[Buldak]

Yeah, I can appreciate certain complaints about the way men are portrayed in media and popular discourse, but it seems like a leap from there to phenomenon in question. We criticize men for telling women to smile, or whatever ... and somehow the end result is that they give up on their career ambitions?

I think you're right that the real issues are economic. In fact I'd say that this is part of a larger, more general tendency to use cultural conflict to distract from class conflict.