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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2022

Ji-Yeong Yun
Ji-Yeong Yun*
Affiliation:
Changwon National University, Department of Philosophy: Room 613, 6th floor, Building 98, Global Lifelong Learning Center, 20, Changwondaehak-ro, Uichang-gu, Changwon-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, 51140, Republic of Korea
*
Corresponding author. [email protected]
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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.

Type
Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , Spring 2022 , pp. 257 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hypatia, a Nonprofit Corporation

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