The sudden rise (and global ripple) of the 4B movement in South Korea has sparked debates across feminist and cultural communities worldwide — and with good reason. A deliberate stance built upon four resounding “nos” — no dating, no sex, no marriage, no children — 4B is more than a buzz-term: for its adherents, it is a radical form of resistance against deeply entrenched patriarchal norms.
Born in the late 2010s within South Korea’s digital feminist circles, 4B — whose core tenets are summed up in Korean as “biyeonae” (비연애, no dating), “bisekseu” (비섹스, no sex), “bihon” (비혼, no marriage), and “bichulsan” (비출산, no childbirth) — emerged as a response to persistent gender inequality, domestic violence, systemic misogyny and the burdens of traditional gender roles. What distinguished 4B from prior feminist initiatives such as the Escape the Corset movement was its scope: rather than simply rejecting beauty standards or cosmetic oppression, 4B women refuse to engage with the heteronormative life script altogether.
Many who gravitated toward 4B said they felt suffocated by societal expectations: financial instability, alarming gender-pay gaps, the relentless burden of unpaid domestic labour disproportionately placed on women, and the fear of intimate partner violence or digital sex crimes (molka) created an environment where opting out felt safer than fighting a fight that seemed endless. For some, 4B was less about ideology and more about survival — reclaiming autonomy over body, time and life course.
In its early years, 4B gained traction through social media and online forums, especially among younger digital feminists in their 20s and 30s. But as of the mid-2020s, in South Korea at least, the movement is broadly considered fringe. Most mainstream feminists distance themselves from it, criticizing its narrow focus and arguing it fails to represent the full spectrum of women’s experiences and feminist aims.
Still, 2024 and 2025 have seen 4B reach far beyond Korea. Following the U.S. election and heightened anxiety around reproductive rights, a wave of Western women — particularly in the U.S. — began invoking 4B as a symbolic protest against what they perceived as resurgent misogyny. For these women, 4B offered clarity: a concrete, uncompromising rejection of traditional expectations. Interviews and media pieces show declaring 4B — sometimes with symbolic gestures such as deleting dating apps or shaving one’s head — as a badge of newly embraced autonomy.
Yet this global spread also reignited criticisms rooted in 4B’s inherent limitations. Observers highlight that by centering only cis-heterosexual women, and by framing gender strictly in biological terms, the movement can foster exclusionary, even transphobic and homophobic attitudes. Many queer and trans activists argue that 4B reduces gender politics to a binary framework and neglects the lived realities of marginalized gender identities.
Moreover, critics warn that 4B’s self-imposed withdrawal into celibacy, childlessness, and isolation may abet another form of invisibility. By asking women simply to “opt out,” 4B risks absolving societal structures — patriarchal institutions, workplace discrimination, inadequate social safety nets — from the responsibility to change.
Still, for some women in South Korea, 4B remains a form of protest grounded in lived despair and disappointment — an existential refusal of a social contract that demands marriage, birth and endless care work, often without support or justice. As South Korea continues wresting with low birth rates, widening inequality, and generational disillusionment, 4B — whether as fringe or emblem — speaks to a deeper cultural crisis: one where the traditional path of romance, marriage and parenthood feels less like a promise of happiness than a trap.
In its defiant simplicity — four Korean “bi’s” — 4B compresses years of frustration, anger and yearning for autonomy into a clean, digital-age vow. Whether it becomes a lasting movement or simply a historical footnote remains uncertain. But as 4B’s reach crosses borders, languages and cultures, it demands attention — as a symptom of patriarchal breakdown, and as a radical, personal kind of protest in a world where many women no longer believe that love, sex or children need to follow the old script.
Ah, my dears, the 4B movement — four little-big “NOs” packed like chili seeds, burning their way across South Korea and now sprinkling spice into feminist debates around the world. Some people are shocked, clutching their pearls as if these young Korean women had announced the end of civilization. Others applaud. As for me? I send them a quiet, respectful bow and a loud, delighted “Yessss, girls!” But let’s be honest. I don’t think 4B is the solution. It’s a solution — a flare fired into the night sky by women who have clearly, deeply, absolutely had enough. And when women are fed up, history tends to move. Sometimes slowly, sometimes like a startled dragon.
What I admire in these 4B sisters is not the literal vow of no dating, no sex, no marriage, no children. It’s the refusal. The refusal to be drafted into a life script written by men, for men, enforced by mothers-in-law and employers and politicians who still treat care work as female destiny. These Korean girls have stood up and said: “If you won’t change the rules, we won’t play.” That’s courage, born from exhaustion.
But here is where my old-school auntie energy kicks in. Revolt is essential — necessary, delicious, often long overdue — but let’s not divide ourselves into camps of “good feminists,” “radical feminists,” “4B feminists,” “liberal feminists,” “queer feminists,” “post-this,” “anti-that.” Patriarchy would love nothing more than to watch us quarrel like roosters in a courtyard. Sisterhood cannot be a series of purity tests. A movement is not a monastery.
Our struggle, my loves, is a marathon — a fast marathon, yes, the sweaty kind with hills and stray dogs and unexpected potholes — but not a 100-meter sprint. We need the sprinters who shout, who shock, who throw a hammer at the old social order. And we need the slow burners, the negotiators, the bridge-builders, the ones who raise boys differently, who push for laws and budgets, who talk and teach and plant seeds. A revolution has many tempos.
So to the 4B women: I see your frustration, I respect your fire, and I honor your bold “no.” To everyone else: don’t fear them, don’t scold them, don’t mock them. Listen to them. Their protest is a symptom of a society that has failed women again and again.
We may not all choose the same path, but we’re all walking in the same direction. Forward, together. Always.