4B Movement / 6B4T

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The 4B Movement is a fringe radical feminist movement that originated in South Korea in the late 2010s. Proponents of the movement refuse to date men and have sex with them, get married and have children. The movement, which in Korea was estimated to have about 4,000 members in 2019, is a protest against South Korean patriarchic society, with its members regarding South Korean men as "irredeemable" and striving to change the society and the position of women in it rather than changing men. In 2024, following the Republican candidate Donald Trump winning the 2024 United States Presidential Election, the movement experienced a spike in interest in the country, with some women sounding calls to popularize the movement in the U.S. A later version of the movement, referred to as 6B4T, also includes abstaining from the consumption of what's perceived as sexist products and supporting fellow women who practice the movement, with 4T referring to rejecting beauty standards, religion, idol culture, and otaku culture.

History

The 4B ("Four Nos") movement formed among radical South Korean feminists in 2019, emerging in Korean feminist circles on X / Twitter between 2017 and 2018.^[1]^[2]^[3] The movement is inspired by earlier feminist movements in South Korea, most notably the South Korean "Escape the Corset" movement which urges women to liberate themselves from sexual, bodily, social and psychological oppression. The 2016 feminist novel Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo has also been cited as the source of inspiration for the movement.

The name of the 4B movement stands for "four nos": bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae, bisekseu ("not married," "no childbirth," "no romance," "no sex"). The members of the movement seek to express their protest against South Korea's society, which they view as patriarchal, by choosing to refuse traditional gender roles and limiting their engagement with men and, including abstaining from having romantic or sexual relationships with men. Instead of changing men, which members of the 4B movement view as "irredeemable," the movement aims to change society and the power women hold in it.^[4]

On June 2nd, 2020, South Korean researchers Jieun Lee and Euisol Jeong published^[1] "The 4B movement: envisioning a feminist future with/in a non-reproductive future in Korea," the earliest found scientific study of the movement.

In the 2020s, the ideology of the movement saw further development as 6B and later 6B4T movements, with the latter also spreading to China. The "6B" included rejecting sexist products and supporting fellow women who practice the movement on top of the previous principles, and 4T refers to rejecting beauty standards and hypersexualization of women in otaku culture, religion and idol culture.^[5]^[6]

In 2019, the 4B movement claimed to have 4,000 members.^[7]

Spread in the West

Before the 2024 United States Presidential Election

On March 8th, 2023, the New York-based online magazine The Cut^[8] published an article about the 4B movement, with the reporter interviewing several South Korean women who identify as its members. On that day, the official X^[9] / Twitter account for The Cut made a thread about the movement, with the opening post (shown below) garnering over 8.3 million views, 9.800 reposts and 19,000 likes in two years.

In February 2024, the movement became the subject of several viral TikToks in which users reviewed it, with some advocating for it and others incorrectly attributing South Korea's declining birth rate to it. On February 1st, 2024, TikTok^[10] user @jinwoopark0721 posted one of the earliest videos on the topic to go viral, with the upload (shown below) garnering over 2.6 million views and 450,000 likes in nine months.

On February 17th, 2024, TikTok^[11] user @k1baji posted a video about the movement that garnered over 5.9 million views and 1 million views in nine months (shown below).

Between February and April 2024, the 4B movement remained a viral subject of videos on TikTok made by users worldwide. For example, on February 29th, Indonesian TikTok^[12] user @chersannn made a video that garnered over 1.6 million views and 172,000 likes in eight months.

On March 19th, 2024, TikTok^[13] user @angelamaaar posted a video in Spanish that received over 2.7 million views and 506,000 likes in the same period. On March 31st, South Korean TikToker^[14] anna.lee.jy posted a video about the movement, commenting that the size of the movement was overestimated by TikTok users in the West. The video (shown below) garnered over 1.7 million views and 98,200 likes in eight months.

After the 2024 United States Presidential Election

Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 United States Presidential Election, the 4B movement saw a spike in interest among women in the U.S., with multiple posts calling for popularizing it in the country going viral on X and TikTok.

On November 6th, 2024, X^[15] / Twitter user @lalisasaura 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." The post (shown below) garnered over 73,000 reposts and 458,000 likes in one day.

Later on November 6th, X^[16] user @rusticfem made a post about the movement that garnered over 15,000 reposts and 69,000 likes in one day (shown below).

On TikTok, multiple videos in which women stated that they are joining the movement, with some shaving their heads and urging other women to join them. For example, on November 7th, 2024, TikTok^[17] user @girl_dumphim posted a video of shaving her head that garnered over 3.2 million views and 328,000 likes in one day.

Following the viral discussions on social media, the 4B movement became a popular subject of articles in traditional media in early November 2024.

PPKKa 뻑가

PPKKa 뻑가 is an anonymous South Korean YouTuber known for making videos that attempt to expose what he perceives as "radical feminists" in South Korea. The YouTuber is an outspoken critic of South Korea's 4B movement in which women attempt to distance themselves from men, citing Korea's supposedly systemic misogyny issues.