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National Human Rights Commission rules bathhouse discriminated against women with 'towel fees'

Published: 02 Sep. 2025, 16:06 Updated: 02 Sep. 2025, 17:39

This file photograph shows a public bathhouse, unrelated to the article, in Seoul. [NEWS1]

The National Human Rights Commission ruled that a bathhouse discriminated against women by charging them extra for towel rentals while including the cost in men’s admission fees.

For years, bathhouses faced no sanctions for offering men free towels, since no legal grounds existed to penalize the practice.

On Tuesday, the commission said it received a petition in July from a visitor to a public bathhouse. The visitor alleged that the business discriminated by making women pay an additional fee for towels. The bathhouse charged men 9,000 won ($6.50) for admission, which included two towels, but required women to pay an extra 1,000 won to rent the same two towels.

The bathhouse defended the policy. The operator of the bathhouse told the commission that towel return rates in the women’s sauna were “significantly lower,” forcing the business to reorder towels and incur extra costs. As a result, the operator said, it imposed a fee of 500 won per towel. The operator also claimed that at least six other local saunas charged women separately for towels.

After an on-site inspection, the city government instructed the bathhouse to state on its price list that towels were not provided free in the women’s sauna. Officials added that they could not penalize the practice, citing a lack of legal grounds to regulate businesses that provide men with free towels.

The commission disagreed. It said that towel loss “results from individual behavior” and that imposing a blanket fee on women “without statistical or empirical evidence risks generalization based on gender stereotypes.” The commission argued that costs from missing towels could be addressed through stricter return systems or fees for individual overuse.

A survey by the commission found that among 36 bathhouses in the same area, 25 provided towels equally to men and women. It warned that local governments should not tolerate discriminatory fees “simply because the law does not give them direct authority to adjust pricing."

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY IM SOUNG-BIN [[email protected]]