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What Is The 4B Movement? Why Growing Numbers Of Women Are Opting For A Life Without Men

What Is The 4B Movement? Why Growing Numbers Of Women Are Opting For A Life Without Men
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The conversation about women’s right to autonomy when it comes to their lives, their beliefs and their bodies shows no sign of slowing down. Recent years have seen events such as the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the re-election of Donald Trump – a vocal supporter of this retraction of reproductive rights – as President of the United States over Kamala Harris, sent a ripple effect across the world. For some Western women, this has led to an interest – and even a following – of the 4B movement, a South Korean movement that in recent years has seen a growing number of women, worn down by the gender discrimination that inhabits all corners of their society, not just wanting to fight against patriarchy, but move away from it altogether.

For an introduction to the 4B movement, Cho Nam-Joo’s 2016 novel, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a useful place to start. The book details women’s daily experiences of relentless sexism, inequality and misogyny in contemporary South Korea – and its publication brought these often-overlooked occurrences into the public consciousness. This, along with repeated violence against women, a patriarchal political structure and a society that left women financially unstable – saw the beginnings of the country’s 4B Movement. Because, much like Cho’s heroine in the book, South Korean women had had enough.

The movement is based on four principles: Bihon (no to heterosexual marriage), Bichulsan (no to childbirth), Biyeonae (no to dating)Bisekseu (no to heterosexual sexual relationships). While the 4 Bs might seem like a drastic lifestyle change (note: the ‘B’ is shorthand for ‘bi’, which in Korean means ‘no’), the movement can manifest itself quite simply in the everyday lives of its followers. On a wider scale, these women are actively choosing to decenter, and often as a result, remove men from their lives – opting to focus on themselves instead.

Many of its followers, including YouTubers Lina Bae (a beauty influencer who regularly shares her experiences of society’s unattainable beauty standards) and Baek Ha-na and Jung Se-Young, post updates on the movement’s aims and their motivations for following 4B on their social media accounts. “After studying feminism and non-marriage, I’ve started to live my life more focused on myself,” says Ha-Na, while Se-Young’s decision not to marry was influenced by seeing how her mother and grandmother have been treated as “subordinates” in her family. Protests take place online and in cities across the South Korea – an early women’s rights rally in Seoul lasted 33 hours as one woman after another took to the stage to relate their experiences of gender abuse.

More recently, Google searches for ‘4B Movement’ in the United States began to spike on 5 November 2024 – the date Donald Trump was announced as President. The movement’s Western influence is becoming clear – the USA remains the country searching the most for information on 4B online globally across the past year.

Historically, the West has often viewed South Korea through a candy-coloured lens. It’s a country built on dignity, respect, smiling K-pop bands and innovative technology. One that’s certainly more liberal than its Northern neighbour. Yet South Korea has a long record of female subjugation – and with the global awareness of the 4B Movement on the rise, people are beginning to take note.

The World Economic Forum ranked South Korea at number 99 out of 146 countries for gender equality. A January 2023 article in South Korean newspaper The Sisa Times reported that 65% of women in the country do not want children, while 42% do not want to get married – and more than 80% of those cited domestic violence as their key reason.

This is not a new development. During the 1950-53 Korean War, soldiers made women walk over roads they thought might contain landmines to check for safety. Between 1953 and 2021, abortion was illegal in most circumstances (a similar ruling then came into effect in many US states just a year later, with the abolishment of Roe v. Wade). A 2015 South Korean government study revealed that almost 80% of women had been sexually harassed at work. Digital crime, including stalking and sexual harassment, such as molka – the act of upskirting and secretly filming women in bathrooms – is rife. Under current legislation, men accused of stalking can ask their victims to drop charges. In 2022, a man murdered his former colleague after she refused to do so.

The country’s (male) president Yoon Suk-Yeol – who was impeached back in December 2024 and charged with insurrection this January after he attempted to declare martial law – promised to close down the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family which supports women and victims of sexual assault, during his 2022 election campaign – claiming it treats men like “potential sex criminals”. Last November, local media reported that Suk-Yeol’s government had removed the terms ‘gender equality’ and ‘sexual minorities’ from school textbooks.

We’re seeing an increase in these polarising, far-right views from men – particularly young men – across the globe. The 2024 US Presidential Election saw Gen Z males swing towards Trump: more young white men (63%) voted for him than any other race or gender group of youth in the US. A study by King’s College London found that a fifth of men aged 16-29 in the UK support Andrew Tate – the British-American influencer who has gone viral on social media for videos in which he regularly speaks of being violent towards women, claiming that they are men’s “property”. (Tate and his brother, Tristan, are under investigation by Romanian authorities for a series of alleged crimes, including human trafficking and sexual intercourse with a minor.) Back in January, Tate also announced that he was running for Prime Minister of the UK to “bring greatness back to Britain” – sound familiar?

This open denigration of women has infiltrated modern society across the board: from global politics to personal social media accounts, and even culture. The dark threat of incel culture (defined as “a group of people on the internet who are unable to find sexual partners despite wanting them, and who express hate towards people whom they blame for this” – notably these are largely male groups targeting women) is being increasingly portrayed in the media, from the dystopian possibilities depicted in hit film Don’t Worry Darling to new novel Rejection, which delves into the minds of dejected male feminists. With these opinions on the rise, it’s no surprise, that women are turning to movements such as 4B to reclaim control.

In her book, Flowers Of Fire, South Korean journalist Hawon Jung looks at the recent development of feminist movements. When asked what she thinks 4B might achieve, Jung points to a quote in her book from Lee Na-Young, a sociology professor at Seoul’s Chung-Ang University. “The patriarchal norms in South Korea, given its economic status and the educational level of its women, are so relentless that the resistance against it tends to be just as intense,” Na-Young says. “Movements like 4B are a message of warning that women would boycott romantic relationships unless society and men change.” And as these anti-women sentiments continue to gain traction across the globe, so does the 4B Movement.

Simon Coates is a London-based writer and artist whose work has appeared in publications including The New European and Scottish newspaper The National

Additional words by Olivia McCrea-Hedley, Copy & Production Editor at Service95

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