Explaining the Feminist Revival: A Comparative Analysis of Poland and South Korea

Feminism is experiencing a resurgence globally, prompting scholars to explore its recent revival. Traditional explanations in existing literature attribute increased feminist activism to socio-economic factors, deprivation, and resource mobilization. This article takes a fresh perspective, proposing that gendered moral shocks, particularly in anti-feminist contexts, serve as catalysts for reigniting feminist movements and amplifying their activism. The hypothesis is tested through a paired comparison utilizing the most different system design, analyzing the feminist resurgence in Poland and South Korea. While in South Korea, the anti-feminist context was primarily society-driven, in Poland it was state-driven. Overall, this article offers a refined conceptual and theoretical framework for understanding feminist mobilization in unexplored East European and East Asian contexts and thus contributes conceptually, theoretically and empirically to the literature on social movements and gender and politics.