Why do collective action movements exist in our current age of individualism? More specifically, why are marginalized identities the most motivated to pursue collective interest over their individual successes in our Neoliberal system of individualized competition? The Republic of Korea (R.O.K) is an East Asian country that shares, with its close neighbors, roots in Confucianism and patriarchal hierarchy (Pascall & Sung, 2007). As a result, it is a collectivist and culturally tight society—one that generally places greater value on collective than individual interests, and that enforces social norms through high levels of sanctioning. Among these norms are rigid gender roles that uphold the systemic marginalization of women, which incur social costs to women that are high enough to offset the costs of norm deviation that exist in a culturally tight society. However, these norms are beginning to change, with the adoption of norms of neoliberal individualism that prioritize individual competition and self-reliance (Amable, 2011). These new norms are at odds with ROK’s historically collectivist values. Given that, why have collective action movements, especially progressive ones, only grown in popularity over the past decades? One of the driving forces underlying the large-scale collective action movements in the ROK is the Korean women’s movement. Women’s active creation of collective identity building spaces generates psychological agency and empowerment for them to violate gender norms in a way that is for the collective interest of women—and how this empowerment to act for the collective interest reaches beyond gendered issues. In exploring this phenomenon, we can illuminate how the collectivizing of identity is an essential link in promoting actions that focus on the collective good, and how violation of oppressive norms presents an opportunity for the psychological agency and empowerment of marginalized identities. These mechanisms can provide powerful insights for the development and sustenance of collective action movements.