(Bloomberg) -- When exit polls began pointing to a clear victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election Nov. 5, Google registered a surge in search interest for the term “4B movement.” The phrase refers to an unstructured and leaderless feminist campaign that began in South Korea five years ago as a protest against the perceived oppression of women by men. Trump’s triumph ignited a vigorous discussion on social media of 4B and whether American women should embrace its radical ideas to uphold their rights during his second term in office.
What is 4B?
4B is an online campaign that appears to have grown out of the #MeToo movement as a way to push back against the social barriers faced by women in South Korea.
The “B” represents the Korean word bi, meaning “no” in English. The number four refers to its four precepts: bihon for no marriage to men, bichulsan, no childbirth, biyeonae, no dating of men and bisekseu, no sex with men.
The campaign calls on women to fight against sexism by steering clear of patriarchy to claim control of their lives, bodies and finances. Some in the movement call for a total “boycott” of men.
It’s not clear how large the movement is in South Korea, or globally.
Why is there concern about women’s rights during a second Trump term?
Trump is anathema to many women’s advocacy groups, who blame him for the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling taking away the constitutional right to abortion that had been in place since 1973. In his first presidency from 2017 to 2021, Trump appointed the three conservative justices to the court that created the majority for the 2022 decision, which paved the way for near-total bans on abortion in some US states.
He’s been found liable in court for sexual abuse, and dozens of women have accused him of sexual misconduct dating back decades. Trump was forced to apologize in 2016 when a video emerged in which he told a TV host that he used his fame to molest women. “Grab them by the p——y. You can do anything,” he said.
During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Trump made a number of sexist attacks on his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. She assailed his stance on abortion rights and other freedoms after he promised to protect women, whether they “like it or not.”
The Trump campaign made an effort to appeal to men, especially young male voters — a strategy that paid off. A Fox News Voter Analysis, conducted between Oct. 28 and when polls closed on Nov. 5, suggested that 52% of men aged 18-44 voted for Trump, while 46% voted for Harris. That essentially reversed the split in the last election, when 51% of that group voted for Joe Biden and 45% voted for Trump.
Who is showing an interest in 4B?
Online searches for “4B movement” started spiking as the election results began rolling in. It quickly became a breakout query on Google, meaning a surge of more than 5,000% in searches for the topic. On Nov. 6, a day after the election, it was the seventh-most searched term on Google in the US.
Some of the places registering the highest search interest were the District of Columbia, Vermont, Minnesota and Maine — places where a majority of voters cast ballots for Harris. But interest was also high in states where the majority went for Trump, such as West Virginia, Kansas and Utah. The TikTok tag #4bmovement racked up thousands of posts after the election, garnering millions of likes.
Saying it’s time to consider the 4B movement, a user with the handle @lalisasaura wrote on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, “We can’t let these men have the last laugh… We need to bite back.” The post received 20 million views.
“The more I hear about it, the more lit it actually kind of sounds,” a woman who uses the handle bodacious_bobo posted on TikTok. Her video received about 85,000 likes as of two days after the election.
How did the 4B movement emerge in South Korea?
Its exact origins are unclear, but it seems to have emerged out of the #MeToo movement. The 4B idea developed out of discussions among feminist Twitter users in South Korea in 2017 and 2018, Vox media reported. A 2016 novel called Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, served as a touchstone. The book, which became a bestseller, recounts the everyday sexism suffered by the main character, who is portrayed as a typical woman, as she grows up and later becomes a mother. The book came out around the time a man fatally stabbed a woman in an upmarket district of Seoul, saying it was because he felt ignored by women. One of South Korea’s biggest newspapers, the JoongAng Daily, said the murder epitomized Korean misogyny. The crime prompted rallies calling for improved safety for women.
The book also sparked an anti-feminist backlash that was a feature of South Korea’s 2022 presidential election. Conservative candidate Yoon Suk Yeol courted young male voters opposed to gender equality and called for the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to be eliminated.
Yoon won the presidency and has called for the establishment of a new ministry to tackle a national birthrate that ranks as the lowest in the world. Activists said factors behind South Korea’s baby bust include high living costs, a lack of affordable housing, expensive childcare and new mothers being denied chances for career advancement. Women have struggled for years to gain a measure of equality in the workplace in South Korea, which has the highest gender wage gap among developed countries, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The gender wage gap is the difference between median earnings of men and women relative to median earnings of men.
--With assistance from Denny Thomas.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
