What is “Off the Corset” movement?



It’s an ongoing movement in Korea that encourages women to take off the corset that they’ve been wearing because of the pressures of society. Korean radical feminists have been destroying cosmetics, cutting off their hair, taking off their bras, destroying everything that oppressed them and freeing themselves from the obsession they had about their appearances. The goal of this movement is to break down the socially defined and desirable images of women and further on, become the first step to overthrow patriarchy, which is the main goal of radical feminism.





Bit of Herstory



For a bit of research, we were listening to a podcast by 설치라 (Seol Chi Ra, Korean Radical Feminist Podcast) and heard that there was also a movement like this in America in the 1960s, which is the Miss America Protest. It was a feminist protest held at 1968 Miss America contest and what they did was throw away oppressive, feminine products like bras, cosmetics, corsets and so on, into the “Freedom Trash Can”.









Because there were so many people watching this by TV, it brought huge attention to women’s liberation movement in America and started off a new wave of feminism. Here is a great article about this movement in perspectives of two different women that were there, one as a participant and one as a protester. ( https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/1968-project/2018/10/12/miss-america-protest-womens-movement/1578111002/ )

(They barred men’s participation in this movement. GREAT)

It’s great to hear that there was a such a movement like this in the 1960s. However, the oppression against women, as women started gaining power and social position over time, evolved in more detail and wider in the range in the name of “beauty”. This resulted in more bizarre and exploitative corsets.

What is “Corset”?



Makeup, high heels, bras, tight clothes, diet and so much more, but they work the same way as the corset from the old times. They are oppression against women, and they are the responsibilities required by society to be considered as “women”. Corsets can mainly be divided into two types, external and internal corset. The external corset would be makeup, diet, plastic surgeries and things related to your appearance. The internal corset would be the lethargic and misogynic mindsets of women due to the misogynic stereotypes that’s been constantly poured into them, eventually getting stuck to their mind. We were made to think in certain ways and that would be the internal corset.

We would like to talk about some of the external corsets.

Even and fair skin tone, blushed cheeks, dilated pupils (of eyes) and plump lips. Does this remind you of anything? For centuries, these were the goals for women to achieve to be considered “beautiful”. These are the features that a woman shows during her ovulatory phase (the more likely period to get pregnant) and makeup existed for an attempt to mimic them. And guess what? Men are more attracted to women in her ovulatory phase.

The origins of makeup items are disgusting as well. Lipsticks originated from the ancient Egypt when prostituted women reddened their lips to show that they provide oral sex. They were meant to make lips look like woman’s vulva. Another disgusting makeup item is blusher and here's a good illustration of what blushers are meant to do.



The purpose of blusher is clear enough





Makeup is a mask and when you take off the mask, you are going to get judged. People at your workplaces or even schools would ask you if you've woken up late, are tired or sick, especially in Korea. But it’s not only others that judge. You will be judging yourself, picking every little flaw. You might feel like you’re more confident with makeup on because it somehow fixed your flaws, but that confidence is so easy to get rid of. All the useful cleansing products will help you get rid of that confidence in less than 5 minutes. You might, also, think that you can overset the power system between women and men by putting on strong make-up (meaning the make-up style that most men would not prefer). But there will always be that man finding you attractive.

What about the cosmeceutical products? Some products cost more than 100 dollars a jar, when the actual product is less than 50ml. Why? Because they’re cosmeceutical. It feels like we’ve developed so much when listening to the advertisements of makeup products. This little thing can help you with anti-aging, provide sun protection and has about ten more features, you’ll be amazed.

What about the little girls that seek for role models but all the adults around them have makeup on and look so “pretty”? They are going to want to look like you, trying to do the same thing that you do. It might look cute when little girls are trying to use your lipstick like you do, but just think about it. Girls start putting on makeup at much younger age and they're going to get even younger soon. The beauty industry is now targeting girls in elementary schools and even those in pre-schools. 7-year-old girls are putting on makeup, polishing their nails, trying to mimic the well decorated adults they’ve seen. What sort of culture are we giving to our younger generations?

Although we don’t think makeup can be a choice at this point, we strongly agree with most of this video, so we recommend this video.





