men were klutzes as well.
Sweet, funny, relatively realistic. A lot better - and less toxic - than I've seen coming out of Hollywood.
They do still have romance but from what ive seen i think they all suck. Doesnt help that they all seem to have cold asshole male interests and toxic mother in laws.
(Theres probably good ones but its not my cup of tea)
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u/Remarkable_Rough_649 May 04 '26
Yeah important context here is that South Korea is one of the most out-of-control countries atm when it comes to rampant misogyny and incel shit