Imported from South Korea, many American women are swearing they'll join the 4B movement in light of Trump's re-election. What does it mean? The 4B movement originated in South Korea as a radical feminist statement to abstain from interactions with men due to the country’s patriarchal society. 4B stands for the four “B”s or “Nos” in Korean.
They are “bisekseu” (no sex with men); “biyeonae” (no dating men); “bihon” (no marrying men); and “bichulsan” (no having children). It’s actually a pretty old idea for women to abstain from contact with men as a way of whipping them into shape. Probably one of the oldest examples is from Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy play ‘Lysistrata’.
Originally performed in 411 BC, it follows a group of Greek women who withhold sex from men to force them to end the Peloponnesian War. It all kicked off around 2016 with the Escape the Corset movement, a social media-led movement that saw South Korean women discussing the ways in which Korean society’s restrictive female standards contributed to a misogynistic society. The 4B movement gained even more momentum the year later when South Korean women started coming forward about the abused they’d faced as part of the #MeToo movement.
Donald Trump, obviously. After the results of the 2024 presidential elections became clear earlier this week, Google searches for the movement went up by 450%, with 200,000 people looking into it on Wednesday. President-elect Trump and t.
