What is the South Korean 4B movement to boycott men, and why is Trump's reelection sparking interest among American women? (original) (raw)

Donald Trump’s reelection has triggered a wave of social media posts and search interest in the “4B” movement, a fringe feminist trend that started in South Korea in 2018. Partially inspired by the #MeToo movement in the United States, 4B encourages women to cut ties to men altogether.

Gender played a huge role in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, with concerns over reproductive rights following the repeal of Roe v. Wade and the growing number of sexual misconduct allegations against Trump, who was found liable last year of sexually abusing journalist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s. Vice President-elect JD Vance disparagingly referred to some women as “childless cat ladies” while Trump’s campaign prioritized reaching young male conservative voters. Though votes are still being counted in Nevada and Arizona, exit polls indicate that female voters — especially those 18 to 29 — largely showed up to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

As many Democratic women across the U.S. mourned Harris’s loss this week, in the U.S., Google search interest in the 4B movement spiked by about 450%.

A woman holds a sign during a Women's March in Chicago, Nov. 2. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)

In the wake of #MeToo — a global, survivor-led movement against sexual violence — South Korea was dealing with an overwhelming number of cases of femicide, revenge porn and domestic violence and a justice system that seemed to protect the men committing such offenses. This frustration boiled over in 2018 when “a woman was jailed for posting a nude photo of a man while men usually go free in such cases,” Human Rights Watch reported, which seemingly kicked off the 4B movement.

4B (4非) is shorthand for four Korean words that all start with bi- or “no”: bBihon, the refusal of heterosexual marriage; bichulsan, the refusal of childbirth; biyeonae, refusal to date; and bisekseu, the rejection of heterosexual relationships between men and women. The 4B movement essentially encouraged women to boycott all types of relationships with men — both romantic and platonic. 4B was also born out of another Korean feminist movement, tal-corset(“escape the corset”), in which women rejected societally imposed beauty standards by cutting their hair short and not wearing makeup in public.

It’s also worth noting that a number of Korean women on social media have emphasized that the 4B movement is pretty radical and not as mainstream as some Western coverage is making it out to be. It also has faced some backlash for allegedly being exclusionary to LGBTQIA+ women since the focus is on cisgender heterosexual relationships.

How has the U.S. election inspired American interest in 4B?

Prior to Trump’s reelection on Tuesday, a small online movement was already taking shape on social media where women were pledging celibacy as a means of rejecting casual hook-up culture and to recover from bad relationships or sexual traumas, Business Insider reported in April 2023.

This idea seems to be regaining interest in the wake of Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election, based on the rising search interest in the 4B movement and numerous posts by American women across social media in recent days.

Since Tuesday, the TikTok hashtags #4b and #4bmovement have tens of thousands of posts, some with millions of views. Across the board, U.S. women seem determined to join in.

“Doing my part as an American woman by breaking up with my Republican boyfriend last night & officially joining the 4b movement this morning,” one video, with over 9 million views reads.

“We can’t let these men have the last laugh,” an X post with hundreds of thousands of interactions said. “We need to bite back.”

“Women are coming together to decenter men,” one TikTok user said. “I encourage you to reclaim your power and have really honest conversations with yourself about whether being in a romantic relationship with men at this point in time is worth it.”