4b movement

The "4B Movement" Explains Why Some Women Are Completely Swearing Off Men

It sounds like something out of a Greek drama – more specifically, out of Lysistrata by Aristophanes, when the women band together to end the Peloponnesian war by going on a sex strike. But the 4B movement is both real and happening in the 21st century. And it’s less to do with ending a war, and more to do with ending misogyny.

Purportedly starting in South Korea  in 2019, the movement is called 4B because it refers to four types of “bi” or “no”: bihon means no heterosexual marriage; bichulsan, no childbirth; biyeonae, no dating; and bisekseu, no hetrosexual sexual relationship. Five years on, the premise has garnered viral attention on social media, with countless TIK TOK videos  on the subject attracting millions of views.

It might sound extreme, but in light of the fact that the country’s incidence of intimate-partner violence was found to be 41.5 per cent in a 2016 Survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, compared to a global average of 30 per cent, it perhaps feels more of a proportionate response than at first glance. Added to that is South Korea's gender pay gap, the largest in the developed world – women earn 31 per cent less than men, almost triple the average of 11.6 per cent across other “rich” countries.

Despite the above, current president Yoon Suk Yeol claimed during his election campaign that structural sexim no longer exist in South Korea , and pledged to abolish the ministry for gender equality (something he hasn’t managed to achieve after being blocked by the Democratic Party, which holds a parliamentary majority). This is the same man who blamed feminism for the country’s low birth rate; it currently sits at 0.72 per woman, the lowest in the world , after falling a further 8 per cent in 2023. If the trend continues, Korea’s population is estimated to havle by the year 2100.