Atreyee Poddar
The Korean 4B movement is one of those social phenomena that sounds like internet shorthand but is actually a sharp reaction to very real structural pressures. “4B” comes from four Korean words that all start with bi (meaning “no” or “refusal”). The four refusals are: no dating men, no sex with men, no marriage, and no childbirth.
Marriage, in theory, is partnership. In practice, many Korean women say it comes bundled with expectations of managing the home, caring for in-laws, and quietly absorbing the career hit that comes with motherhood. “Bihon” is a refusal to enter an institution where the gender math still doesn’t balance.
South Korea’s extremely low birth rate isn’t just a demographic headline anymore. It’s a cost-of-living story, because childcare is expensive, education is hyper-competitive, and working mothers face steep professional penalties. For most women opting out of childbirth means financial realism dressed as self-preservation.
Dating culture, critics argue, often mirrors the same gender expectations as marriage—emotional caretaking, appearance pressure, and the subtle assumption that women will do the relational heavy lifting. “Biyeonae” is a pause on romantic labor until the terms feel less one-sided.
This absolutely not about being a prude, but more about sexual autonomy. In a climate shaped by high-profile digital sex crimes and consent debates, some participants see sexual refusal as a boundary-setting tool. Intimacy without safety or equality isn’t intimacy, it’s risk.
4B isn’t a mass movement with leaders and membership cards. It lives mostly online, among niche feminist communities. But its symbolic power is outsized. When a growing number of women publicly opt out of dating, marriage, sex, and childbirth, it sends a blunt message: if the system feels like a trap, people will stop walking into it.