Many people posting about 4B on social media appear to be young women. Protest abstinence could be another complication in Gen Z’s already complex relationship with sex, especially casual sex. Gen Z, those born between about 1997 and 2012, are considered the least sexed generation in decades.
And whether 4B will be more than a passing social media moment born out of Trump-fuelled anger, or take hold in New Zealand is anyone’s guess.
Jada Mevs, a 25-year-old Washington DC resident, told the New York Times she is encouraging other women to get self-defence lessons, stock up on birth control pills, delete dating apps and get a vibrator.
“If we can’t control what they do in terms of legislation and abortion rights, we have to do something for ourselves. Starting with cutting out the male influence in our life, and making sure we’re taking the safety precautions as well, visiting OB-GYNs and making sure we are best prepared for when January comes and the years after that.”
What is the 4B movement?
The 4B movement takes its name from the four Korean words bihon, bichulsan, biyeonae and bisekseu, according to CNN. These words translate to no marriage, no childbirth, no dating and no heterosexual sex.
Assistant professor Ju Hui Judy Han, who studies gender at the University of California, Los Angeles, called 4B a branch of the #metoo movement.
The 4B movement and conversations about gender disparities in South Korea gained further momentum following the 2016 murder of a woman in Seoul. The perpetrator said he brutally killed the woman because he felt women ignored him.
This was followed by a series of other events including a spate of high-profile revenge porn incidents and women being filmed by hidden cameras, further fuelling the new radical feminist movement in South Korea.
Shruti Sivakumar, an American university student researching 4B, told NPR the movement wasn’t so much about punishing men as it is about protecting women.
“It’s not meant to be a movement or a form of activism that you’re able to just pick up for one month and just drop as soon as you find someone that you really like and want to talk to. It’s supposed to be sort of a form of sacrifice, that for the rest of your life you’re going to be independent from men.”
Actress Alyssa Milano called for a “sex strike” in 2019 to protest against a restrictive new abortion law in the US state of Georgia. At the time, research psychologist Peggy Drexler criticised the idea of punishing males by withholding sex because “it serves to reinforce the idea that women have sex in order to please men, or for babies only,” according to the BBC.
What does Trump have to do with this?
Following Trump’s election in 2016, the Women’s March movement was born. It started with thousands of women converging on Washington in January 2017 when Trump was inaugurated.
That movement continued to protest against Trump’s policies that impacted women, including Trump installing thousands of conservative judges that paved the way for overturning Roe vs Wade, a 1973 landmark ruling that protected abortion nationally.
It is unclear if women will show up in person like they did for Trump’s first election to the presidency. News reports indicate some organisers are stung by hopelessness and exhaustion.
It is yet to be seen if the concepts of the 4B movement will be widely adopted by women who didn’t support Trump.
And many women voted for Trump. He gained more support from women in the 2024 election with 46% of the female vote, according to the Associated Press. In the 2020 election against President Joe Biden, Trump won 43% of the female vote.
Could 4B take off in New Zealand?
Who knows, but probably no. None of the New Zealand-based academics or sex therapists RNZ contacted knew much about the 4B movement or its spread in the US and across borderless social media platforms.
Abortion rights in New Zealand are not under threat. Despite Prime Minister Christopher Luxon being personally opposed to abortion, he promised to resign if abortion access was reduced under his leadership.
Intentional celibacy, especially among young women, has been a trend on TikTok for months, RNZ reported earlier. Some New Zealand women said they were drawn to the idea of weeks, months or years without sex because of “disillusionment with hookup culture and increased sexual autonomy”.
