Conclusion
The adoption of neoliberal ideology has seen a systematic devaluation of labor through the shift from attempting to maximize employment to the goal of maximizing profit. When looking solely to maximize profit, companies are more likely to see labor as tools or objects, removing them from their rights as individuals or making it harder for them to rely on one another and unionize to have more power. The K-pop industry exemplifies this in its history of gender discrimination and lack of initiative to place women on equal footing with men.
In Korea, the adoption of neoliberal policies and call to radical feminist reform took place within the last half-century; however, the adoption and subsequent spread of ideas were quicker than almost any other state following the same progression (Song, 2009). Gender roles evolved along these lines as well, but not to total equality.
In the K-pop industry, the majority of idols, groups, and groups disbanded are women and girl groups. This exemplification of a false progression summarizes the conception of the idol industry as a workplace that provides dreamers a place to succeed. While most idols endure the same military-like training regimen, women experience a daunting realization that they are not valued as much as their counterparts and their careers are more precarious.
Yet, with a love of singing, dancing, or even just performing, more young dreamers enter the industry for a chance at success. This bargain companies take does not result in parental-like encouragement to see talent flourish and thrive, but a rigid implementation of a series of marketing decisions that have proven to work in the past—thus the notion of the K-pop idol machine or the K-pop formula. As innocence and sex are the winning combo, girl groups begin to see their agency decline—they are infanilized and hyper sexualized through the outfits they wear, the choreography they learn, and the lyrics they perform to appeal to the public.
Meanwhile, though the industry has seen a recent spike in idol involvement in the music making process, only a tenth of the most credited idol producers are female. The lack of involvement denotes two detriments to girl group members. First, that they do not have a significant input on the concepts they portray and thus cannot reliably veto a concept they are uncomfortable with, and second, they must rely on an androcentric creative team to accurately convey what the female experience is. What results is an inaccurate portrayal of women and a twofold implementation of the idea of feminization of the workforce.
Yet, with the knowledge that they as professional idols are temporary and easily replaced by another eager trainee, girl groups do their jobs and they do them well, even though their labor is valued less than their male counterparts. Unfortunately, when they gain agency through the decision to become a mother or spouse, the industry no longer has use for them as they are no longer marketable.
The notion of the K-pop formula and idol machine is beginning to rust. Groups have begun to tear at the barriers the world has wrapped around the genre of K-pop. This new generation of musicians are questioning imposed binary gender roles. They question not only superficial bubble gum pop but toxic masculinity and the new challenges their generation faces as well. However, girl groups are far from receiving the same consideration or rights as their male counterparts. Empowerment for female idols could come about through increased participation in the creative process, women accepting positions of power in companies, and the dismantling of the idea of feminized labor, or valuing both male and female labor equally. It will be difficult to penetrate the traditional national ideology that certain, primary gender roles are static, but as Korea has proven, the nation adopts change quickly (Song, 2009). Change in the idol industry could come just as swiftly. It is my hope that with this paper, the conversation of gender equity in the workplace can enter not only the sphere of feminist academia, but also the broader reaches of internet fandoms to encourage dialogue and conscious consumerism, and perhaps catalyze the dismantling of gender discrimination, at least in the idol industry.22
22 Though BLACKPINK and SNSD match and exceed many popular boy groups in numbers, as noted previously, it is without the agency their male counterparts are afforded. ***
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Traditional Gender Roles
- Contemporary Gender Roles and Neoliberalism
- Gender Roles and the K-pop Industry
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Recommended Citation
- Bibliography