Gender inequality and the global #MeToo movement have fueled “Escape the Corset,” a campaign to cast off the country’s rigid beauty standards.
SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Ji-yeon knew she wanted plastic surgery when she was 7. For the next 13 years, she destroyed photos of herself until her parents paid for double jaw surgery, a procedure that requires breaking the jaw to realign it.
Then Ms. Kim started to question why she devoted so much — $200 a month and two hours a day, she calculated — to her appearance. She cut her hair short. Then she crushed her makeup into pieces.
Ms. Kim, 22, is one of a growing group of South Korean women rebelling against their society’s rigid beauty standards — a push they call “Escape the Corset.” Inspired in part by the global #MeToo movement, which has shaken up politics and society in South Korea’s deeply patriarchal culture, the women are challenging long-accepted attitudes about plastic surgery and cosmetics in one of the world’s most beauty-obsessed capitals.
“Misogyny is more extreme in South Korea, and the beauty industry has made it worse,” said Ms. Kim.
Beauty is big in South Korea. It has the world’s highest rate of cosmetic surgery per capita, and it keeps rising. It has become a destination for nip-and-tuck tourism. The beauty market — cosmetics and facial care products like masks — generated $13 billion in sales last year, according to Mintel, making it one of the world’s top 10 beauty markets.
While men are an increasing part of the market, the beauty pressure is aimed mostly at women. K-pop stars who often get extensive cosmetic surgery are held up as the standard. YouTube celebrities with millions of followers offer elaborate tutorials on how to apply makeup. Women are bombarded with ads across buses, in subways and on TV.
“Born pretty?” reads one in the Seoul subway. “That’s a big fat lie.”
“We go through 12 steps just to put on the basic products before we even apply makeup,” said Ms. Kim. “That basically defines the problem.”
Women are now pushing back. This summer, tens of thousands gathered to protest against sexual assault, the proliferation of spy cameras taking voyeuristic videos of women and the harsher standards they face in other aspects of society, from beauty to the law.
Political and economic disparities fuel the anger. South Korea’s wage gap is the highest among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Women hold just one-sixth of the seats in the National Assembly and one-tenth of corporate management positions.
