Escaping the Corset: Rage as a Force of Resistance and Creation in the Korean Feminist Movement

Abstract

This article explores rage in the context of Korean feminist movements. Rage as a corporeal force can be combined with other emotional modalities to achieve consistency, durability, efficiency, and intensity. These modalities are interdependent, and rage, in relation to indignation, becomes a revolutionary affect that changes power dynamics. Women's indignant rage challenges the patriarchal value system and increases women's agency. Korean women deploy the politics of rage to “Escape the Corset” and free themselves from the oppressive devices—patriarchal family structures and traditional notions of femininity and beauty—that oppress women's bodies. The “Escape the Corset” movement, driven by indignant rage, materializes the possibility of resistance and creation that puts an end to the phallic economy of desire and meaning, and it elaborates a new modality of women's life cycle and relation to the world. Unlike indignant rage, a feminist revolutionary tool, rage combined with hatred is a conservative affect that annihilates the possibility of change and maintains the status quo. The politics of rage promotes a deconstruction of the patriarchal system, joining with a subversive and cathartic joy that contains hope for a more just future.

“Escape the Corset”: How a Movement in South Korea Became a Fashion Statement through Social Media

“…The works of Korean scholars in the fields of both culture and women's studies were referred to in order to understand the development of the ETC-F. The Declaration of Tal-Corset by Yun and Yunkim [60] and Escape the Corset: The Coming Imagination by M. K. Lee [61] provided a strong foundation for understanding the ETC-F. Yun and Yunkim [60] were the first to shed light on the cultural context of the ETC-M. M. K. Lee [61] interviewed the women who participated in the ETC-M from 2018 to 2019. Various research materials, institutional reports, and statistical data on the ETC-M were referenced.…”

“…On social media, the ETC-F is known as the "escape-the-corset look" or the "default look". There is a clear political motive behind the ETC-F as it aims to break away from the styles that portray gender stereotypes and to dismiss fashion as a means of dividing people based on gender while also making "womanliness" pointless [60]. Sporting short haircuts and not wearing makeup, bras, and high heels are a few features that represent the ETC-F.…”