It’s ‘Lysistrata’ All Over Again with the 4B Women’s Movement

Men Want Marriage and Children, Women Just Want to be Left Alone.

It has long been known that women tire of men pursuing never-ending war, treating them like inferiors, and assuming that they would still get willing sex upon demand. In 411 BCE Athens, Aristophanes proposed a laughable solution in his comedy, Lysistrata. Proving that it still had merit in 2015, director Spike Lee told the same tale with a more respectful attitude with his updated adaptation of the play in his film, Chi-Raq. The solution is so obvious. In the latest everything-old-is-new-again world of heterosexual coupling, South Korean woman have declared that their 4B Movement is the answer to the age-old question of female autonomy and how to escape from a patriarchal system.

Initially started around 2019, the rest of the world caught wind of the 4B Movement thanks to TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, and feminist social media accounts. Now, women throughout East Asia are rejecting traditional gender roles and embracing the 4B philosophy. Also known as the “Four No’s,” the essence of the movement is simple. No dating men (biyeonae), no sex with men (bisekseu), no marriage with men (bihon), and no getting pregnant by men (bichulsan).

Because these ideas are so radical and feminism is still so taboo, most adherents to the movement identify online only as “anonymous women.” The Cut estimates there are between 5,000 and 50,000 depending on who provides the numbers. However many there may be, the movement uses the internet and social media technology to spread its word, raise awareness, provide peer support, vent frustrations, ask questions, exchange information, brainstorm, plan for a future that does not rely upon men, and nurture a sense of women’s solidarity.

Unsurprisingly, South Koreans concerned about the drastically low birth rates the country has been experiencing for several years are not impressed by the birth and marriage strikes. The average age of more than half of the population will be 65 by 2065, so those who opt out of traditional roles are considered “mentally diseased” and following an “antisocial ideology.” They will certainly influence the country’s military and economic future. A 2023 survey printed in the South Korean newspaper The Sisa Times uncovered that 65-percent of women and 48-percent of men do not want children. That is a lot of mentally diseased and antisocial women. And men.

Faced with these grim statistics, the government has created a number of pro-natalist policies aimed at encouraging women to reproduce. New babies now result in family stipends, parental work leave, and childcare subsidies. Given the high cost of parenting, economic insecurities, gender-based job and wage discrimination, housing insecurity, and oppressively sexist social roles both inside and outside of family structures, this may be helpful for some couples. Birth rates have still dipped below one child per woman.

As if this isn’t enough to upset the social order, 4B Movement participants influenced by its predecessor, the 2016 Escape the Corset Movement, also refuse to be controlled by the country’s infamously impossible beauty standards. The 10^th largest beauty market and third-largest exporter of cosmetics, the physical appearance of women is hugely important. Even those on a modest budget are expected to obey time-consuming makeup and skincare routines, as well as seasonally purchase stylish garments and have plastic surgery to repair imperfections when needed. In protest, many 4B followers have shaved their heads or cut their hair very short and go bare faced in public to visibly display their contempt for the culture that causes more than 80-percent of them to list domestic violence as a primary reason not to marry.

Add the facts that 80-percent of women who work report that they have been sexually harassed on the job, the country has an ever-increasing rate of stalking, upskirting, placing voyeur cams in women’s bathrooms, and even femicide, it’s no surprise that South Korean women have given up on South Korean men. There is little faith in the legal system, either, considering that offending men are, at best, fined or given suspended jail sentences, whereas punishment for women is far harsher.

A 25-year-old woman who took a stealth photo of a nude male model in her art class and posted it online, was found guilty and sentenced to 10 months in prison and court-ordered sexual-violence counseling. Compare that to the 2016 murderer of a young woman in a Seoul public bathroom. According to the killer, he chose his victim because women refused to date him. Authorities concluded that his motivation did not constitute a hate crime. Ironically, South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk-Yeol, says he will close the Korean Ministry of Gender Equality and Family because he believes its focus on the needs of domestically abused women treats men like “potential sex criminals.”

Meanwhile, the anti-feminist group known as “Ilbe” has grown since 2015. Its followers contend that women are coddled by the government since they are not required to join the military like men. Online Ilbe members post nude photos of their own female relatives, discuss the best ways to commit rape, and commiserate about how shallow and gold-digging women are.

Even with all of this to stand against, 4B still has a lot of social questions to answer within its membership. Are platonic friendships with men allowed? Are friendships with other women who still date men allowed? Where does lesbianism fall within the movement? Are transwomen welcome? Complex topics to ponder, especially for women who have grown up in a rules-heavy society with constant rewards for compliance. It is probably no surprise that ex-bihon women have taken to YouTube to share their disillusionment with a life without men or sanctioned gender roles. In many ways, it echoes the #TradWife movement developed in reaction to feminism within the United States.

Nonetheless, YouTubers including beauty influencer Lina Bae, BaekHa-na, and Jung Se-Young keep followers up to date on the movement’s goals and progress toward achieving them. Meanwhile, the 4B Movement has caught the attention of American women, who have taken to social media to share stories about and solutions to violence by men. The topic of conversation recently has focused on a series of sidewalk assaults in New York City by male passersby who punch women they encounter in the face. Former Florida Congressional candidate Pam Keith has indicated interest in the 4B Movement, tweeting, “I’m going to say this once: 4B movement… Keep coming for our rights, GOP.”

Through it all, both men and women in South Korea and beyond struggle with loneliness. Men particularly report record levels of feeling isolated. While radical social change might just be the solution to everyone’s problems, until that happens there’s the internet and the strange opportunities for emotional intimacy it offers. If women throughout the globe decide to boycott men in person, the possibility of a surge in interest about online “girlfriend experiences” from both AI cuties and flesh-made women seems likely. Perhaps even by members of the 4B Movement. Male sex workers with an online presence may be able to develop a following of 4B supporters and maybe even self-proclaimed male victims seeking a man-to-man virtually erotic connection.

One of the tragedies of being human is that the process of gaining parity and seeing one another as an equal is, at best, awkward. At worst, it’s violent. Another tragedy is that sex workers have often been at the front lines in culture transitions, providing discreet companionship, consultation, and both sexual and emotional exploration and education. Without sex workers, the US would have had fewer churches, schools, police departments, and hospitals during its westward push.

Yet, even in the 21^st century, it is too often dismissed, marginalized, criminalized, and assumed to be a detriment to the surrounding culture. The “soiled doves” of sex work certainly present a radical alternative to the rigid gender roles of most patriarchal systems, so kickback from the mainstream is to be expected. As the 4B Movement spreads out of East Asia into the West and Africa, online sex workers are once again presented with an opportunity to help heal the world’s wounds and make a profit while doing so.

Lysistrata: "No man of any kind, lover or husband—"
Calonice: "No man of any kind, lover or husband—"
Lysistrata: "shall approach me with a hard-on. Speak up!"
Calonice: "Shall approach me with a hard-on. Oh god, my knees are buckling, Lysistrata!"
Lysistrata: "At home in celibacy shall I pass my life—"
Calonice: "At home in celibacy shall I pass my life—"
Lysistrata: "wearing a saffron robe and all dolled up—"
Calonice: "wearing a saffron robe and all dolled up—"
Lysistrata: "so that my husband will get as hot as a volcano for me—"
Calonice: "so that my husband will get as hot as a volcano for me—"
Lysistrata: "but never willingly shall I surrender to my husband."
Calonice: "but never willingly shall I surrender to my husband." 

-- Lysistrata by Aristophanes, lines 212-224