What is 4B and who can participate?
When Donald Trump was announced the winner of the U.S. presidential election, American women began posting about the 4B movement, a radical feminist movement that originated in South Korea. From one woman saying she broke up with her Republican boyfriend on election night to join 4B to another saying she's building her "dream body that no man will touch for the next four years," discussion of the movement has exploded online.
What is 4B?
4B stands for the "four nos," which translates to no dating, no sex, no marriage, and no child-rearing, as Hawon Jung, a journalist and author of Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement & What It Means for Women's Rights Worldwide, wrote for the New York Times last year.
Discussion about 4B has grown in Western online spaces in recent years. In 2023, The Cut published a widely-discussed explainer on 4B (that's since been updated in light of the election).
4B emerged in South Korea as a part of a wider feminist wave that swept the country from the late 2010s to early 2020s, Jung told Mashable over email. There were heated discussions on and offline about misogyny, patriarchy, gender violence, and gender discrimination. Korea has a steep gender pay gap and was also ranked last among 29 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries for women's working environment.
A major part of these discussions was about the uneven burden women face in terms of domestic labor and caregiving, oftentimes at the expense of personal aspirations, Jung said. Around this time, the term "no marriage" — roughly translated to "willfully unmarried" — began to become popular and widely used for women who chose not to marry.
"4B is at the extreme end of the whole spectrum of women in South Korea who choose to stay single and childless," Jung said. The arguments for 4B, according to the women involved that Jung spoke to, come down to being tired of the patriarchal culture ingrained in the institution of marriage, societal pressure to marry and have children, and intimate partner violence (IPV) and lack of protection for victims. These women choose to boycott marriage and even romantic relationships with men until society and men change how they treat women.
With South Korea's #MeToo movement, IPV, and digital sex crimes gaining public attention in the late 2010s — coupled with the "no marriage" precedent in the country — there was momentum for 4B to settle and become more popularized, said sociology Ph.D. candidate at Yale University, Meera Choi, who studies the 4B movement.
There aren't definite numbers of how many women are in the 4B movement in South Korea. Those who identify as feminists in Korea are subject to harassment, bullying, career setbacks, and even job loss and violence, Jung said. So some 4B followers don't share this publicly.
Both Jung and Choi said that there is a broader discontent about marriage and childbearing among South Korean women beyond those who identify as 4B. Also, some women are choosing to be childless and single and not identify as 4B because they don't see it as a political statement.
"The core message of the 4B movement is a far more condensed, intense, and outspoken version of the frustration and grievances many ordinary South Korean women feel about the institution of marriage or patriarchal family culture in general," Jung said.
Why are American women talking about 4B?
Donald Trump's win spurred discussion about 4B in the U.S., as did misogynistic gloating in its wake — such as white nationalist Nick Fuentes claiming, "Your body, my choice."
On social media, discussions of voluntary celibacy and being "boy sober" have emerged among heterosexual women in the last year. This is largely because of frustrations over modern dating and dating apps, as well as dissatisfaction with casual sex. This is also a consequence of politics, particularly the overturning of Roe v. Wade and misogynistic ideals pushed by manosphere influencers.
4B has been lumped into these discussions. Choi said there are inherent differences between American and South Korean feminism, however. An example she gave was American feminism focuses on individual desire and freedom, which is a more optimistic outlook. Choi said pessimism is more prevalent in Korea, and there's a greater focus on what makes someone a "good" feminist.
Who can participate in 4B?
A flurry of discourse among American women started around who can and can't be 4B. Women began asking if they could be in 4B if they have a boyfriend, husband, and/or children.
"if u have a boyfriend or a husband u cannot be apart of the 4b movement [sic]," said X user @lilmswinehouse3.
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"we will never be free," said X user @bambilith along with a screenshot of a woman asking if she can participate in 4B "but still love [her] boyfriend."
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Jung said similar arguments have sometimes appeared on South Korean social media and internet chatrooms since 4B emerged. "The arguments usually revolved around the question of whether a woman can be a true feminist if she is dating with a man, if she is married, thus 'selling out' to the patriarchal institution of marriage," Jung said. "And I think that this kind of debate inevitably happens when there is a social media-driven movement based on the deeply personal changes in a woman's everyday life."
Choi said that 4B has become almost an orthodox, separatist feminist movement in Korea. The question of who is the "better" feminist does come up. It's an insular group, with some 4B women only associating with each other because they are tired of discussions about men that their married friends might talk about, for example.
"Among these women who adopt 4B as not just a practice, but almost an identity," Choi said. In her research, she has interviewed women who said they're not 4B because they don't follow the "rules," or they're not ready to not have relationships with men, or because they wear makeup and have long hair. The latter points refer to the "escape the corset" movement, where Korean women reject societal beauty ideals by cutting their hair and not wearing makeup in order to not look feminine.
Further, many 4B women in Korea are gender essentialists, meaning they believe men and women have intrinsic, biological differences. Many (but not all) are also trans-exclusionary. This seems to be in contrast with the swath of women who are talking about 4B in America, who appear to be primarily liberal (though some may be TERFS as well, trans-exclusionary radical feminists).
Some women in Korea are critical of 4B — even if they don't engage in heterosexual relationships themselves — for gender and sexuality reasons, said Choi. Similar feminist separatist movements in the U.S. have also been criticized for excluding trans women. Sex strikes, in general, have occurred elsewhere around the world. In 2019, actor Alyssa Milano called for a sex strike following abortion restrictions. The concept has been criticized for the assumption that sex is about pleasing men, not women's desire, and for excluding LGBTQ people.
Will 4B spread in the U.S.?
It remains to be seen whether 4B or something similar will become widespread in the U.S.
In the days since the election, it seems that the practices of 4B, but not the identity aspect of it, have spread on American social media. The context that some South Korean radical feminists hold gender essentialist beliefs may be lost stateside.
Aside from the lost context, Choi said it's difficult to say simplistically whether the movement gaining traction is a good thing or a bad thing. It's a reaction to the rising conservative thinking, but it could empower women to think about their lives beyond relationships with men. "I empathize and sympathize with these women's strategies and tactics," Choi said, and she's curious how it will unfold in the U.S.
"With Roe v. Wade gone and another Trump presidency on the horizon, the interest among American women in the 4B movement and what it stands for seems to indicate the growing sense of anger and hopelessness women feel about the patriarchal force in their society — a key factor that paved the way for the 4B movement in South Korea to begin with," Jung said.
Despite cultural and political differences, the anger and frustration women feel in a patriarchal society are all too similar.
UPDATE: Nov. 13, 2024, 12:17 p.m. EST This article was updated to clarify Choi's comments.