Essay by Sophia Sohn

It is no secret that many women feel conscious about the way they look. However, is it necessary for society to extend their vulnerability to the job market? Oemo jisang juui, a Korean term for ‘look-ism’ is a standard practice in the employment process for Korean women. A 2016 survey from Saramin, a Korean online job portal, found that more than 60% of Human Resources Personnel feel that one’s appearance does influence the applicant’s candidacy, especially for females. Thus, many Korean women find themselves in a situation where they are pressured to change their appearance to seek employment. The Korean job application process is already stressful, but the pressure for women to physically look good in their resume and interview adds a new dimension of stress. Over time, many Korean women became ‘numb’ to the discriminatory employment system and decided to take matters into their own hands by turning to professional photographers and even plastic surgery. 

A recent survey of 900 Korean businesses showed that 60% required job applicants to submit ID photos along with their resumes. The catch is that this isn’t only for jobs like modeling or acting, it extends to normal occupations as well. Subsequently, there has been a recent rise in the number of professional photo studios explicitly dedicated to taking so-called resume ID photos. Despite being a photo studio, it holds a makeup corner, hair corner, as well as a changing room with different outfits ready to go. Even after taking a picture under studio lights, the raw photos undergo a series of professional retouching to enhance appealing characteristics in an effort to present the candidate as diligent, friendly, yet confident. Thus, refined eyes and sharpened jaws may become the pre-requisite for landing a job. This not only lowers young women’s self-esteem, but pressures them to look a certain way to fit the ‘desirable’ face, which according to Korean beauty standards are wide eyes with double eyelids, sharp small nose, a V line chin, and bright skin complexion. As a result, most Korean women’s resume photos look the same and have no sense of uniqueness or personality. Thus, these trends merely encourage a uniform society where one has to conform to in order to be employed. 

Moreover, many South Korean women feel the need to surgically reconstruct their facial features to have a better chance of being employed. Even if they manage to pass the first round of the application with a professionally edited ID photo, they would have to undergo an interview with the employer. South Korea being the country with the most amount of plastic surgery per year, definitely has companies capitalizing on women’s vulnerability. For instance, Reborn Aesthetic Clinic offers a program specifically for women preparing for stewardesses which consists of a combination of surgical procedures including double eyelid survey, rhinoplasty, contour surgery, and more. In 2015, the Korean Ministry of Employment and Labor even tweeted a tweet encouraging job seekers to undergo plastic surgery to fit looks favored by several companies. Plastic surgery is a big deal as it not only requires a lot of money which leaves people going into debt, but it is also a permanent change to one’s face just for a job. Do women really need to have wide eyes instead of narrow ones just because they would then look less ‘fierce’ in the workplace? Thus, the lookism towards women looking for employment pressures one to go under a blade to present herself as a desirable candidate. 

A solution to the influence of ‘lookism’ on Korean women’s employment is complex but can start to be resolved through simple measures. Korea’s legislation recently introduced the ‘blind hiring’ policy where employers are banned from requiring ID photos as part of a job resume in an attempt of decreasing the impact of looks on candidacy. Since this legislation

passed in 2017 only applies to public jobs, Saramin reported that only 6.1% of private firms use the blind hiring process and that 52% of the firms responded that they won’t be interested in adopting the system. Thus the implication of this legislation is yet far from effective and would require the government to pressure private firms to cooperate. Moreover, a solution for interviews can be blind interviews in which the employers cannot see the interviewee’s face. Although this undermines the traditional face-to-face interview, with effective test trials, it can surely become the future of diverse and fair employment practices.