What is the 4B movement?

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“I think there’s something about trying not to attract men that’s quite liberating,” she says.

Lily is also pansexual, meaning she is romantically and sexually attracted to people of all gender identities, which she says makes her “lucky” because her dating options remain more open compared to her heterosexual counterparts in the movement.

So what exactly is the 4B movement? And how did an underground movement from South Korea end up in the US and beyond?

What is 4B?

4B means four Korean words that all start with bimeaning “no”: bihon (no heterosexual marriage), bichulsan (no birth), biion (no dating) and bisexual (no heterosexual relationships).

Dr Ming Gao, a researcher at the Gender and Women’s History Research Center at the Australian Catholic University, says South Korea’s rapid economic transformation in the 2000s widened the socioeconomic gap, which for young women was exacerbated by systemic gender inequality.

Although South Korean women are among the most highly educated in the worldthe country consistently ranks among the worst OECD countries for the gender wage gap. It also has some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world – a report 2021 from the South Korean government, for example, found that one in three women experienced domestic violence.

In light of this, Gao says the traditional path of marriage and motherhood has become less appealing to young women, and living a life without men is a way for young feminists to challenge these patriarchal structures.

Important cases of gender-based violence, incl 2016 random murder of a woman in a train station toilet and his discovery spy cameras in hotel rooms, has propelled the rise of “digital militant feminism,” says Gao. Indeed, while the movement is growing, it remains relatively underground, with the Internet a key channel for radical feminist activity.

For Korean women, 4B is both a way of life and a political stance against a patriarchal society where the gender gap remains strong. Its most extreme followers choose to eliminate interactions with men altogether.

Dr Hyein Ellen Cho, lecturer in Korean studies and researcher at Monash University’s Center for Gender and Family Violence Prevention, says that while many people in Korea might see 4B as radical, for her it is primarily a “movement of safety”.

“Women just don’t feel safe having children or dating.”

“Feminism in the ’60s and ’70s seemed really radical, but it’s not anymore. We’ve made a lot of progress and that’s part of progress.”

What does 4B look like in the West?

What’s interesting about this evolution of 4B, Cho says, is that Eastern feminism is often examined through the lens of Western feminism. The popularity of 4B in countries such as the United States is a reversal of this, with Western feminists being influenced by an overseas movement.

But withholding sex as a means of protest in the West is not a new idea. Australian National University history professor Angela Woollacott shows the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, which tells the story of a woman who convinces all the women in two warring cities to deny the men sex until they negotiate peace. More recently, in the 1970s, breakaway factions of the feminist movement formed women-only communities, one of which still exists today in northern NSW.

Woollacott says that while the US election may have sparked 4B’s explosive popularity, the conditions for its growth have been brewing for some time.

“We’ve seen a very clear rise on social media in misogyny and overt masculinity and the urge for men to take more assertive and violent masculinist positions,” she says, citing as examples the Tate brothers and “Your Body, My Choice” Chorus. which has ricocheted in online spaces since the election.

In Australia in particular, she says this has been evident through “the overt actions of the far right, including the Melbourne Nazi party and how they are misogynistic and masculinist in their joints”, as well as increasingly school age reports. students who display sexist attitudes towards female teacher and increasing rates of femicide.

“We have seen a very clear rise on social media in misogyny and overt masculinity and the urge for men to take more assertive and violent masculinist positions.”

Professor Angela Woollacott, ANU

Lily says her stance on relationships with men is as much a political choice as a lifestyle one. It indicates re-ignition debates on term abortions in Australia, as in the run-up to the recent state election in Queensland, where he lives.

“If we don’t have abortion rights … then I don’t even want to risk a pregnancy,” she says. “People forget that abortion is life-saving healthcare.”

She also doesn’t think the government has done enough to break the cycle of violence against women and says there needs to be more support for mothers, such as free childcare.

“I know many women who would love to have children, but cannot have them practically or financially.”

Michelle Arrow, professor of history at Macquarie University, says that while abortion is not as politically charged an issue in Australia as it is in the US, there has been a mirroring of the global divide between men and women.

“When you look at the 2022 (Australian federal) election, it was a pretty significant issue gender difference between men and women in terms of who voted Labor and who voted Liberal,” says Arrow.

“So, I think, it’s a real concern because it suggests that young men don’t agree with gender equality. And then what does that mean for young women trying to form relationships with these young men?”

Lifestyle or political movement?

Although Gao was interested in the adoption of 4B in the West, he is hesitant about its potential long-term effect given the specific social and political context in which it emerged.

“In Korea, 4B emerged as a response to deep-rooted patriarchal and pro-natalist policies, making it very contextual,” he says.

In a country like South Korea, which is extremely homogenous racially and ethnically, gender is a key point of division. And so, in countries like the US and Australia, where racial inequality complicates and exacerbates gender inequality, it is not simply a matter of importing feminism from overseas.

The recent report on murdered and missing indigenous women and childrenfor example, it revealed what First Nations women have been saying for decades – that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are disproportionately affected by domestic violence. In the US, meanwhile, abortion is prohibited it disproportionately affects women of color.

“4B runs the risk of being seen as a universal movement…this unique context underscores the importance of understanding the origins of feminist movements before adapting them to new environments,” says Gao.

Another potential risk, Ming says, is that it excludes trans and gender-nonconforming people because it tends to rely on a definition of biological femininity that prioritizes straight and cis women.

However, many of its followers – both in Korea and in Western countries – stress that the movement is about inclusion and focuses primarily on distancing itself from cis, straight men.

So what potential does 4B have as a political movement? Gao thinks it’s more about women finding ways to live in patriarchy rather than overthrowing it.

“4B is perhaps best understood not as a movement, but as a lifestyle choice or value formation process. It is less about mass mobilization and more about individual expressions of resistance.”

Still, Arrow believes the movement could be a means for women to imagine a different and better way of being, even if it might not effect immediate change.

“I think 4B is probably something that tries to test the possibilities by pushing the boundaries of conventional social structures.”

Decentering men

While media headlines may make it seem like the US election is solely responsible for women going on a “sex strike,” the phenomenon is not new. Contemporary movements such as “sober boy” have seen women give up sex with men or deprioritize romantic relationships for a myriad of reasons, including frustration with the poor quality of matches on dating apps, greater recognition of the value of friendships, and the rise of “toxic behavior” such as infidelity and gaslighting.

Camilla is 46 and wouldn’t necessarily identify as a 4B, but she has stopped actively seeking romantic relationships with men.

The Sydneysider, who chooses to keep her real name private, says she has been single since early 2022 – the longest she has been out of a relationship since she was 19.

“It’s not like I’m not trying (to find a partner), but I accept that it’s never going to happen,” she says.

“And reflecting on the relationships I’ve had, I thought, ‘What the hell did I get out of them?’ They all caused me misery in some way.”

“Women seem to be waking up everywhere, saying ‘what’s in it for me?’ ‘

Camilla*, a 46-year-old who has stopped looking for relationships with men

She blames a string of bad experiences with dating apps — most recently, being scammed out of her life savings in a crypto romance scam — and a lack of suitable matches for her decision.

While some have called 4B a movement about “hating men”, Camilla is clear that’s not the case for her.

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“It’s like we’re done. I don’t hate men. I’m friends with them, I work with them… but just the whole romantic relationship, I barely know anyone who’s happy being in relationships or being married.”

Growing up in a traditional Italian household with three brothers and a stay-at-home mother also informed his worldview. From the age of 12, she knew she didn’t want to get married or have children.

She says she’s been encouraged to see more women de-center the men in their lives and has found a great sense of community and friendship among others like her.