As 4B takes the world by storm, South Korea is grappling with a backlash against feminism
As 4B takes the world by storm, South Korea is grappling with a backlash against feminism
The 4B movement that sparked global interest in the wake of the US election has grown out of an intensely unequal society
Summary
South Korea’s 4B movement—rejecting marriage, childbirth, dating, and sex—has gained global attention as a feminist response to gender inequality, amplified by Donald Trump’s election.
Rooted in a society with the OECD’s widest gender pay gap, it reflects women’s frustration with patriarchal norms.
While viral online, 4B faces intense backlash domestically, with feminism often stigmatized as radical or “man-hating.”
President Yoon Suk Yeol’s anti-feminist rhetoric and rising misogyny have worsened divisions. Many women now practice “quiet feminism,” avoiding public activism amid hostility. Experts caution against oversimplified links between 4B and South Korea’s record-low birthrate.
Women deciding to avoid men and men are calling it “man-hating”.
I’m so surprised.
My roommate is chronically online and headlines like this lead him to believe that it's next to impossible to meet women that aren't actively participating on the 4B movement. I'm not trying to say anything negative about it, but is there really anything going on there past headlines? I know I live in my own bubble within the whole wide world, but I haven't heard anything about 4B outside of lemmy personally. Most articles I've reas about it say that the number of people looking it up on search engines is increasing, but that's it
4B is highly transphobic tho
I mean I don’t doubt some of the people pushing it are (TERFs gonna TERF) but the movement itself seems… pretty straight forward? No dating/marrying/sex/having children with men.
Or is there more to it? Or again just TERFs, being TERFs inside the movement.
How so? I haven't really kept up with 4B, so this is a genuine question.
Experts caution against oversimplified links between 4B and South Korea’s record-low birthrate.
Experts of what? Burying their heads in the sand?
Birthrates are low in many countries and it's unknown how much of South Korea's low birthrate is related to 4B.
The workaholic culture is probably more to blame than 4b