“Girls, Please STOP wearing Makeup.” - Freelee

Next, high heels . Most of the patients that suffer from overtoe or intoe are women that often wear high heels. As you know, high heels are supposed to make your feet beautiful and figure even more beautiful. When wearing high heels, your weight would be concentrated on the front parts of your feet, but since there’s not much space for your toes, they get cranked and eventually, the shape is disfigured. Also, since there’s no proper support for your weight, you’re likely to get back pain and even worse, spine problems.

Are high heels actually shoes? Do they do what shoes are supposed to do? Do they protect your feet? If you’re in danger, are you capable of running with those on? Are you willing to risk your health for beauty? And how different is a high heel from the Chinese foot-binding?

For the answer to the last question, it’s not. They are not different. According to the owner of a foot fetish site owner, they both make your feet look more erotic and sexy and make women walk in sexy short and quick steps, making butts stand out. Also, they both cause gait disturbance to the wearers and not to forget, they both gave and still give huge arousal to men with foot fetishes. Those men feel joy looking at women wearing high heels and the damages women experience by wearing them.

Also, like makeup, high heels and foot-binding both originated from prostitution. High heels were a big hit for men buying prostituted women in Paris and as one French brought high heels to America, it spread throughout the red-light district and to the wives of those men who were impressed by the prostituted women wearing high heels.

But look at how much love they get, especially the luxury heel brands that are a dream to some women. Those luxury brands have something in common. The designers are mostly men. They design heels that make women more “beautiful” and make them suffer. They are obsessed about showing toe cleavages and keeping the toe of the heels as sharp as possible. And most importantly, they don’t give a shit about women and their health. All they care about is how to fulfill their and others’ desires as foot fetishists. Don’t let them fool you into oppressing yourself by wearing high heels.

And what about hair ?

When you’re focused on how long hair can make you “more pretty” or if you’ve had long hair for so long that you’ve forgotten how short hair feels like, it’s hard to realize that long hair is high maintenance. There might be brief moments of awakening like when you take so long to get ready but your friend with short hair gets ready so quick, but you would be wide awake when you cut your hair short.

In my case, it felt like a miracle the next morning after the haircut. But after I realized that that miracle was a daily routine for most men, I started recalling moments. The moments when my brothers would wake up 20 minutes later than me, but still be off to school earlier than me. The moments when I would be rushing because of my hair (and probably make up). There’s just so many other things to concentrate on, rather than taking care of your hair.

Long hair is not only time, energy consuming and money wasting, but also it makes you vulnerable in dangerous situations. On your body, there are many parts that attackers can grab on, like arms, legs, and your clothes and having long hair gives them another one. But unlike other parts, it’ll be even harder to shake off the grip. Also, it’s known that if someone steps on your hair while you’re lying down, it's close to impossible to get up.





It’s hard to make a change but just try going to the beauty shop once and see how it feels like. If you don’t like it, it’s going to grow back, don’t worry. If you like it, that’s awesome!

The last type of external corset that I would like to deal with is women’s clothes . You might think, what about them? Off shoulder tops and cropped tops that make it hard for you to even move your arms freely, tight jeans that probably won’t fit if you gain a pound or so, super-short shorts that show the bottom of your butt.



The primary purpose of clothes is to protect your body from the outer environment. Maybe someone puts more emphasis on fashion when they choose their clothes rather than that primary purpose. However, when you compare women’s clothes with men’s, it’s quite noticeable that men’s clothes are actually getting their job done and that it’s mostly women’s clothes that try to reveal certain body parts just to make sure that they fulfill men’s appetites. Have you seen men's jeans that make penises stand out? Probably not. But you would have seen loads of clothes making cleavages, boobs and butts stand out.

It’s not only how they’re structured, but it’s also about the quality of the clothes. Women’s clothes, especially blouses, have a similar texture to barbie’s clothes and even to candy wrappers so we would call it ‘candy wrappers’ or ‘candy clothes’. This phrase was a bit shocking at first, but it’s actually true. The so-called feminine blouses in Korea are not so different from barbie’s clothes nor candy wrappers. Well at least barbie’s clothes are cheap, those “feminine” blouses aren’t cheap. In the other hand, men don’t have such things as blouses. They have shirts. Not shirts like candy wrappers but quality ones.



