 "Women protest against Donald Trump in Los Angeles. The return of Trump has made many women wary, with some choosing to be part of the 4B movement. File image/AFP")
When Kamala Harris took the podium at Howard University to concede defeat to Donald Trump at the United States presidential polls, many women in the crowds could be seen weeping; weeping that their supported candidate lost, weeping that the US elected Donald Trump, again, and weeping that their wait for America to break its ultimate glass ceiling would have to be longer.
But it isn’t just women in the crowds who are dejected and disappointed. Many women in the US are also saddened by the results of Election Day. However, they aren’t sitting on their disappointment; some women are now resorting to a unique form of protest — they are exploring an idea called 4B, a protest movement in South Korea that calls for women to boycott men.
But what does the movement stand for – and why are people talking about it after Trump’s election win?
What is the 4B movement?
The 4B movement, a radical feminist programme, began in South Korea in 2017 and 2018 in line with the country’s MeToo movement . It also finds roots in the earlier Escape the Corset movement, which called for participants to cut their hair short or shave their heads, give up makeup, and abandon overtly feminine clothes.
The 4B stands for four Korean words beginning with “bi” or “no” in English: bihon means no heterosexual marriage; bichulsan means no childbirth; biyeonae means no dating; and bisekseu means no heterosexual sexual relationships.
Simply put, followers of the movement don’t date, marry, have sex or have children with men, effectively boycotting a system they feel perpetuates gender inequity.
But why did such a movement arise in South Korea? There are multiple reasons. Firstly, South Korea society is known to have strict gender norms and stringent beauty standards. Then came the spycam epidemic in which perpetrators filmed targets – most of whom were women – during sex or while urinating in public bathrooms without their knowledge or consent.
“These videos were sold and exchanged by men on Discord, and women didn’t know how many men had taken part, and if any of the men in their lives had,” Min Joo Lee, an assistant professor of Asian studies at Occidental College told The Guardian. “There was a general sense of, ‘Who can I trust? And before I regain my trust in men, I need to refrain from contact with them’.”
Another driving force for the 4B movement was the arrest of a woman in 2018 when she photographed a nude male model in her art class after he declined to cover his genitalia during a class break, sharing the pictures on the internet to shame him. She was tried and sentenced to 10 months in prison.
This angered many women in the country, who alleged that this was the epitome of double standards. Men who committed crimes against women were ignored or given a slap on the wrist, while women who committed those same crimes against men got the book thrown at them.
What is the impact of 4B in South Korea?
The full impact of the 4B movement in South Korea remains unknown largely, but many believe that it could be one of the reasons why South Korea is struggling with the lowest fertility rate in the world. In fact, in 2021, President Yoon Suk-yeol said that feminist movements were “blocking healthy relationships” between men and women in the nation.
Activists in the 4B movement also said that it encourages women to find solidarity with each other. Haein Shim, a South Korean activist and current undergraduate researcher at Stanford University’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research, was quoted as telling The Guardian, “It’s a new lifestyle focused on building safe communities, both online and in-person, and valuing our existence in this crazy world. What we want is not to be labelled simply as some man’s wife or girlfriend, but to have the independence to be free from the societal expectations that often limit women’s potential to be fully acknowledged as human beings.”
How has 4B come to the US?
Shortly after Trump’s win in the US presidential election, Google searches for the 4B movement rose steadily across the US — there was a 450 per cent spike for the term, with most interest being recorded from Washington DC, Colorado, Vermont and Minnesota.
Some American women also took to social media platforms to post about it.
“Ladies, we need to start considering the 4B movement like the women in South Korea and give America a severely sharp birth rate decline,” an X user said in a message that has been viewed more than eight million times as of Wednesday evening. The user added, “We need to bite back.”
“The women in South Korea are doing it,” another X user wrote in message that’s been viewed more than a million times. “It’s time we join them. Men will NOT be rewarded, nor have access to our bodies.”
American women are posting similar messages on TikTok too. One such user wrote, “Doing my part as an American woman by breaking up with my Republican boyfriend last night & officially joining the 4b movement this morning.”
In another video, a woman exercises on a stair climber machine. “Building my dream body that no man will touch for the next four years,” reads the caption. The top comment on her post: “In the club, we all celibate.”
Daria Yazmiene, a freelance writer, in a Popsugar report explained why she would be joining the 4B movement. She wrote, “I was looking forward to going out more and meeting someone the old-fashioned way, but now I’m on high alert knowing that most men who voted, voted for Trump. It just feels irresponsible and unsafe to have a partner right now… Trump’s election has proven that misogyny and misogynoir are deeply woven into the fabric of our society.”
Why are US women opting for 4B in the US?
Calls in favour of the 4B movement among American women have grown owing to the disillusionment and concern that many women have after Trump’s victory. They express concern that with Trump’s win their reproductive rights will dwindle.
Trump has flip-flopped on his stance on a nationwide abortion ban , previously supporting legislative efforts to institute one and also saying that the issue should be determined by the states.
As Michaela Thomas, a 21-year-old artist who lives in Georgia, explained to the Washington Post that 4B is simply a way to “show people that actions have consequences.” “Young men expect sex, but they also want us to not be able to have access to abortion. They can’t have both,” she said, referring to many Republican leaders’ antiabortion stance. “Young women don’t want to be intimate with men who don’t fight for women’s rights; it’s showing they don’t respect us,” she added.
Some women also said that their interest in the movement can also be attributed to Trump’s misogynistic view of women . Who can forget that infamous video of Trump discussing women, saying that he could “grab ‘em by the pussy” in a leaked Access Hollywood interview with Billy Bush in 2005.
There’s also his supporters, many of them being far-right in their thinking. For instance, there’s Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist who has praised Hitler, who wrote on X after Trump’s win, “I’d just like to take the opportunity to thank men for saving this country from stupid b****es who wanted to destroy the world to keep abortion, and, “Your body, my choice. Forever’.”
If these are the views that men currently hold in the US, it’s no wonder that women are seeing value in movements like 4B and want to steer clear of dating.
With inputs from agencies