[Choice Times=Serabi Oh, Writer]

President Lee Jae-myung plans to spend 3 billion won this year to install “free sanitary pad vending machines.”

Currently, low-income female teenagers in South Korea receive a purchasing voucher worth 168,000 won per year. Even women who are not in the low-income category can obtain sanitary pads free of charge whenever needed at public institutions such as government offices and libraries.

Nevertheless, in order to achieve the complete distribution of free sanitary pads, the government plans to install free vending machines nationwide at a cost of tens of billions of won. Supporters of the Democratic Party and Lee Jae-myung’s ardent followers are posting messages saying, “A president to be proud of,” overwhelmed with emotion. According to this narrative, all women in South Korea are struggling with poverty to the extent that they cannot even secure the most basic hygiene product required as women and must depend on the state.

The free sanitary pad vending machines will likely end up the same way as the “Women’s Safe Delivery Boxes” introduced immediately after President Moon Jae-in took office.

The annual maintenance cost of these women’s safe delivery boxes is reportedly 9.8 million won per unit. As of 2026, there are 220 units installed in Seoul alone. Most are rarely used or sit covered in dust. Because of low usage rates, some local governments have even converted them into delivery lockers that anyone can use.

People use delivery services because of the convenience of receiving packages at home. Even if a delivery driver happens to be male and makes someone uncomfortable, how many women would actually go to pick up packages from lockers installed at district offices or libraries? It is a case of budget waste driven by radical feminism.

Will female teenagers—often characterized by widespread laziness—really go out of their way to use Lee Jae-myung’s free sanitary pad vending machines?

Should national budgets be used in a gender-discriminatory way, fueling division between men and women and faithfully implementing radical feminist policies?

Feminists say:
“Even if the sky falls, we will resist patriarchal oppression.”

Yet they even receive sanitary pads through government support. Is this not submission to patriarchy rather than overcoming it, which they claim to resist?

Feminists are psychologically and mentally incapable of truly overcoming patriarchy. A genuine feminist, in my view, should possess autonomy and independence strong enough to firmly reject any form of material inducement. But in the first place, K-feminism imported a flawed version of feminism.

Then what benefits will men receive?

A few years ago, when radical feminists were causing disturbances, there was an uproar when Starbucks offered a free drink (3,800 won at the time) to soldiers on special leave for Armed Forces Day on October 1. They mocked it as “Gun-bucks” instead of Starbucks and said they would boycott the company, claiming it was discriminatory because women had helped build Starbucks’ success.

At the time, Lee Na-young—then a sociology professor at Chung-Ang University and chair of the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance—said in an interview with a media outlet:
“A culture that favors men and discriminates against women has been institutionalized and organized.”

They united in claiming that even a single cup of coffee given to soldiers on special reward leave—not even to all soldiers—was gender discrimination. Now they must feel good receiving free sanitary pads! You are marching well along the path of servitude.

#PublicPolicy #GenderDebate #SanitaryPadPolicy