The First Step towards Women’s Empowerment by You Young Kim

In my school’s classrooms, it’s not surprising to overhear a table of girls chatting about the cosmetic surgery procedures they want to undergo. What is unusual, though, is to hear a Korean woman declare themselves a “feminist,” whether in a high school classroom or on the busy streets of Seoul. Expressing support for equal treatment and less rigid beauty standards for women in the deeply conservative country, where its education system remains the greatest obstacle to gender equality, is often met with criticism. A popular beauty YouTube star Lina Bae even received death threats when she deviated from her usual makeup tutorials and removed her makeup in a video encouraging women to free themselves from conforming to beauty standards. “An ugly and fat girl like you shouldn’t even be alive,” reads a comment on her video.

In response to America’s #MeToo movement, many South Korean women have joined a feminist movement known as “Escape the Corset.” Unlike its American counterpart, which heavily emphasized the culture of silencing victims of sexual harassment and assault, the Escape the Corset movement used rebellion against beauty standards to fuel an unprecedented open discussion about women’s rights and the traditional gender hierarchy in Korea. It received especially zealous support from numerous female teenagers exhausted from keeping up with the tacit beauty standards imposed on women starting from a very young age. Most female students start using makeup before entering middle school, as those who leave the house make-up free in middle and high school are often mocked by their peers. These teenagers steered the movement by flooding Twitter with pictures of shortly cut hair, discarded makeup, and loose-fitting clothes accompanied by the hashtag “Escape the Corset.” Albeit to a lesser degree than teenage students, many adult women identified with the movement as well; not only are women generally judged on appearance during employment procedures, but it is also considered disrespectful for women to not wear makeup in a professional setting.

However, as much as the movement received approval and support from women across generational groups, it has also aggravated repulsion towards feminism. Many citizens claim that the movement is too radical and defines feminism as opposing all things previously associated with women or considered feminine. In the eyes of women who both like makeup and support women’s rights and gender equality, the Escape the Corset movement has created a new corset of conformity by denying women the freedom to groom themselves. The movement has also incited many men to stereotype feminists as those who desire to empower women by disadvantaging men in return. A survey conducted in December 2018 found that 76% and 66% of men in their 20s and 30s, respectively, oppose the movement. As such, many still remain, if not more, hesitant to align themselves with feminism in fear of backlash from the movement’s resistors.

Such problems arise because the country’s education system is percolated with patriarchal remnants that remain in place despite changing societal norms. The Korean education system instills the idea that men and women bear two distinct societal roles, and thus propagates traditional gender roles and ideals. In textbook illustrations, homemakers and nurses are women, while scientists and doctors are men. While this subconsciously implies gender bias, the nation’s sex education curriculum is more overt in its reinforcing of gender roles and expectations: “Women have to work on their appearance and men have to work on their financial capabilities” is one of the teachings of the government’s official sex ed guidelines introduced in 2015.

With this kind of indoctrination at an early age, it’s no wonder that generations of Koreans have such a negative view of women who refuse to conform to beauty standards, let alone feminism. Young women may be able to express their pride and demand gender equality through social media, but institutional structures that emphasize gender-bias in education ultimately contribute to the long-lasting gender inequity. Can one point fingers at those who disdain feminism when the nation’s education system condones, and even supports, such behavior? For gender equity to truly be achieved in South Korea, feminist movements like Escape the Corset must be accompanied by proper education that champions equal opportunities and unbiased societal roles for both genders. The society is changing. It is time that our education catches up.