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By Maya Mehrara
News Reporter
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Interest in a new political movement has spiked in the U.S. following Donald Trump's reelection as president.
Thousands of people on TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, have been posting about participating in the 4B movement, a feminist protest movement that originated in South Korea in 2019.
The movement is gaining traction in reaction to the male majority that voted for Trump and could have strong sociopolitical ramifications.
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Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email outside of business hours.
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The 4B movement stipulates four "nos": no sex with men, no giving birth, no dating men and no marriage with men. The words for the terms in Korean all begin with the prefix "bi" which means "no," as reported by Bustle.
Sex strikes are a form of protest more widespread than the 4B movement, have taken place in countries around the world including Colombia, Kenya, Liberia, Italy, the Philippines, South Sudan and Togo.
They also have an ancient pedigree, Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata famously telling how Athenian women conspired to deny their men sex in order to end the Peloponnesian War.
More recently, actress Alyssa Milano called for sex strikes in 2019 in response to legislation in the U.S. state of Georgia intended to make abortions more difficult.
The 4B movement, which began on Twitter in 2017, officially took off in 2019 amid a wave of anti-feminist movements following the election of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Trump's rhetoric and his appointment of three of the Supreme Court justices, who overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 leading to abortion bans nationwide, have helped leave supporters of 4B in the U.S. feeling that gender inequality is a major problem, with women on average paid 84 percent of what a man is while working full-time, year-round, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
The president-elect also received criticism when a video resurfaced of him discussing women, saying that he could "grab 'em by the pussy," in a leaked Access Hollywood interview with Billy Bush in 2005.
Women's healthcare research is underfunded in the U.S. according to a 2021 study in the Journal of Women's Health, and abortion remains banned or severely restricted in may states, although bans in some, such as Missouri and Nevada, were lifted on November 5.
Newsweek spoke to Sarah Liu, a senior lecturer in Gender and Politics at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K. about the 4B movement.
Liu said: "It would create a further divide between women and men, leading men to be even more disgruntled, and perhaps an even more misogynist culture. As American men are grappling with the shift in gender roles, which has been one of the reasons why they've voted for conservative leaders like Trump, women's agency in partaking in the U.S.-version of the 4B movement would further confirm their beliefs that their masculinity is threatened and that they need to take back the control of women.
"It's also important to remember that while Trump's major supporters are men, many women, particularly white women, also voted for Trump. So the 4B movement might further this impression that men are the major force behind Trump's election, ignoring the role white women play."
Supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris have taken the helm in promoting the movement as her campaign was centered around women's rights, specifically in terms of reproductive rights and healthcare.
Users on TikTok, both men and women, have been posting videos outlining why they believe women should commence the 4B movement in the U.S. following Trump's reelection.
One user, Maria B, promoted the movement and shaved her head, going viral on TikTok.
Warning: This video contains profanities.
Another user, Topher_Toro, posted his support for the 4B movement, saying "we deserve it" in a post that also contains profanities.
People on X have also backed the 4B movement, including user lalisasaura, a self-described misandrist, who wrote: "Ladies, we need to start considering the 4B movement like the women in South Korea and give America a severely sharp birth rate decline:
- no marriage
- no childbirth
- no dating men
- no sex with men
We can't let these men have the last laugh... we need to bite back."
The feminist protest has not only been trending online, but has also exponentially risen as a Google search term since the election.
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However, some social media users have expressed concerns that support for the 4B movement in the U.S. could cause a rapid decline in birth rates, according to Elle magazine.
South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, which continues to fall, and many attribute this to the movement, according to MSN.com.
Some on social media have also expressed concern that the inception of the 4B movement in the U.S. could lead to rising rates of violence against women.
Violence against women remains a major issue, with more than one in three women having reported experiencing rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
The rates of femicide, in which women are killed by men, have also rapidly increased in recent years, according to the Guardian.
Sarah Liu noted that participation in the 4B movement could lead to spikes in violence against women.
"We already know that women face domestic violence at a greater rate than men do," she said. "When women try to claim their agency and refuse sex to their male partners, it is possible that such a refusal could anger men. Evidence shows that men tend to use violence against their women partners as an emotional outlet. An example would be the increase in reported assaults during major sports events.
"Therefore, it could be expected that some women who partake in the 4B movement are subject to greater risks of violence. The extent to which women are able to uphold the 4B also depends on their positionality and situation. For example, are they financially independent (e.g., do they have the means to leave an abusive relationship)? Do they have support for childcare should they leave an abusive relationship? So much of this explains who (among the participants of the 4B movement) might experience violence."
Liu told Newsweek that the extent to which individuals can participate in the 4B movement is dependent on their position in society and access to resources.
"The fact that so many American women are Googling the 4B movement and want to take up this strategy shows you the kind of hostile environment in which American women live right now," she said. "The election of Trump is a wake-up call to many women in the U.S. that patriarchy is alive and thriving in their homeland.
"Thus, adopting this creative (though sex strikes are nothing new) strategy could allow American women to be a part of a global movement where (young) women are quietly quitting sex as a part of the 'boysober' trend. While women can employ myriad methods to protest, the 4B movement seems like one of the ultimate strategies to resist the gendered expectations placed on women, particularly as it centers on the reproductive abilities of women and on the gendered expectations of heterosexual relationships. However, it is possible that the movement could lead to a backlash and more antagonism towards feminism from men."
She doubts that the movement could have much of an impact on birth rates in the U.S., as some fear, seeing other factors, including "the lack of paid family leave, the lack of universal healthcare, the lack of government subsidy on childcare" as more important.
Update 11/07/24, 13:27 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Sarah Liu and additional information.
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