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What is 4B? South Korean protest movement hits US after Donald Trump’s victory
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What is 4B? South Korean protest movement hits US after Donald Trump’s victory

Interest in a new political movement has increased in the US following the re-election of Donald Trump as president, according to the British newspaper The Independent.

Thousands of people on TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, have posted about participating in the 4B movement, a feminist protest movement that emerged in South Korea in 2019.

The movement is gaining momentum in response to the male majority who voted for Trump and could have strong sociopolitical consequences.

Newsweek contacted the Trump campaign for comment via email after business hours.

Women's march prior to the presidential elections
Women march to the White House during the Women’s March rally on November 2, 2024. Women in America express their support for the 4B movement on social media.

Jose Luis Magana/Associated Press

The 4B movement states four ‘no’s’: no ​​sex with men, no childbirth, no dating with men and no marriage with men. The words for the terms in Korean all start with the prefix “bi,” which means “no,” as reported by Bustle.

Sex strikes, a form of protest that is more widespread and older than the 4B movement, have occurred in countries around the world, including Colombia, Kenya, Liberia, Italy, the Philippines, South Sudan and Togo.

Actress Alyssa Milano called for sex strikes in 2019 in response to legislation in the US state of Georgia aimed at making abortions more difficult.

The 4B movement, which started on Twitter in 2017, officially took off in 2019 amid a wave of anti-feminist movements following the election of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.

Trump’s rhetoric and his appointment of three Supreme Court justices, who overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, leading to nationwide abortion bans, have made 4B supporters feel that gender inequality is a major problem.

The president-elect also faced criticism after a video surfaced of him discussing women, saying he could “grab them by the pussy” in a leaked video. Access to Hollywood interview with Billy Bush in 2005.

Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris have taken the helm in promoting the 4B movement as her campaign focused on women’s rights, particularly reproductive rights and health care.

However, some social media users have expressed concern that support for the movement in the US could cause a rapid decline in birth rates, according to Elle magazine.

South Korea has the lowest birth rate in the world, which continues to decline, and many attribute this to the 4B movement, according to MSN.com.

Some on social media have also expressed concern that the rise of the 4B movement in the US could lead to a rise in violence against women.

Gender inequality remains a prominent issue, with women paid an average of 84 percent of what a man earns while working full-time, year-round, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Violence against women also remains a major problem: According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, more than one in three women have reported experiencing rape, physical violence or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

The number of femicides, where women are killed by men, has also increased rapidly in recent years, according to the American newspaper The Guardian Guardian.

Women’s health care research is underfunded in the US, according to a 2021 study Journal of Women’s Healthand abortion remains banned or severely restricted in most states, although bans were lifted in some states, such as Missouri and Nevada, on November 5.