What is the 4B movement?

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“I think there’s something about trying not to appeal to men that’s quite freeing,” she says.

Lily is also pansexual, meaning she is romantically and sexually attracted to people of all gender identities, something she says makes her “lucky” since her dating options remain more open compared with her heterosexual counterparts in the movement.

So what is the 4B movement exactly? And how did an underground movement from South Korea make it to the US, and beyond?

What is 4B?

4B stands for four Korean words that all start with bi, meaning “no”: bihon (no heterosexual marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyonea (no dating) and bisekseu (no heterosexual relationships).

Dr Ming Gao, a researcher at the Gender and Women’s History Research Centre at Australian Catholic University, says the rapid economic transformation of South Korea in the 2000s widened the socioeconomic gap, which for young women was exacerbated by systemic gender inequality.

Although South Korean women are among the most highly educated in the world, the country consistently ranks among the worst countries in the OECD for gender wage gaps. It also has some of the highest rates of gender-based violence in the world – a 2021 report from the South Korean government, for example, found one in three women had experienced domestic violence.

In light of this, Gao says the traditional path of marriage and motherhood has become less appealing for young women, and living a life free from men is a way for young feminists to challenge these patriarchal structures.

High-profile cases of gender-based violence, including the 2016 random murder of a woman in a railway station toilet and the discovery of spy cams in hotel rooms, propelled the rise of “digital militant feminism”, Gao says. Indeed, while the movement is growing, it remains relatively underground, with the internet a key conduit for radical feminist activity.

For Korean women, 4B is both a way of life and a political stance against a patriarchal society where the gender divide remains stark. Its most extreme adherents choose to eliminate interactions with men entirely.

Dr Hyein Ellen Cho, a lecturer in Korean studies and researcher at Monash University’s Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre, says while many people in Korea might see 4B as radical, for her it’s primarily a “safety movement”.

“Women just don’t feel safe to have children or to date.”

“Feminism in the 1960s and ’70s looked really radical, but it’s not any more. We’ve made lots of progress and this is part of the progression.”

What does 4B look like in the West?

What’s interesting about this evolution of 4B, says Cho, is that feminism in the East is often examined through the lens of Western feminism. The popularity of 4B in countries such as the United States is a reversal of this, with Western feminists being influenced by a movement overseas.

But the withholding of sex as a means of protest in the West is not a new idea. Australian National University Professor of History Angela Woollacott points to the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata, which tells the tale of a woman who convinces all the women of two warring cities to deny men sex until they negotiate peace. More recently, in the 1970s, separatist factions of the feminist movement formed women-only communities, one of which still exists in northern NSW today.

Woollacott says that while the US election may have triggered 4B’s explosive popularity, the conditions for its rise have been brewing for some time.

“We have seen a very clear rise on social media of overt misogyny and masculinity and the urging of men to take more assertive and violent masculinist positions,” she says, citing as examples the Tate brothers and the “Your Body, My Choice” refrain that’s ricocheted across online spaces since the election.

In Australia, specifically, she says this has been evident through “the overt actions of the far right, including the Nazi party in Melbourne and how they are being overtly misogynist and masculinist in their articulations”, as well as increasing reports of school-aged students displaying sexist attitudes towards female teachers and rising rates of femicide.

‘We have seen a very clear rise on social media of overt misogyny and masculinity and the urging of men to take more assertive and violent masculinist positions.’

Professor Angela Woollacott, ANU

Lily says her stance on relationships with men is as much a political choice as a lifestyle one. She points to the reignition of debates over late-term abortions in Australia, as in the lead-up to the recent state election in Queensland, where she lives.

“If we don’t have abortion rights … then I don’t even want to risk having a pregnancy,” she says. “People forget abortion is life-saving healthcare.”

She also doesn’t think the government has done enough to break the cycle of violence against women and says there needs to be greater support for mothers, such as free childcare.

