The radical feminist 4B movement took root in a culture where women face domestic violence and insidious spy-cam sexploitation, as well as the 'double burden' of work and family.
Some women in South Korea are rejecting relationships with men — a movement that is gaining interest in the United States.American women are pledging sex strikes and rejecting relationships with men — as well as motherhood and marriage — in what's known as the 4B movement.The four Bs stand for the Korean word "bi", which means "no".Lee Min-gyeong, feminist author of Reclaim the Language, said women in Korea were traditionally expected to orient their lives around men.
Lee and others trace one of 4B's galvanising moments to the shocking murder of a women in a train station bathroom in 2016."Now Trump is elected again … it is a similar emergency for women. So it is very natural, and I'm not surprised at all.Lee said there were two main factors pushing women to refuse the demands of the "heterosexual narrative".
The employment landscape is also difficult for working mothers in South Korea, which has recorded the worst gender pay gap 27 years in a row out of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries. Korea also has the lowest birth rate in the world at 0.92, meaning that women are having less than one child on average.
"Openly identifying as a feminist in Korea can unfortunately expose individuals to serious cyberbullying, stalking, and harassment, with some activists even facing physical threats," she said.Since 4B is seen as a radical form of feminism, "the backlash has been particularly intense", he said. "It's been around for some years, but I wouldn't say it has ever been mainstream or widely recognised in South Korea," Dr Gao said.
"So far, we lack empirical data on how these choices evolve in later life stages, as the 4B is still relatively new," he said.
Korea Women Patriarchy Birth Rate Gender Inequality Discrimination 4B Trump US Election
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