Following the results of Tuesday’s election, Jada Mevs, a 25-year-old living in Washington, D.C., is encouraging women to take action by signing up for a self-defense class, deleting dating apps, getting on birth control and investing in a vibrator.

As a response to Donald Trump’s election as president for a second time, and the failure of three referendums that would have protected abortion rights in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota, Mevs and others are calling on women to join 4B. It’s a radical feminist movement that started in South Korea and encourages the rejection of heterosexual dating, marriage and sex, as well as childbirth.

While it is too soon to know how popular such a stance could become in the United States, there are already women online who are adopting such ideas in a defiant display of self-protection.

“If we can’t control what they do in terms of legislation and abortion rights, we have to do something for ourselves,” Mevs said. “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.”

TikTok Creators Express Why Women Should Adopt This Mindset

Mevs, who posted a video on TikTok explaining why she believes women should adopt this mindset, had already begun decentering men in her own life around two years ago as a way of turning her attention back onto herself. Now, she said, her reasons have expanded to protecting her safety and health.

“What really drew me to participating in this movement was taking my body and my best interest into my hands,” she said.

The original 4B movement started to gain momentum in 2019, during a time when women in South Korea were undergoing a reckoning over the long-standing gender rights disparities in their country. The movement ramped up further during that country’s 2021 elections. The four B’s in question (which is a shorthand for the Korean word for “no”) are the refusal of heterosexual marriage, childbirth, dating and sexual relationships.

According to Katharine Moon, a political science professor at Wellesley College, the biggest difference between budding ideas for what the 4B movement could look like in the United States and what has already existed in South Korea is the centrality of marriage.

“That is not to diminish the great challenges that American women face, especially younger women, regarding reproductive rights,” said Moon, whose research includes the U.S.-Korea alliance and East Asian politics. “But for women and men in South Korea, until very recently, being a social adult — not coming of age at 18 or such, but being a socially recognized adult — marriage was mandated.”

South Korean Women Gain More Equality

Over the last 20 years, South Korean women have gained more equal access to education and have surpassed men in college enrollment rates, allowing them to entertain the possibility of a single life, according to Moon. However, not being married can result in women becoming social pariahs, and the rejection of marriage ideals has become a “radical statement,” Moon added.

Searches for “4B Movement” in the United States spiked the day after the election, according to Google Trends. Dozens of videos on the topic have popped up on TikTok in the last 48 hours, with users sharing why they are for or against the movement gaining steam in the United States. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade and Trump’s opposition to abortion, there’s concern that his administration could enact a federal abortion ban. Couple that with the spread of online misogyny, known as the manosphere, and its subset of incel culture, among self-described involuntary celibates who disparage women, there’s increased concern that women’s rights will be further eroded.

Alexa Vargas, a 26-year-old lab technician living in Boston, has incorporated the ideas of the 4B movement into her lifestyle. She had already been abstaining from dating and sex for more than two years, and following the results of the U.S. election, she decided to commit to the movement.

“I think that now more than ever, I’m endorsing the idea of 4B because women are just tired of men not really caring about our health and safety,” she said. Although dating was a possibility for her one day, she said she wasn’t prioritizing it right now.

“I think it would take a really special man to break this movement for me personally,” she added.

Moon said she didn’t think the 4B movement would take off widely in the United States because the emphasis on not rewarding men with access to one’s body was based on an issue — abortion rights — and not on a lifestyle.

“It’s a temporary means to bring attention to the precarious situation of women, with Trump and his ascending to power,” she said. “So it’s not really about a total commitment to a way of life without men. Whereas in South Korea, it is a way of life.”

There are concerns that the 4B movement might incite violence among men who disagree with a woman’s right to abstain from the four B’s, a reason Mevs is looking into boxing classes. She emphasized that women have never been guaranteed safety following rejection.

“If women doing this affects the entire country, good, and that’s the message,” she said. “If you want this country to run effectively, maybe you need to give women back their rights. It is as simple as that.”

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Gina Cherelus
c. 2024 The New York Times Company