The 4B movement urging women not to engage with men romantically or sexually has gained momentum in the U.S. after Donald Trump was re-elected president on Tuesday, driven in part by young male voters.
The feminist protest appears to be motivated by multiple positions Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance have taken on women’s issues, most specifically, reproductive rights.
In the wake of the election’s results, some women have vowed to live by the code of the 4B movement. Here’s what you need to know:
What is the 4B movement?
4B is a South Korean movement that gets its name from a derivative of the Korean word “bi.” The movement discourages heterosexual marriage (bihon), childbirth (bichulsan), sexual relationships with men (bisekseu) and dating men (biyeonae), according to an analysis published by South Korea’s Yonsei University in 2021.
The movement, also known as the “4 Nos,” is seen as a response to a misogynistic and patriarchal culture. It offers “young feminists the opportunity to envision the future that they had been discouraged from imagining.”
What spawned 4B?
The rise of 4B coincided with the rise of South Korea’s President Yoon Seok-yeol. The conservative leader was made the nation’s head prosecutor in 2019 and became president in 2022.
Yonsei University’s study describes 4B activism as being critical of a “pro-natalist turn in state policy,” paired with practices that advance the interest of women.
“We argue that the 4B movement and its discourses on the future and self-help could offer these women one possible way to envision a feminist future as individuals without being part of the state’s reproductive future,” researchers wrote.
Activist women hope to send a message that if they don’t have agency over their own bodies, men can’t touch them either.
How is the 4B movement growing in the U.S.?
After Trump defeated Democratic candidate Kamala Harris this week, Google searches for 4B saw a dramatic climb. More than a half-million people looked it up over a 48-hour time period.
Discussions about the topic also took hold on social media platforms like X and TikTok. One X user in Florida jokingly wished men in her state “good luck” trying to have sex on the morning after Trump won.
“Me and my girlies are participating in the 4B movement,” she said. “That’s my next plan and I’m dead f—ing serious.”
If you want to know where young American women are at, the Google search term interest for the 4b movement says it all. (It’s a South Korean term for women who swear off sex, marriage and childbirth with men) pic.twitter.com/qKZCiHIqrX
— Jessica Valenti (@JessicaValenti) November 6, 2024
Another person posted, “These Gen Z men who got radicalized aren’t going to get ANY.”
Polling showed Trump did well with young men born between 1997 and 2012. The Wall Street Journal showed a 15-point jump in right-leaning politics among that demographic from 2020 to 2024.
What have Trump and Vance done to upset some women voters?
While the nation’s two highest-ranking Republican leaders enjoy some support from female voters, they’ve alienated many others with their comments and actions.
Trump was first elected president in 2016 despite the last-minute release of an audiotape on which he boasted that, as a celebrity, he can “grab women” by their private parts and do as he pleases.
In 2023, a civil court found him liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll in a department store dressing room decades earlier.
During his first term, Trump put three right-wing justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, who worked to limit women’s reproductive choices by overturning the constitutional right to an abortion.
Vance shares Trump’s politics on reproductive rights. He also angered some women voters by a resurfaced interview in which he described female Democrats as “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”
I like the new idea from the #4BMovement about not engaging or speaking with men whenever we can. That sounds so peaceful. We can just ignore and block. Let their loneliness epidemic spread. pic.twitter.com/Zk4VE2LhHe
— 4B Childless Cat Lady (@ElegantBW) November 8, 2024
Several prominent women who don’t have kids, including celebrities like Taylor Swift and Jennifer Aniston, lashed out at Vance over that statement.
“Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,” the 55-year-old “Friends” star said on Instagram.
Will the 4B movement have any impact after Trump becomes president on Jan. 20?
We’ll see.