What is South Korea’s 4B movement? Interest spikes after US election shock

The South Korean 4B movement has seen a spike successful involvement amid the results from the 2024 US statesmanlike election.

On Wednesday (November 6) morning, Republican campaigner Donald Trump claimed triumph implicit Vice President Kamala Harris. Throughout his 2024 reelection campaign, the erstwhile president has celebrated the Supreme Court’s 2022 determination to overturn Roe v Wade, a ruling that ended a nationwide close to abortion. It was besides reproductive rights that propelled galore women to the polls connected Election Day arsenic Missouri became the archetypal authorities to undo a restrictive termination ban.

However, aft Trump declared triumph implicit Democratic nominee Harris, immoderate Americans couldn’t assistance but say they felt reaffirmed successful their content that astir of the United States would alternatively anyone other arsenic president than a woman. Perhaps that’s wherefore involvement successful South Korea’s 4B question – a question against patriarchy – has spiked successful the US conscionable hours aft Trump’s win.

“American women, looks similar it’s clip to get influenced by Korea’s 4B movement,” 1 pistillate wrote connected X/Twitter.

“American women, it’s clip to larn from the Koreans and follow the 4B movement,” different idiosyncratic echoed, portion a 3rd idiosyncratic said: “The women successful South Korea are doing it. It’s clip we articulation them. Men volition NOT beryllium rewarded, nor person entree to our bodies.”

The 4B movement, which reportedly originated successful 2019, stands for 4 Korean words opening with “bi” oregon “no” successful English: bihon means nary heterosexual marriage; bichulsan, nary childbirth; biyeonae, nary dating; and bisekseu, nary heterosexual intersexual relationships. Supporters of the women-led question garbage to date, marry, person enactment oregon person children with men – efficaciously boycotting a strategy they consciousness perpetuates sex inequity.

Members of the 4B question presumption matrimony arsenic an existential menace to women, and their concerns are well-founded. Much similar successful the US, South Korean women are besides subjected to a sex wage gap. While American women typically gain 82 cents for each dollar earned by men, South Korean women gain 31 percent little than men – the highest sex wage spread successful antiauthoritarian countries. A 2018 study revealed that successful the past 9 years, astatine slightest 824 women had been killed and 602 much enactment astatine hazard of decease owed to intimate spouse unit (IPV). A 2021 survey further recovered that 1 successful 3 Korean women person experienced home violence, with intimate partners liable for 46 percent of these cases.

In response, women wrong the 4B question person chosen to disengage from accepted relationships altogether, asserting that practicing “bihon” is the lone way to autonomy. “Practicing bihon means you’re eliminating the risks that travel from heterosexual matrimony oregon dating,” Busan autochthonal Yeowon explained to The Cut.

It’s unclear however wide the 4B question is fixed its mostly anonymous and offline nature, and it’s origins are conscionable arsenic nebulous. However, scholars recognition its emergence with the increasing acquisition spread betwixt men and women successful South Korea. Similar to the sex acquisition spread successful the US, successful which women marque up 59.5 percent of each assemblage students, Korean women surpassed men successful assemblage enrollment rates arsenic of 2013. Today, astir three-fourths of Korean women prosecute higher education, compared with little than two-thirds of men.

This displacement fueled increasing hostility betwixt men and women, with disgruntled groups of men coining the word “kimchinyeo,” oregon “kimchee women,” to stereotype college-educated women arsenic “selfish, vain, and exploitative of their partners,” feminist student Euisol Jeong explained successful her probe connected “troll feminism.”

These taste attitudes echo trends successful the US, wherever men are grappling with shifting sex roles. Feeling the unit of less blue-collar jobs and diminishing acquisition advantages, galore men are drawn to ballot for blimpish candidates similar Trump, who committedness a instrumentality to accepted values that, for some, prioritize men’s interests astatine the disbursal of women’s autonomy.

“Masculinity is successful flux,” anthropologist Treena Orchard recently told The Independent successful an interrogation astir the sex governmental gap. “Men are feeling constrained, and it’s similar they mightiness consciousness similar they person less options successful presumption of however to bash manhood, however to deliberation astir their spot successful the world, and they consciousness devalued.”

For galore women successful South Korea, the 4B question isn’t simply symbolic – it’s a societal stance aimed astatine reclaiming power implicit their lives, bodies, and futures successful effect to a strategy they consciousness is becoming progressively hostile.

In the aftermath of the predetermination – which has seen women’s rights, specified arsenic reproductive autonomy, nether menace – bringing the 4B question to the US could beryllium a extremist response. However, the surge of American involvement successful the 4B question underscores a shared vexation implicit what galore spot arsenic a rollback of women’s rights and freedoms, particularly arsenic blimpish values summation crushed among antheral voters.

With the question gaining momentum online, 1 question looms: Will American women rally astir it, oregon possibly make their ain version, arsenic a signifier of protestation against Trump’s 2nd statesmanlike word successful the White House?