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After former President Donald Trump was elected to be the 47th president of the United States this week, many women turned to social media to express their fears and frustrations about what a second Trump presidency would mean for women’s rights. Many women on TikTok specifically endorsed the idea of joining the “4B movement” in response to his win.
One post from a TikTok user said she broke up with her Republican boyfriend after election night and planned to join the 4B group. The post racked up nearly 2 million “likes” on the app.
“Doing my part as an American woman by breaking up with my republican boyfriend last night & officially joining the 4b movement this morning,” she wrote in the text overlay of the video.
Another TikTok user said in a viral video that she believes the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, would’ve won the presidency if she were a man.
“Y’all hate women that bad,” she said, writing “4b movement ladies” in the caption of the post.
Both TikTok posts are a part of a surge of post-election social media posts promoting the idea of a particular women’s rights movement, which emerged in South Korea.
The “4B” group, which champions a no-marriage stance, began around 2018 with the goal of rejecting gender norms that have historically and systemically exploited women.
The name of the group stems from women disengaging from men in four categories, which all begin with the letter B in Korean: bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae and bisekseu. The list translates to: no dating, no sex, no marriage and no child-rearing.
For years, feminist movements in South Korea have worked to fight against various forms of gender inequality, such as pay gaps, gender-based violence (including the country’s spy-cam porn epidemic) and male-centered standards of beauty that place extreme pressure on women. Women in South Korea have also increasingly rejected the traditional expectations to become mothers due in part to misogynistic views about the burden of care often placed on women, among other factors.
The country has been battling a demographic crisis, with record low birth rates for years.
The “4B movement” specifically emerged in South Korea in the midst of a feminist movement in the late 2010s into the early 2020s, according to Jung Hawon, a journalist and author of “Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea’s Feminist Movement and What It Means for Women’s Rights Worldwide.”
Jung explained to YouTuber Elliot Sang in June that there was “a lot of momentum” for the “4B” trend at the time it emerged. For example, South Korean YouTuber Jung Se-young, who promoted the “4B movement,” told Reuters in 2020 that she vowed to stay single because “marriage is the root cause of patriarchy in South Korea.”
During Jung’s YouTube interview with Sang, she said that the 4B movement and its followers, represent an “extreme end of a whole spectrum of women who remain single and childless in South Korea.”
But despite its original popularity, Jung also said that she believes more recent anti-feminism waves in South Korea have “intimidated” some women in the country. “A lot of them have fallen silent, including the followers of the 4B Movement as well. It’s a really disheartening development.”
There’s been an uptick in interest in the 4B movement since Trump defeated Harris in Tuesday’s election.
Many women on social media are voicing concerns about the future of reproductive rights and slamming the men who voted against the policies aimed at protecting women and their bodily autonomy.
They’re also concerned for their safety in a second Trump administration. On Wednesday, far-right social media users on X shared their unfiltered, misogynistic celebrations following the former president’s reelection: “Your body, my choice. Forever,” one far-right political pundit posted on the platform ― a phrase that has since spread online. (Other grotesque and threatening tweets insinuating men can now control women also followed.)
As a result, some are turning to the ideals of the 4B movement in response.
“I like the new idea from the #4BMovement about not engaging or speaking with men whenever we can,” one person wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “That sounds so peaceful. We can just ignore and block. Let their loneliness epidemic spread.”
The movement also encourages women to uplift other women more intentionally.
“Reminder that the 4B movement, and the separatist movement in general, isn’t just about avoiding men — it’s also about supporting and investing in women,” wrote another. “Seek out relationships with women, women-owned businesses, women-made media, etc; surround yourself with women and our culture.”
But others online have said that some of the recent discourse surrounding the 4B movement in the U.S. doesn’t acknowledge the ways different demographics of women, and men, voted in the election.
The majority of the conversations operate under a blanket statement that most men voted against women’s best interests — and that women generally voted in favor of those interests. But the voting demographics tell a more pointed story. National exit polls suggest that Harris received support from about 91% of Black female voters and about 60% of Latina voters. She received about 77% of the Black male vote, according to Reuters.
Trump, however, won an estimated 56% of the white vote: 60% of the white men and 53% of white women.
“Per voting, Black people are the most unified group in the country,” one X user wrote, adding, “Our men are not who voted against us and our humanity, it was theirs.”
Black women don’t need to engage in the 4B movement. Per voting, Black people are the most unified group in the country. We need to lean into each other and grow our population and community. Our men are not who voted against us and our humanity, that was theirs.
Other people on X pointed out that simply swearing off men after Trump’s win doesn’t address the white female voting bloc, which has often voted for Republican candidates.
“4B movement is good and important and I’m glad people are talking about it but I need white women to keep up the energy when unpacking white supremacy in themselves and their peers. Statistically a man of color is a better ally to me than a white woman,” one user said.
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Regardless, people are continuing to express their frustrations with the outcome of the 2024 election, and many are drawing inspiration from the women’s movements in South Korea. As of Friday there were more than 19,000 videos tagged about the 4B movement on TikTok, as well as posts on Instagram and X.