In the hours and days since it became clear that Donald Trump would be re-elected president of the United States, there’s been a surge of interest in the US for 4B.
Young liberal women across TikTok and Instagram are discussing and sharing information about the South Korean feminist movement, in which straight women refuse to marry, have children, date or have sex with men.
These women say they are enraged and fed up after a majority of their male counterparts voted for a candidate who was found liable for sexual abuse and whose appointment of three conservative Supreme Court justices led to the overturning of national abortion rights protections.
In response, they say they’re swearing off men — and they’re encouraging others around the country to join them.
“We have pandered and begged for men’s safety and done all the things that we were supposed to, and they still hate us,” Ashli Pollard, a 36-year-old in St. Louis, told CNN.
“So if you’re going to hate us, then we’re going to do what we want.”
What is the 4B movement?
4B is a shorthand for the four Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae and bisekseu, which translate to no marriage, no childbirth, no dating and no sex with men.
The 4B movement emerged in South Korea around 2015 or 2016, per Ju Hui Judy Han, an assistant professor in gender studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. Mostly popular among young women in their 20s, she described it as a fringe offshoot of #MeToo and other feminist movements that arose in response to stark gender inequality in the country.
In 2016, a woman was brutally killed near a Seoul subway station — the perpetrator reportedly said he killed her because he felt ignored by women. The incident prompted a national reckoning around how women are treated in the country, expanding to include conversations around femicide, revenge porn and digital sex crimes.
Feminism and the gender divide have been hot button issues in South Korea. Women in the country are paid about one-third less than men, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development — the highest wage gap among OECD nations. And despite being one of the world’s most advanced economies, women there are scarcely represented in senior and managerial roles.
The 4B movement was decentralized and existed in various iterations online and offline, making it difficult to assess its true size and scale. Over the years, the movement has diminished and splintered over disagreements about the role of queer and trans women, according to Han. But she says 4B and other South Korean feminist movements drew attention to gender inequality in the country and emphasized collective action.
“It’s not a very widespread movement, but the sentiments behind it I think a lot of people empathize with,” Han says.
“When there is such widespread violence against women, there is such systemic discrimination and inequality, when there’s so much that make marriage, childbirth and child rearing … difficult, why and how could anyone imagine getting married and giving birth?”
Though South Korea’s 4B movement mostly faded from media headlines in recent years, the US election has renewed interest.
“A lot of us — straight or not, queer or not, whether you’re in a marriage or not — are going to be in the same boat, dealing with an oppressive and violent institutions,” Han says. “And we see each other.”
The US election is inspiring conversation around 4B
It’s far too early to tell whether the 4B movement might seriously catch on in the US. But so far, at least, it’s generated a lot of online discussion among young women.
Some women are discovering the movement anew and are vowing to join. Others who are already married or partnered up say they plan to protest in other ways, such as boycotting male-owned businesses or refusing to do emotional labor for men.
Pollard says she learned about South Korea’s 4B movement a few years ago, inspiring her to “examine what a life looks like without centering men so deeply.” Since 2022, she says she hasn’t dated or slept with men and has realized that she’s better off on her own. She has the resources to support herself without marriage, and she plans to have a child alone.
Her decision to disengage from men wasn’t necessarily an act of vengeance, she says. Rather, it was about putting herself first. Now that other women around the country have taken an interest in 4B, she says she wants them to realize that they have other options.
“You push people far enough and they’re done,” she says. “How will that affect politics? We’ll see … but I think that women and their joy is going to be something that can’t really be overlooked anymore. Women are choosing themselves in droves.”
Alexa Vargas, a 26-year-old from Boston, says she stopped engaging with men a few years ago after a series of unhealthy relationships that included abuse and assault, and it wasn’t until earlier this year that she realized there was a movement and language that aligned with her actions. Though she says that “men need a wake-up call,” her decision is more about herself and other women.
“I don’t know if men are going to change their ways. I don’t know how this is going to pan out,” she says. “My goal in life and in this movement is to protect young women and girls.”
Women who have been talking about 4B online say the way some men have responded to their posts are already proving their point.
Abby K., a 27-year-old from Florida, recently broke up with her boyfriend over dismissive comments he made about Trump’s history of sexual abuse. When she posted a video about that and her decision to join the 4B movement, she says men flooded her DMs with death threats and hateful comments about her appearance.
“It doesn’t exactly entice you to re-enter the dating pool,” she adds.
Some are skeptical 4B will catch on
In Han’s view, the 4B movement is unlikely to become mainstream in the US.
She says it relies too heavily on the gender binary and that those inspired to join it as a result of the election are overlooking the fact that plenty of women voted for Trump, too. (Though Vice President Kamala Harris maintained an edge with women, exit polls indicate that her lead was smaller than President Joe Biden’s or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s during their respective presidential campaigns.)
Hadia Khanani, a 24-year-old from Florida, also has reservations about 4B in the US. Though she hasn’t engaged with men romantically for several years in an effort to prioritize herself, she wants women to dig deeper and examine their own role in upholding patriarchy. She also worries about the consequences of further isolating men.
“The conversation online has been centered around sleeping with men and dating men, obviously to protect yourself, but I just feel like misogyny and patriarchy is much deeper than that,” she says. “I think a lot of it is rooted in the way that men are raised in society.”
Even if large numbers of women don’t adopt the strict tenets of 4B, those who are taking part for now hope the recent conversations around it lead women to think about themselves and their circumstances differently.
“I don’t ever expect everyone in America to hold hands and agree not to date men,” Abby K. says. “I could definitely see it fueling change in some way.”
Han predicts that American interest in the 4B movement will subside quickly. Still, she hopes that the recent discourse around it will help women understand that they aren’t alone in their struggles and build solidarity with others around the world.
“I think a lot of American women are … trying to find ways to seek empowerment and find a way to survive,” Han says. “And I hope what they find is not necessarily a particular movement like the 4B movement, but a recognition that struggles for reproductive justice and gender equality are certainly not just American concerns.”
CNN’s Leda Joy Abkenari contributed to this report.
