Higher Expectations, Greater Disappointment: Ambivalent Sexism and Backlash After the Impeachment of the First Woman President of South Korea

ABSTRACT

When the first female president of a country is impeached, how does the disgraceful exit shape people’s memory of her? Does sexism play a role in such retrospective evaluations? Do the voters who supported her remain loyal, or do they withdraw their support due to disappointment? This article utilizes the impeachment of Park Geun-hye of South Korea as a case to answer these questions. Using a public opinion survey conducted three years after the 2016 impeachment, I demonstrate that hostile sexism played a role in the negative retrospective evaluations of Park, while benevolent sexism did not. Moreover, those who voted for Park in the 2012 presidential election expressed more negative retrospective evaluations of Park than those who did not vote for her, suggesting a backlash effect. Voters who had high expectations of the first female president could experience deep disappointment when the historic first failed to meet their expectations.

KEYWORDS:

• Park Geun-hye
• impeachment
• ambivalent sexism
• motivated reasoning
• backlash
• retrospective evaluation

Acknowledgement

This research was supported by the Academy of Korean Studies (Project No. AKS-2020-R52).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website at https://doi.org/10.1080/1554477X.2023.2194233

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Young-Im Lee

Young-Im Lee is an Associate Professor of Political Science at California State University - Sacramento. Her research primarily focuses on gender and elections in South Korea and Taiwan. Dr. Lee is a chief researcher at the Institute of Political Studies at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea, and was a visiting scholar at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. Her research has been supported by the Academy of Korean Studies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan, and the American Political Science Association. Her research appeared in Electoral Studies, Politics & Gender, Feminist Media Studies, and Journal of Asian and African Studies, among others.