Gender inequality and the global #MeToo movement have fueled \u201cEscape the Corset,\u201d a campaign to cast off the country\u2019s rigid beauty standards.<\/b>
\nSEOUL, South Korea \u2014 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 \u2014 $200 a month and two hours a day, she calculated \u2014 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\u2019s rigid beauty standards \u2014 a push they call \u201cEscape the Corset.\u201d Inspired in part by the global #MeToo movement, which has shaken up politics and society in South Korea\u2019s deeply patriarchal culture, the women are challenging long-accepted attitudes about plastic surgery and cosmetics in one of the world\u2019s most beauty-obsessed capitals.
\u201cMisogyny is more extreme in South Korea, and the beauty industry has made it worse,\u201d said Ms. Kim.
Beauty is big in South Korea. It has the world\u2019s highest rate of cosmetic surgery per capita, and it keeps rising. It has become a destination for nip-and-tuck tourism. The beauty market \u2014 cosmetics and facial care products like masks \u2014 generated $13 billion in sales last year, according to Mintel, making it one of the world\u2019s 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.
\u201cBorn pretty?\u201d reads one in the Seoul subway. \u201cThat\u2019s a big fat lie.\u201d
\u201cWe go through 12 steps just to put on the basic products before we even apply makeup,\u201d said Ms. Kim. \u201cThat basically defines the problem.\u201d
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\u2019s 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.
\u201cThe intensity of feminism in South Korea is stronger than in other countries because women really are not part of the political and economic leadership,\u201d said Yunkim Ji-yeong, an assistant professor of feminist philosophy at the Institute of Body and Culture at Konkuk University.
In that environment, Escape the Corset has found an audience.
Bae Eun-jeong, known as Lina Bae, was a YouTube star who gave beauty tutorials. After hearing about the anti-corset movement earlier this year, Ms. Bae, 21, took a closer look at the comments on her YouTube channel. Many were from young girls who said makeup gave them the courage to go to school.
\u201cI realized there was something very wrong,\u201d said Ms. Bae. \u201cI wanted to do a new kind of video to tell them that it\u2019s O. K. not to make yourself up.\u201d
In June, Ms. Bae uploaded a video in which she goes through the laborious process of applying creams, foundation, eyeliner and fake eyelashes. A series of simulated messages like those she has received in the past scroll across the screen. One says: \u201cYour eyes are freaking uneven.\u201d Another one: \u201cI would kill myself if I were you.\u201d
Then she takes off all the makeup and tells the viewer, \u201cDon\u2019t be so concerned with how others perceive you. You\u2019re special and pretty the way you are.\u201d
The video has been watched 5.5 million times. Ms. Bae\u2019s YouTube followers jumped to nearly 147,000 from 20,000. A publisher asked her to write a book. She has since cut her hair short and stopped wearing makeup, saving nearly $500 a month. Now her videos focus on cooking and sharing ideas.
Cha Ji-won, a video content creator at an urban renewal company, joined the movement earlier this year and created her own YouTube channel, which now has 30,000 followers. Ms. Cha, 22, once thought that spending as much as $700 on makeup each month was not enough. Now she has turned her makeup into slime to play with.
\u201cThey are sort of like toys, like crayons,\u201d said Ms. Cha. She used to feel like a second-class citizen, she said, but now that she has stopped wearing makeup \u201cpeople listen to me when I say things.\u201d
The movement has sparked an ugly backlash.
Ms. Bae, Ms. Kim and Ms. Cha, who all have bowl haircuts characteristic of the movement, say they have become targets of verbal abuse and death threats. Ms. Kim was told by two prospective bosses that she did not look feminine enough. Feminists talk about their peers \u201ccoming out\u201d publicly because many prefer to stay anonymous.
\u201cThe violence against people who leave the mainstream path is very intense in South Korea compared to other countries,\u201d said Seo Sol, 26, who has a YouTube talk show about feminism called \u201cBecause There Is Too Much to Say.\u201d
Yim Hyun-ju has experienced the criticism. The 33-year-old anchor at Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation, a national broadcaster, decided to wear her glasses on her morning news show on April 12. Her fake eyelashes were making her eyes so tired that she was going through a bottle of artificial tears every day.
It became an online sensation. \u201cI did not think it would become news,\u201d Ms. Yim said.
Ms. Yim\u2019s producers reproached her. Viewers wrote to complain. But women came up to her in public to thank her. Now Ms. Yim wears her glasses from time to time, an act that she says sends viewers a message to judge her based on her competence and not her appearance. But she doesn\u2019t want to be identified as part of any movement.
\u201cIf I could act freely, I would apply makeup less,\u201d Ms. Yim said.
\u201cBut I\u2019m stuck between my mind and heart, which says one thing, but there is the reality of my job,\u201d she added.
Many women in the anti-corset movement credit their actions as having had a small impact on the makeup industry. One recent ad, for the Missha cosmetics brand, features a short-haired model and one with freckles. \u201cGet out, expose your flaws and follow your own standards rather than others\u2019,\u201d it says. Still, they note, the women in the ad largely stick to Korean beauty standards \u2014 and the women are wearing makeup.
Kim Hong-tae, a spokesman for Able C&C, which owns the Missha brand, said the ad was meant to convey \u201cthat there is no predetermined standard of physical appearance.\u201d
And the social pressure to wear makeup and have a small, heart-shaped face is still strong. Im Soo-hyang stars in a Korean drama called \u201cMy ID is Gangnam Beauty,\u201d about a young woman who has plastic surgery and grapples with image issues. The name refers to the upscale Gangnam district in Seoul, where plastic surgery clinics line the streets.
\u201cI can\u2019t say I\u2019m free from being conscious about people paying attention to me because of the nature of my job,\u201d Ms. Im said during an interview at a hair salon in Gangnam. \u201cLook at me. I have my hair done, I\u2019m wearing makeup, I have my nails done and I\u2019m wearing pretty clothes.\u201d
She smiled, then added, \u201cI cannot be liberated.\u201d
Su-Hyun Lee contributed reporting.<\/p>\n