The 4B movement is spreading around TikTok after Trump’s victory
Why do we care about the 4B movement and the feminist movement? A case study from a young lady whose hair looks too good to look like
Maria Barbieri had the clippers out. Donald Trump had just been elected US president and the creator, who posts under the handle @girl_dumphim, woke up “feeling spicy.” She tried to shave her head but was forced to cut it off with scissors. “Giving up on America? She says she has in a TikTok post Wednesday morning. It was also given up on coloring this hair. I hate coloring my hair. I would rather have my hair long and luxurious than be the type of person that the patriarchy wants us to be.
A small fragment of text is displayed on the video. 4B”—a reference to the feminist movement, started in South Korea, encouraging women to not marry, date, sleep with, or have children with men until all genders have equal rights. As of this writing, it’s gotten more than 3 million views.
Interest in the 4B movement increased in the days after the election, leading to a rise in searches and an increase in social media use for the movement. A group of young ladies are exploring the idea in posts on platforms like TikTok.
Why Sex Without Consent is My Choice: The Case For South Korea’s 2022 Fuentes Against Trump’s Dinner’
“There is no sleeping with men that is worth your life and your safety,” warns TikTokker Reese Gillam, who also encouraged women to swear off men. “When they have showcased time and time again that they don’t value who you are and they don’t vote for you, they don’t stand up for you. It’s important that you protect yourself in case they don’t want to.
White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nicholas Fuentes, who was criticized for hosting a dinner at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in 2022, said on his account that “Your body, my choice.” On election night, the results turned in Trump’s favor. The account got a lot of likes.
Jon Miller, who describes himself as a moderate and “fair & balanced political commentator” said on Wednesday that women threatening sex strikes like LmAO as if they have a say. The post has gotten over 50 million views, sparked considerable backlash and was appended with a community note clarifying that sex without consent is rape.
Ju Hui Judy Han, a gender studies professor at the University of California Los Angeles who also specializes in Korean studies, says the growing interest in 4B at this moment is understandable.
Young women are telling policymakers that they want to get married and have children in order to make the world a better place.
She was surprised to see a movement that was so unique to South Korean society take off this week, because it is very specific to that country.
The Economist’s glass-ceiling index ranked it the worst OECD country for working women in 2022, in part because of strict maternity leave policies that force many women to choose between career and family. That’s one of the reasons South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world, down to 0.78% in 2023.
The low fertility rate has been a source of alarm among Korean policymakers, and criticism by anti-feminists who blame 4B and other similar movements, Han says. But she says it would be a stretch to blame 4B for causing the decline in childbirths, and in fact, sees it as a response.
President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was elected in 2022, campaigned in part on abolishing the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which coordinated and implemented policies promoting women’s rights. That move was condemned by many women in South Korea and human rights groups internationally.
The 2016 murder of a young lady in a public restroom at the central Gangnam Station in South Korea was one of those that the man later said he did because she had ignored him.
Shruti Sivakumar is an Indiana University senior who is writing her final research paper on the 4B movement and said that a lot of feminists and a lot of women talked about their own stories. It was just a re-birth of feminist activism in Korea.
South Korea experienced a rise in digital sex crimes, with hidden cameras recording women in public places and uploading the footage to pornographic websites.
There was also a rise in online feminist activism around the same time, including the controversial social movement known as Megalia. Another, called Break the Corset, saw young South Korean women smashing their makeup palettes and cutting their hair short in defiance of beauty standards.
It is possible that 4B will be entered around 2019. It doesn’t have an elected leader or membership structure. It is spread on social media and by word of mouth, so there is no way to know how many women have participated.
Similarly, Sivakumar describes it as a “last resort” for women who are trying to disentangle their lives from the patriarchy in the name of lasting social and economic independence.
“It’s not meant to be a movement or a form of activism that you’re able to just pick up for one month and just drop as soon as you find someone that you really like and want to talk to,” she added. It is supposed to be a form of sacrifice that you will be independent from men the rest of your life.
Han thinks it likely that American women exploring 4B could see backlash from their immediate circle just for “exercising their right to do these obvious things.”
Han said that declaring you to be a feminist in an anti-feminist world can have consequences. “I think any sort of refusal to participate in the status quo could obviously have some negative consequences.”
Han believes that the power of the movement is due to the support of a collective.
“One individual refusing to have sex is just one individual refusing to have sex,” Han said. “But when they recognize other women doing the same thing or wanting to share their frustration and their pursuit of agency in doing something collectively, now that’s a start of something else.”
Source: Boycott men? South Korea’s 4B movement gains traction in the U.S. after Trump’s win
Boycott men? South Korea’s 4 B movement gains traction after Trump’s win in the U.S. after a historic election
The former president has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women dating back decades and was found liable for sexual abuse by a jury. Trump bragged about appointing the Supreme Court justices who reversed the policy of abortion in the US. The vicepresident-elect drew anger for his comments about childless cat ladies.
Vice President Harris made protecting abortion rights central to her unsuccessful campaign to become the first female president.
The Associated Press reports that Trump gained ground among both women and men but lost ground to men in every age group. Exit polls show 55% of American men voted for Trump.
Keara Sullivan, a comedian from Brooklyn who has been hearing a lot about 4B online, said that she is very angry with men as a whole and she sees the appeal right now.
Sullivan says that women should stop dating and marrying men who vote against their rights. She has reservations about certain aspects of 4B, such as the risk that women would be seen as giving in to conservatives if they abstain from sex.
Sullivan said that she hoped the new sense of solidarity women were finding on social media will propel us into more direct feminist organizing and disruption.
“It’s time to close off your wombs to males,” reads another viral post. “This election proves now more than ever that they hate us & hate us proudly. Don’t give them a reward.
“I think it’s time for American women to participate in our own 4B movement,” one woman posted on TikTok. “If men won’t respect our bodies, they don’t get access to our bodies.”
The idea comes from the South Korean movement known as 4B, or the 4 No’s. It also calls for the decline of sexual relationships with men, heterosexual marriage, and childbirth.
Source: Boycott men? South Korea’s 4B movement gains traction in the U.S. after Trump’s win
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