Korean girl's high school uniform(L) compared to 11-12 year old girl's t-shirt(R)

Underwear? Same. If you go to shops like VS, you can find loads of candy wrappers. They are going to do their job by fulfilling men’s desires but it sure is uncomfortable. Why do women have to wear underwear that make them “sexy”? I am going to discuss this later on but it’s just one of those things women do to sexually objectify themselves.



I tried men’s boxers, instead of wearing underwear plus pajama shorts in the summer, and they were heavenly. I had vaginitis (probably from wearing tight jeans that prevents ventilation around the vagina and also from the candy wrapper underwears) and now I had improvements. There was a reason why the three men (that I share blood with) used to wear boxers in the summer. Because it’s so comfortable! (But don’t buy women’s boxers. Men’s boxers are cheaper and better.)

Men know what’s comfortable or not and what’s good for them or not. They do. Even the most stupid ones know that.

I started buying men’s clothes. Honestly, I was a bit worried that they would be too big for me, but Korean men are quite small, so actually it wasn’t such a big problem. (FYI, I’m 166cm and men’s medium size would fit me well) In general, men’s clothes are cheaper with better quality. Stop buying tight, waistline emphasizing, uncomfortable clothes and try men’s clothes. Save your money for something worthy.

I have the right to pursue beauty!

Some might say that they put on make-up, wear heels and do every other thing to make them more Barbie-ish, because they want to, that these are their preferences and that I should respect that. But the thing is, we are constantly being brainwashed by the media in many different forms about the type of women that we must be. And in that process, we start dragging other women into wearing corsets and tightening them and vice versa.

Especially in Korean TV shows, all you can see is young, skinny and pretty female celebrities. Because they are praised by their beauty, the way they dress, how they put on makeup and their diet plans to lose weight (in fact those are not even diet plans, since there are no eating involved) would be spread out through media and women of all ages would try to imitate them to be like those “feminine” celebrities. The clothes they wear, the accessories they put on, the makeup products they use, and so many other items would be popular among ordinary women.

It’s not only about diet plans but the problem intensifies when combined with the lookist mindsets. Nowadays, eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia are common between teenage girls all over the world. The male-oriented society will attempt to reduce the size of teenage girls suffering from eating disorders by regarding them as the weird minorities and they already have the history of doing so, but it’s increasing in size and spreading to younger and older ages. As women spend time, energy and money decorating themselves, they don't have any spare to spend on other, more productive stuffs.

Situations in Korea

As it is aforementioned above, TV shows, dramas, and even the advertisements in between the shows are covered with young, skinny and pretty female celebrities. You would say that you’ve seen celebrities different from that. Yes, you are going to see celebrities that are old, fat and different from the social standards of beauty. However, even if you do, they would be mocked “as a joke” because they’re not young, skinny nor pretty. And when you look around to see who’s making that joke, they would mostly be men. Ugly, fat and old men. And even worse, rude. (In fact, men are the ones born to be judged, it’s the rule of mother nature. Think of peacocks.)

And newscasters? Commonly, there are two newscasters, woman and man. The woman would be young, skinny and beautiful as always and man? Older, not so skinny and wearing a suit. This happens a lot all over the world and especially for weathercasters. You’ll be able to notice that they are wearing high heels, tight revealing dresses with full make-up. But even worse in Korea, if there’s a female newscaster that doesn’t suit their beauty standards, Korean men would bombard the news website with sexist complaints, demanding to replace her for a younger and more sexual one.



Two different public TV network's news





Also, most of the advertisements you would see on the streets, subway stations and on buses will be related to beauty like cosmetics and plastic surgeries. They would urge you to take care of yourself and to love yourself by using their products or fixing your body. And a more important message would be hidden under them, that ALL WOMEN HAVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL and if you’re not, then you’re not a woman.

