The 4B movement originated in South Korea and encourages women to choose not to marry (bihon), childbirth (bichulsan), romance (biyeonae), and sexual relations (bisekseu). Born out of protests against South Korean culture: cases of dating violence, revenge porn and gender pay gaps They are widespread: the movement has grown in recent years. South Korea has the lowest birth rate of any countryAnd despite government incentives, many women still feel that the country’s patriarchal structure makes the cost of motherhood too high and refuse to be “baby-making machines,” according to New York Times report.
Although it began in the late 2010s, the movement didn’t really gain attention in the United States until earlier this year. New York magazine published a long article in March in which writer Anna Louie Sussman exposed the ways in which 4B followers, as Barbieri demonstrated on TikTok, cut their hair and avoided beauty products. “The reaction and fear experienced by 4B practitioners underscores their conviction that Korea remains a terrifying place for women,” Sussman wrote, noting the threats and attacks that women, and specifically 4B protesters, receive.
Some creators who spoke to WIRED were already participating in the movement before the election. Dalina, who uses they/them pronouns and asked not to reveal her last name for privacy reasons, was casually dating a man when, they say, “he made a joke like, ‘I considered going inside you.'” Dalina says that at that moment their blood ran cold. “I thought, ‘Why does that sound like a threat?’ It’s like, because he’s a threat… He knew he was a threat too.”
Since then, Dalina, who goes by @senoracabrona on TikTok, says they have given up on romantic and sexual entanglements with men. His videowhich includes text asking women to seek out the 4B movement, has garnered more than 130,000 views on TikTok.
With Trump’s election, and all the threats to reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights and the misogyny that comes with it, women online seemed to be channeling the fear they felt into action in similar ways.
Barbieri says that when she posted her original 4B video it was a result of something she had been researching for several months through her participation in feminist spaces on Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram. After her post appeared, she received several negative comments from men, but was surprised to find a lot of support, particularly from women interested in the movement.
