After the rise of the post-feminism wave in South Korea in 2015, South Korean cultural products began to shape and strengthen the female subject discourse, and women began to be portrayed as active and independent roles. This trend is gradually reflected in the female images in K-pop music vedios. As a concept in the context of neoliberalism, post-feminism is often thought to be derived from women’s re-examination of their identity in the present. The difference with feminists is that post-feminists seem to dilute the struggle system of feminism, and the expression of violence is softened under the influence of the market. But in a highly commercial environment to establish their own independent consumption capacity.

Since post-feminists tend to be embodied in consumer-centric environments, music videos, as cultural commodities tend to embody this trend, which means that women’s right to choose and consumption power is highlighted, which is different from the obedient heterosexual image in K-pop in the past. In recent years, K-pop productions have often expressed an anti-patriarchal voice. For example, In music videos of idol groups such as New Jeans and Aespa, there are many scenes of women driving cars. In popular culture, cars often represent masculinity, and these Music videos often show such women’s control over the right to speak, the lyrics are also highly feminist and provocative, expressing angry anti-toxic masculinity sentiments.

It can be said that K-pop, as a cultural product, is not only the object of female consumption, but also an important tool to shape and reflect the identity and social status of Korean women. However, some scholars have also questioned this trend of feminist expression. Hyun-Jae Lee （2017）, for example, argues that this biological gender dichotomy of identity politics places too much emphasis on exclusivity to the point of ignoring transgender people and other minorities.

The purpose of this blog is not to negate the efforts of post-feminism and these idol groups, but to critically consider the space for affirmative action in popular culture. Although these K-pops have displayed this post-feminist sensibility in recent years, boldly expressing women’s rights, they remain in a highly commercialized scene, making it difficult to voice the feminist struggles faced by everyday women. For example, the MV of “Queencard” in (G)I-DLE uses consumer Spaces such as plastic surgery hospitals, clothing stores and nightclubs to create a subjective force. As Oh (2014) points out, the more visible these images are, the more they are objectified. There seems to be more work to be done on how the female images in K-pop can make a real feminist voice.

Reference：

Lee, H.-J. (2020) ‘A Critical Study of Identity Politics Based on the Category ‘Biological Woman’ in the Digital Era: How Young Korean Women Became Transgender Exclusive Radical Feminists’, *Journal of Asian Sociology*, 49(4), pp. 425-448. doi: 10.21588/dns.2020.49.4.003 [1, 2, 3].

Sohn, H.J. (2020) ‘Feminism reboot: Korean Cinema under neoliberalism in the 21st Century’, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 12(2), pp. 98–109. doi:10.1080/17564905.2020.1840031.

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