(To see the bright side here, Seoul city is trying to ban plastic surgery ads till 2022)



Signs of plastic surgeries on the street (L), Plastic surgery ads on subway stations (R)





Last but not least, there were lectures held for girls in high schools (after the Korean SAT) about makeup, styling and getting in shape. These lectures were held by the individual high schools, aimed at girls. The girls bravely decided to talk that out through SNS and this news got attention and soon girls at other high schools joined. Yes, it wasn’t just one high school that decided to teach girls that it’s a social etiquette as a lady to put on makeup, but loads of others as well, which sounds medieval. This is unbelievable and frustrating, but think of what brought this kind of result.

What’s happening to young girls?

Nowadays, girls grow up playing games about makeup and dresses. Some games go even further and evaluate the female characters that the young girls put on makeup and dress, giving low scores to those who do not fit the social beauty standard and high scores to those who fit in so that if you choose to play with an “ugly” character, you become more likely to lose. These games are extremely harmful as they establish and socialize distorted concepts about appearance (e.g. ugly girls being a loser automatically) toward kids.





Female characters getting scored with their face, body, beauty and individuality.

And now as literally everyone watches videos on youtube, young girls started watching makeup videos, which makes this matter worse. Those videos target young girls, who are not even in their teens.

Hey Jini is the most popular, most influential Korean YouTuber among children and has 1.4M subscribers. She posted videos of playing makeup with young girls (https://youtu.be/nAIiDLKXWjE) and promoting spa and nail shop just for young girls (https://youtu.be/1XlkjFB5cxY). Of course, she has to take responsibility as an adult about the contents she produces, but moreover, what made her do this? Where did this whole manipulative “culture” of putting makeup on, dressing up and all other kinds of stuff in the name of self-management come from? That’s what we have to think about.









When grown-up women claim that it’s their freedom to wear whatever they want and put on makeup as they wish, it’s the young girls that would be looking up to them and trying to do the same things as they do, setting them as role models. For example, when I had 12 different brushes that all do different things, my young cousins would play with those makeup tools, imitating my make up. They were not even ten years old and guess what they would do when they grow up. It’s our responsibility to expand the spectrum of existing role models for young girls and make sure that they would not get any coercive social expectations related to beauty.

Corset Evolves over time

Another thing to mention is about how corset is evolving over time. It’s not only expanding to younger and older ages, but also becoming more detailed.

Applying blusher on your elbow and knee to make them look pinkish. Applying red lip tint on your genitals. Applying whitening cream on your nipples. These might seem weird and strange, but they are not stories from another world. Also, there was an advertisement about the whitening cream mentioning that men prefer women with pink nipples, because darker nipples look sexually promiscuous. When women are getting judged every detail by detail about their body and their appearances, it’s utter nonsense to claim for freedom to adorn yourself.

In addition to this, as the porn and sexual exploitation industry develop, normal women’s clothes are getting indistinguishable from those that prostituted women would wear. “Holbok” is a word to describe the clothes that prostituted women wear and when you type holbok in Naver (Korean Google), you’ll see this image. It’s hard to distinguish them from the so-called bodycon dresses, which can be commonly found on any online shopping websites. Even the clothes that weathercasters wear are not so different from holbok.

The search result for "holbok" in Naver

Some pointed this out and criticized that women should not wear clothes that sexually objectify themselves. However, others were saying that wearing those clothes are not to be seen by other people, but for self-satisfaction. And as they claim that, they also say that they like themselves “pretty”. But where did the standard for “pretty” come from? And if it was solely for self-satisfaction, why don't they dress up and put on full makeup at home? Would they do it on a deserted island? Of course not.

Going out in the public wearing high heels, wearing full makeup and in dresses, you are going to be seen by other people and especially men, since their hobby is staring and evaluating women head to toe. Decorating yourself as the beauty standards that men set and claiming that you don’t want to be chosen by men. Well, even though you don't want to be chosen, men are going to choose you, because you suit them.

Women are constantly brainwashed from the male force that now, they sexually objectify themselves and further on, are satisfied when they get to be sexually objectified. Some even get horrified when they won’t be sexually objectified any more because they were expelled from the range of sexual objectification by aging, gaining weight or other things along that line. And who gets all the benefits from women trying so hard to make through the process of adorning themselves to be sexually objectified? Men.

