What Is the 4B Movement? Some Women Are Swearing Off Men
Donald Trump’s return to power could be devastating for reproductive rights. A second Trump term — combined with Republican control of the Senate and possibly the House — will likely feature the appointment of more ultra-conservative Supreme Court judges, national restrictions on access to abortion medication, and sweeping changes to federal agencies handling of reproductive care domestically and internationally.
As women across the country grapple with what the future holds for their own bodily autonomy, some are turning to an unlikely source for inspiration: South Korea.
“Ladies, we need to start considering the 4B movement like the women in South Korea and give America a severely sharp birth rate decline: no marriage, no childbirth, no dating men, no sex with men,” X user @lalisasaura wrote on Wednesday, in a post that has now garnered over 453,000 likes and 18 million impressions. “We can’t let these men have the last laugh… we need to bite back.”
In another viral tweet, user @solitasims wrote that “it’s time to close off your wombs to males. this election proves now more than ever that they hate us & hate us proudly. do not reward them.”
According to Google trends, searches for “4B” hit an all-time high Nov. 6, the day after the American election. Related search terms included queries for IUDs and white supremacist influencer Nick Fuentes, who drew backlash on Election Night after tweeting, apparently in response to Trump’s victory, “Your body, my choice. Forever.”
But what is the 4B movement, and why are American women turning to it as a potential model for autonomy in the face of a political project that seeks to strip them of their reproductive freedom?
The term 4B, an offshoot of the larger “Escape the Corset” movement in South Korea, emerged in that country around 2018 as part of the global wave of feminist organization spurred by the American #MeToo movement. The 4B group was formed largely on social media, and called for the total forswearing of sexual and social bondage with men. The four Bs — bisekseu, bichulsan, biyeonae, and bihon — stand for no sex with men, no giving birth, no dating men, and no marrying them. In refusing the heteronormative expectations of motherhood, marriage, and child rearing, South Korean women hoped to form independent social and economic identities they could leverage intro transformative political power.
“When women are more economically influential, then it’s possible that the political parties will listen to women as important voters,” on Korean woman told The Cut in 2023. “But until then, I feel like women will still be utilized — their bodies will be utilized to reproduce.”
It’s hard to gauge how widespread the movement is in South Korea, or if — as some critics claim — it’s actually exacerbating the country’s already low birth rate. But in the borderless digital landscape, the tenets of the 4B movement have reached American women who feel that the Trump era has brought about a regression in cultural, social, and political attitudes towards women and feminism — not only among lawmakers, but in their own social circles.
The last decade alone has seen the rise of manosphere influencers marketing misogyny to young men, the deification of pinup fantasy “trad wives,” the advent of AI technology that was almost immediately used as a tool of sexual harassment, backlash to the progress made by movements like #MeToo, and the light-speed erosion of fundamental reproductive freedoms.
In the immediate aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s demise, conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that the court should next consider the nullification of decisions establishing the right to contraception and same-sex marriage. Republican politicians and influencers have openly called for the elimination of no-fault divorce. J.D. Vance — the man who was just elected to serve as Trump’s vice president — spent much of his campaign maligning childless women as grotesque aberrations to the natural order.
Meanwhile, at the state level, pregnant women with nonviable pregnancies — many of whom very much wanted to have children — are dying of sepsis, bleeding out in their cars, and suffering lifelong damage to their reproductive organs as Republican politicians gleefully sign draconian restrictions on abortion care into law.
Early exit polling from this week’s election shows that men voted in the majority for Trump by a margin of 55-45. The former and future president also made massive inroads among young men ages 18-44, many of whom are surely looking to date, marry, and start a family with a woman.
In this environment, why wouldn’t women be skeptical that sex, marriage, birth, and motherhood is the path they want to tread? Forswearing it all may be a step too far for some, but for others, the loss of their legal autonomy means clinging to the personal choices they can still control.
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