May 15, 2025
What Is the 4B Movement?

Traditional dating doesn’t work anymore. Our social structures are evolving and individuals are challenging the deep-rooted gender roles and expectations that have dictated relationship dynames for centuries.
Originating in South Korea, a radical cultural shift has emerged known as the 4B Movement. The tenets of the movement are founded on a principle of abstinent. It includes four key rejections: no dating, no sex, no marriage, and no childbearing with men.
Some might be inclined to oversimplify the central philosophy as an effort to push away men or even trend towards misandry but the truth is much more complicated. Women are seeking to reclaim their agency as well as their personal and collective safety and dignity in the world, which has largely and systematically failed them in many ways.
South Korean History
A society deeply entrenched in patriarchy, South Korea has a clear history of ongoing gender inequality. Korean women assert that the limitations imposed upon them by social expectations leave them shackled to antiquated gender roles, despite the country’s technological advancements and otherwise modern lifestyles. Living on paths that dictate they marry young and raise children while supporting the careers of their husbands, these women are often left to carry the emotional and physical labours of their families as well as work full time themselves.
The Rise of the 4B Movement
Over time, this oppressive structure has created fertile ground for resistance. Many women in South Korea reached a tipping point as they bore witness to news stories of gender-based discrimination. From systemic abuse, domestic violence, and other inescapable inequalities and imbalances. The 4B Movement arose from a collective sense of exhaustion and despair.
This sentiment eventually began to integrate globally into other feminist theories, which continue to gain traction amongst younger women. In South America, communities of women related to the shared frustrations that birthed the movement in Korea, including bearing the burden of unattainable beauty standards, a lack of safety around men, and an unmoving wall of laws regulating women’s bodily autonomy, personal safety, and rights to reproductive healthcare—all of which resonate with american and Canadian women as they do in South Korea.
4B Goes Social
Today, with an interconnectedness facilitated by social media, women are waking up to their shared experiences and the injustices tied within. With dating apps come new challenges to fostering a sense of mutual respect. This often loses out however to ghosting, hookups, and unending safety concerns. Women are tired of the emotional investment into a game that is rigged against them.
What is This All About
So what is the 4B movement all about? The 4B Movement isn’t about rejecting intimacy or potential connections. Rather it’s about reframing what a meaningful connection involves as well as recognizing oppressive,systems that do not serve them. The 4B Movement emphasizes the value women hold as individuals and removes the need for them external validation through traditional gender roles. Marriage and motherhood are no longer the standard of success. Instead, careers, friendships, creativity, and even solitude are celebrated and acknowledged as worthwhile choices to prioritize for their lives.
Women will continue to align with the 4B Movement as it grows and evolves into a symbol of female autonomy. Women are choosing to no longer participate in a system that does not exist for their benefit.