The Hollywood-born "Me Too" movement against sexual harassment has had the paradoxical effect that many working women now find themselves isolated in the office as their male colleagues studiously avoid them.

Korea has an ingrained office drinking culture, where all kinds of bullying by superiors goes on amid enforced conviviality. To be on the safe side, men now deliberately exclude women from office gatherings and business trips, leading to an equally unwelcome form of ostracism.

One 29-year-old office worker at a mid-sized company in southern Seoul said, "I feel very uncomfortable at work these days." She said her boss told female staff to go home when he took out the men out drinking.

But the office worker would have liked to bond with her coworkers and felt that opportunity was taken away from her against her will. "I didn't do anything wrong, but I felt like I was being treated like I had," she said.

Another office worker at a shipping company in Seoul said, "I rarely talk with my boss these days. He used to be very chatty with the female staff, but nowadays he only gives instructions by text message." Her boss apparently told other workers that he feared any comments could be misunderstood by female staff. "I feel like I became invisible in my office," she said.