“I know a lot of women who would love to have children but cannot practically or financially have them.”

Michelle Arrow, the professor of history at Macquarie University, says while abortion is not as politically charged an issue in Australia as it is in the US, there has been a mirroring of the global divide between men and women.

“When you look at the 2022 [Australian federal] election, there was a pretty significant gender gap between men and women in terms of who voted Labor and who voted Liberal,” Arrow says.

“So that, I think, is a real concern because it suggests that young men are not on board with gender equality. And what does that then mean for young women who are trying to form relationships with these young men?”

Lifestyle or political movement?

While Gao has been interested in the uptake of 4B in the West, he is hesitant about its potential long-term effect, given the specific social and political context in which it emerged.

“In Korea, 4B emerged as a response to deeply entrenched patriarchy and pronatalist policies, making it highly contextual,” he says.

In a country like South Korea that’s extremely racially and ethnically homogenous, gender is a key point of division. And so, in countries such as the US and Australia, where racial inequality complicates and compounds gender inequality, it’s not a simple matter of importing overseas feminism.

The recent report on murdered and missing Indigenous women and children, for example, revealed what First Nations women have been saying for decades – that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and children are disproportionately affected by domestic violence. In the US, meanwhile, abortion bans disproportionately affect black women.

“4B risks being seen as a one-size-fits-all movement … this unique context highlights the importance of understanding the origins of feminist movements before adapting them to new environments,” Gao says.

Ming says another potential risk is that it excludes trans and gender-diverse individuals since it tends to rely on a definition of biological womanhood by prioritising heterosexual and cis women.

Still, many of its adherents – both in Korea and Western nations – stress the movement is about inclusivity and primarily focused on distancing itself from cis, heterosexual men.

So, what potential does 4B have as a political movement? Gao thinks it’s more about women finding ways to live within the patriarchy rather than overturning it.

“4B is perhaps best understood not as a movement but as a lifestyle choice or a process of value formation. It’s less about mass mobilisation and more about individual expressions of resistance.”

Still, Arrow thinks the movement could be a means for women to imagine a different, better way of being, even if it might not effect immediate change.

“I think 4B is probably something trying to test the possibilities by pushing at the limits of conventional social structures.”

Decentring men

While headlines in the media may make it appear as though the US election alone is responsible for women going on a “sex strike”, the phenomenon is not new. Contemporary movements such as “boy sober” have seen women swearing off sex with men or de-prioritising romantic relationships for a myriad of reasons, including frustration with the poor quality of matches on dating apps, greater recognition of the value of friendships, and an increase in “toxic behaviour” such as infidelity and gaslighting.

Camilla is 46 years old and would not necessarily identify as 4B but has stopped actively seeking romantic relationships with men.

The Sydneysider, who is choosing to keep her real name private, says she has been single since early 2022 – the longest period she has been out of a relationship since she was 19.

“It’s not like I didn’t try [to find a partner], but I’m kind of accepting that this is never going to happen,” she says.

“And reflecting back on the relationships I have had, I’ve thought, ‘What the hell did I get out of them?’ They all caused me misery in some way.”

‘Women just seem to be waking up everywhere, to “what is in this for me?” ’

Camilla*, a 46-year-old who has stopped seeking relationships with men

She blames a string of bad experiences with dating apps – most recently, being swindled out of her life savings in a crypto romance scam – and a lack of suitable matches for her decision.

While some have dubbed 4B a movement about “hating men”, Camilla is clear that this is not the case for her.

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“It’s just like I’m done. I don’t hate men. I have friendships with them, I work with them … but just the whole romantic relationship thing, I barely know anyone who is even happy they are in relationships or are married.”

Growing up in a traditional Italian household with three brothers and a stay-at-home mum has also informed her worldview. From the age of 12, she knew she didn’t want to get married or have kids.

She says she’s been heartened to see more women decentre men from their lives, and she has found a great sense of community and friendship among others like her.