THE NEW YORK TIMES: Should this soccer star have held an umbrella for a female interviewer?

Son Heung-min’s image graces billboards around the world, as brands like Adidas, Burberry and Calvin Klein highlight the South Korean soccer star’s humility, charity work and athletic success to sell their wares.

But another image this week embroiled him in a heated debate: a female interviewer holding an umbrella for him during a rainy interview after an exhibition game in Seoul between Newcastle and Son’s club, Tottenham.

A post including the photo, showing the interviewer holding a microphone and an umbrella they are both standing under, was viewed more than 8.7 million times on the social platform X.

It didn’t help him that the image was paired with another from after the game showing his British teammate Ben Davies holding an umbrella for the same interviewer, Oh Hayoung, better known as a member of the South Korean girl group Apink.

Many social media users in South Korea responded in disappointment, one saying the pictures offered a “harsh reality check” about how South Korean men treat women.

Another praised Davies, writing: “Most Western men are instinctively considerate toward women.”

In the flurry of online comments, many South Koreans projected onto the photo their own raw feelings about the country’s gender divide.

It is a delicate issue, particularly among young people, that surfaces in everything from elections to the birthrate and dating norms.

“The fact that a photo can spark such controversy indicates that the gender conflict among young South Koreans has intensified significantly,” said Min Hee Go, a professor of political science at Ewha Womans University in Seoul who has taught on gender issues.

In South Korea, the gender debate is increasingly driven by opposing factions: right-wing anti-feminists and radical feminists, including some who are part of what is called the 4B movement that rejects dating, marriage, sex and childbirth.

Exit polls from the presidential election in June also showed a stark political divide along gender lines. Among voters in their 20s and 30s, most women supported the liberal candidate while most men preferred the conservative ones. Older men and women tended to align.

The widening ideological gap between young men and women is a global phenomenon, but it appears to have unfolded in a unique way in South Korea. Some experts attribute the country’s extremely low birthrate in part to the gender divide.

The tension in South Korea, experts say, comes partly from a belief that women should be subordinate to men, which stems from the Confucian philosophy that is ingrained in many East Asian cultures.

The growing number of women entering the workforce and, more recently, the #MeToo movement have challenged those beliefs by elevating feminist values.

Inequality is also shown in crime statistics. The vast majority of violent crime victims in South Korea are women, while they account for roughly half in the United States.

Online communities have helped polarize and inflame viewpoints on the issue, Go said, propelling the social media furor over the images of Son. “Men and women are projecting their own thoughts onto the pictures,” she said.

Son’s representatives in South Korea did not respond to a request for comment. This week, he left Tottenham of the English Premier League to join Los Angeles FC, a Major League Soccer club.

The criticism was at odds with Son’s reputation as exceedingly polite. The Premier League this week published a collection of his “most wholesome moments,” including two times he offered his jacket to children during pregame ceremonies.

Later, other photographs of Son’s interview following the August 3 exhibition match in Seoul showed him from different angles, indicating that Son had both hands occupied with audio gear while the interviewer held the umbrella.

Social media users used the images to defend Son, calling his critics hateful toward men or too quick to pass judgment based on a single image.

“You could look at it with more understanding, but many are looking at it with a critical eye,” said Keumjoo Kwak, professor emeritus of psychology at Seoul National University who has taught about gender issues.

The online debate only turned more acerbic. Some commenters said that Son was like any other South Korean man, exhibiting bad etiquette and lacking respect for women. Men from Western countries, some concluded, had better manners and were preferable to date and marry.

Soohyun Lee, associate professor of East Asian political economy at King’s College London who has researched gender polarization, said the scrutiny on Son was “part of being a celebrity” but cautioned against drawing broader conclusions from one image.

“Your philosophy about gender equality can be shown in every small act,” she said. “But there’s a danger of over-reading into minute behaviors.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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