Corset makes women vulnerable

According to a news report in Korea, three out of ten young women are TOFI (thin-outside-fat-inside). There are more of them than those that are lightweight. The main cause of the increasing number of TOFI young women is excessive dieting and the research team extrapolated that this is related to lookist mindsets of people nowadays. And as they use inappropriate methods to lose weight, even though they may lose weight, those methods without enough physical exertion results in severe loss of muscles and eventually, high body fat percentage. The journalist also mentioned that maintaining the unhealthy dietary habit would increase their chances of suffering from metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular problems later on.

( http://health.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2018/12/04/2018120401587.html )





This is just one example of how corset makes women vulnerable. It’s quite common to see a news report about a young female celebrity fainting during her performance. It might be due to other factors, but thinking of how their diet is not so different from that of a person suffering from famine, it’s hard to ignore that possibility. And as I mentioned before, the more detrimental problem would be that normal women look up to those women as their beauty role model.

How do we know if something is a corset or not?

For a period of time, there were floods of questions among women about what is corset and what’s not. It might seem like a hard question to answer, but it’s really not. Imagine a man in power doing such things. In our case, the most popular example was the vice-president of Samsung, but in the case of Americans, it could be Trump. Anyways, if you think wearing makeup is not a corset, imagine Trump wearing makeup. Does he seem like he has the authority he had before? Probably not.

What about tatoos or piercings? They were probably the most frequently asked topics and the most controversial. We see them as a form of self-harm, but if it doesn’t make sense, edit in piercings and tatoos on Trump. How does he look like?





How are we spreading this movement?

To show that we are escaping the corset and to spread this movement, women are posting pictures of themselves before and after the movement. Try searching the hashtag #탈코르셋 (off the corset), #탈코르셋_전시 (display off the corset) on Twitter or Instagram. You’ll be able to see those before and after pictures and also, pictures of destroyed makeup products and torn “candy wrappers”.





Poster filled with Sookmyung University students commenting on

"off the corset" movement with makeup products

And on youtube, women would post videos of them cutting or shaving their own hair and sharing their tips and comments on how to take off the corset.

There are more videos on youtube about off the corset movement than these videos, but I tried to select those with English captions. If you have videos to recommend, please comment below.

LEEYUAN <When a Korean womyn cuts her hair. (Feat. Corset-free)>





This is a video of Yuan going to a beauty shop and cutting off her hair. It shows her getting disrespectful comments from the hairdresser, which is a common experience among women trying to cut their hair short “like men”. (English caption available)

Lina Bae <I am not pretty>





This is a video of Lina putting on makeup and erasing them off. To introduce a little bit about her, she used to be a beauty youtuber, but after this video, she acts as a feminist youtuber and also as an author of the book <I am not pretty> (나는 예쁘지 않습니다), which portrays similar messages to this video. (12 different captions available including English)

terri strange <Escape the Corset - Militant Feminism in South Korea>





This is a video of terri introducing about escape the corset (or off the corset) movement in Korea and expressing her thoughts. I was very happy to see a video of a non-Korean feminist discussing this movement.

Another highly influential way of spreading this movement was a cartoon called 탈코일기 (Off the Corset Diary). This cartoon started off from an online feminist community. Initially, the author posted short cartoons of three women and their story of escaping the corset. It gained popularity from that online community and soon spread out to other online communities and social networking services (twitter, instagram, etc). There were people waiting for this cartoon to be uploaded and as soon as it was uploaded to that community, it would be spread out to others. The story ended after its 24 short cartoons with some supplementary stories and the author decided to publish the cartoon as a book, since there were so many requests. She used a crowdfunding platform called tumblbug and guess what? It raised up to around 200M Korean won, so around 170K dollars and 8780 people participated in the project.

This shows not only that we, women have been waiting for a story about ourselves but also that we have been waiting for a story about feminists. There is little to none stories about feminists, especially in Korea. We are getting more and more books about current feminist movements, but we still have a long way to go for all kinds of stories about women. We don’t care if it’s a badly written story, we just want more and more stories about women, presented by women.

