This week, we dig into 4B, the South Korean feminist movement built around four refusals: no dating men, no sex with men, no marriage to men, and no having children with men. What began as a response to deep-rooted misogyny, gender-based violence, beauty standards, and unequal domestic expectations has since travelled far beyond South Korea, sparking conversation among women around the world on burnout, heterosexual dating, safety, labour, and whether romance is still worth the cost. Basically, this episode gets into the bigger question at the heart of the movement: what would happen if women stopped organizing their lives around men?
This week, we dig into 4B, the South Korean feminist movement built around four refusals: no dating men, no sex with men, no marriage to men, and no having children with men. What began as a response to deep-rooted misogyny, gender-based violence, beauty standards, and unequal domestic expectations has since travelled far beyond South Korea, sparking conversation among women around the world on burnout, heterosexual dating, safety, labour, and whether romance is still worth the cost. Basically, this episode gets into the bigger question at the heart of the movement: what would happen if women stopped organizing their lives around men?
We get into:
🖊 The origins and core ideas behind the 4B movement
😎 Why “opting out” can feel both liberating and complicated
😩 Dating fatigue and the modern heterosexual relationship crisis
💋 How unpaid labour and beauty standards shape women’s romantic lives
🤦🏽♂️ The difference between refusing men and refusing patriarchy