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The South Korean 4B movement has seen a surge in interest amid the results of the 2024 US presidential election.

On Wednesday morning (November 6), Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. During his 2024 re-election campaign, the former president celebrated the Supreme Court's overturn decision in 2022 Roe v. Wadea ruling that ended a nationwide right to abortion. It was also reproductive rights that drove many women to the polls on Election Day, as Missouri became the first state to repeal a restrictive abortion ban.

However, after Trump declared victory over Democratic nominee Harris, some Americans couldn't help but say they felt strengthened in their belief that most of the United States would rather have someone other than a woman as president. Perhaps that's why interest in South Korea's 4B movement – a movement against patriarchy – surged in the US just hours after Trump's election victory.

“It seems like it's time for American women to be influenced by Korea's 4B movement,” one woman wrote on X/Twitter.

“American women, it's time to learn from the Koreans and adopt the 4B movement,” another user echoed, while a third person said, “The women in South Korea are doing it.” It's time we join them. Men are NOT rewarded and do not have access to our bodies.”

The 4B movement, which reportedly emerged in 2019, represents four Korean words that begin with “bi” or “no” in English: bihon, meaning no heterosexual marriage; Bichulsan, no birth; biyeonae, no dating; and bisekseu, no heterosexual sexual relationships. Supporters of the women-led movement refuse to date, marry, have sex or have children with men – effectively boycotting a system that they say perpetuates gender inequality.

Members of the 4B movement view marriage as an existential threat to women, and their concerns are well-founded. Similar to the United States, South Korean women also face a gender pay gap. While American women typically earn 82 cents for every dollar earned by men, South Korean women earn 31 percent less than men – the highest gender pay gap in democratic countries. A 2018 report found that over the past nine years, at least 824 women were killed due to intimate partner violence (IPV) and 602 others were at risk of death. A 2021 study also found that one in three Korean women have experienced domestic violence, with intimate partners accounting for 46 percent of these cases.

In response, women within the 4B movement have chosen to break away from traditional relationships entirely, claiming that practicing “bihon” is the only path to autonomy. “When you practice Bihon, you eliminate the risks that come with heterosexual marriage or dating,” explained Yeowon, a native of Busan The cut.

It is unclear how widespread the 4B movement is due to its largely anonymous and offline nature, and its origins are equally unclear. However, scholars attribute its rise to the growing educational gap between men and women in South Korea. Similar to the gender education gap in the United States, where women make up 59.5 percent of all college students, Korean women have outperformed men in enrollment rates since 2013. Today, nearly three-quarters of Korean women pursue higher education, compared to less than two-thirds of men.

This shift led to growing tensions between men and women, with disgruntled groups of men coining the term “Kimchinyeo” or “Kimchee women” to stereotype college-educated women as “selfish, vain and exploitative of their partners,” according to feminists Scientist Euisol Jeong explained in her research on “troll feminism.”

These cultural attitudes reflect trends in the United States, where men are struggling with changing gender roles. Faced with pressures from fewer blue-collar jobs and shrinking educational advantages, many men are drawn to voting for conservative candidates like Trump, who promises a return to traditional values ​​that, for some, promote men's interests at the expense of women's autonomy put in the foreground.

“Masculinity is changing,” anthropologist Treena Orchard recently said The Independent in an interview about the political gender divide. “Men feel restricted and may feel like they have fewer options for how to shape masculinity and think about their place in the world, and they feel devalued.”

For many women in South Korea, the 4B movement is not just symbolic – it is a social stance aimed at taking back control of their lives, their bodies and their futures in response to a system that they say is becoming increasingly hostile.

In the wake of the election, where women's rights such as reproductive autonomy were threatened, bringing the 4B movement to the US could be a radical response. But growing American interest in the 4B movement underscores shared frustration with what many see as a decline in women's rights and freedoms, particularly as conservative values ​​gain traction among male voters.

As the movement gains momentum online, one question arises: Will American women join it, or perhaps create their own version, to protest Trump's second term as president in the White House?