Back to the movement, this cartoon portrays some of the most crucial messages that off the corset movement tries to convey. For example, that we can walk by ourselves without the help of men, that we are harming ourselves to make us “pretty” and that’s what patriarchal force wants from women, and that we don’t need men in our lives.

Personally, this part was the most influential in the cartoon that helped me accept myself as I was, without other stuffs to decorate me.





1 2 3 4











Also, there was an exhibition about off the corset movement. It was held by a photographer named Jeon Bora (전보라) who also has a youtube channel called megalstudio . She took black and white pictures of 100 different women that escaped the corset and displayed them with each woman’s messages. She also provided a space for participants to show their own stories about the movement during the exhibition and by reading all those stories of fellow women about off the corset movement, many women were touched and some even got motivated to take off their corset.

Providing opportunities for feminists to gather in one place is more than what it seems like. In our daily lives, it’s really, really hard to meet a fellow woman that seems to be off the corset. But when feminists (or more like radical feminists) have chances to gather and see each other’s existence with our own two eyes (for protests or exhibitions aforementioned above), we are able to gain courage and reassurance that we are going in the right direction. And we definitely need this motivation. We are the minority so if we want to make ourselves the majority and gain power, we need chances to see each other, make an effort together and create results.

Because we, as an individual, tried our best to express our stories and our thoughts vociferously, and because some women strived to create opportunities for other women to participate mightily, we were able to make this off the corset movement successful. It might be too early to say for certain that it was a success, but if this movement can be spread throughout the world, it would be more than mere success.

For More Info. & References

Articles

Since off the corset movement was the hot potato in South Korea last year(2018), there were lots of articles regarding off the corset movement reported by major newspapers and we would like to introduce some of them.

Feminist Current <South Korea’s ‘take off the corset’ movement should inspire feminists everywhere towards radical action> https://www.feministcurrent.com/2018/09/06/south-koreas-take-off-corset-movement-inspirefeminists-everywhere-towards-radical-action

The Guardian <’Escape the corset’ : South Korean women rebel against strict beauty standards> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/26/escape-the-corset-south-korean-women-rebel-against-strict-beauty-standards

The New York Times <South Korea Loves Plastic Surgery and Makeup. Some Women Want to Change That.> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/23/business/south-korea-makeup-plastic-surgery-free-the-corset.html

BBC <Why women in South Korea are cutting ‘the corset’> https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-46478449#click=https://t.co/eeMUfo1Vg4

Books

While writing this, we refered to two books, Naomi Wolf's <The Beauty Myth> and Sheila Jeffrey's <Beauty & Misogyny>. These books discuss how “corsets” are based on misogyny and how male authorities exploited them to directly and indirectly suppress women. Although they were both published more than a decade ago, not much has changed, so you might as well read both of them.





There was, also, a recommendation about Renee Engeln <Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurt Girls and Women>.

Naomi Wolf <The Beauty Myth>









Sheila Jeffreys <Beauty & Misogyny>









Renee Engeln <Beauty Sick: How the Cultural Obsession with Appearance Hurt Girls and Women>





Podcasts





I, also, referred to the podcast Seolchira (설치라), especially episode 11 from season 1, a lot. As I mentioned above, 설치라 is a Korean Radical Feminist podcast that deals with all kinds of topics including spy cams, domestic violence, termination of pregnancy and much more. They are a Korean podcast, speaking Korean, so, unfortunately, I would only be able to recommend to Korean speakers. But I’m a huge, huge fan of them.





YT Videos

I would like to recommend two of my favourite Korean feminist youtube channels.

First, Heavy Talker (하말넘많, meaning “because I had so much things to say”, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm3SDarPtTOS_NjCh9d3TDQ ). They talk about misogyny in our daily lives such as when woman ride taxi, try to rent a house and on national holidays when only women work. They are one of the most popular feminist youtubers, so recently, they hold a talk concert that many people were dying to participate. Unfortunately, not all of their videos have English caption, but these two do!

The reason why "subjective female figure' doesn’t make sense

Infant Industry covered with misogyny