What is the extreme South Korean 4B feminist movement sweeping America after Trump’s win?
Driven by gender inequality, sexism, and a backlash against male privilege, the movement reflects a growing global trend of resisting patriarchal norms
No dating, sex, marriage or having children with men: South Korea’s extreme feminist movement “4B” has gone viral in America and beyond since Donald Trump won the US presidential election.
In Korean, 4B stands for the “Four Nos”: dating, sex, marriage and childbearing with men.
The movement emerged in the mid-2010s in South Korea, against a backdrop of persistent pay disparity, entrenched gender roles, and an epidemic of cybersex crimes and sexual violence against women.
Yet it has largely remained a fringe campaign.
Adherents like Baek Ga-eul, 33, say it has allowed them to be a “complete human being, not just a being reserved for a man or children.”
The movement arose because South Korean women – who do 3.5 times more work in the home per week than men, official data shows – cannot “accept the expectation to perform both paid labour and the majority of household duties”, she said.
