(fatal) Musings on the 4B movement, and Emotional Labour
I posted a TikTok a few weeks ago, it was partially satirical and partially serious. I wrote out a block of text talking about how women should ditch men altogether and pursue their niche interests instead, over a video of me staring blankly into the camera with a mitski song in the background. Very edgy. It quickly went viral and received an overwhelming amount of positive comments. A vast proportion of these comments were something the lines of “we need to start a global 4B movement.”
And until then, I had hardly heard anyone speak about the movement - which is shocking considering the metaphysical magnitude of it. The 4B movement is a popular movement in South Korea that has been going on since 2019. It is in protest of the high levels of misogyny and the confines of traditional gender roles by withholding sex, dating, marriage, and rearing children. Central to this movement is protesting against extreme gender-based issues such as domestic violence, femicide, and revenge pornography.
A lot of the online discourse I have seen about the 4B movement - is the worst kind, TikTok discourse. It tends to depict it as a South Korean problem. One that is blown out of proportion. That the rest of the world should refrain from analysing or learning from. An classic case of TikTokers being unable to exercise rudimentary critical thinking before posting a take (bear with my irreverence, I have consumed too many unwarranted takes against my better judgement). Though, I have seen a few Tokers champion the idea that we should not educate ourselves on the 4B movement from Westerner’s on TikTok. I digress.
What strikes me about the movement is that the issues it protests are not uniquely South Korean, and to claim so would be absurd. These issues are prevalent in most modern capitalist states, global south or global north, and are regularly shrug off, perhaps due to their ubiquity. In the United States, revenge porn has become widespread with the advent of the internet and technology, and disproportionately impacts young women. According to a 2016 study by the Data & Society Research Institute, 10 million Americans have been victims of revenge porn, with 93% of them being women. This highlights how technology and the internet have facilitated the dissemination of non-consensual intimate images globally, impacting individuals' privacy and mental well-being.
Domestic and sexual violence against women is similarly not uniquely South Korean. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that globally, about 1 in 3 women have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. This statistic underscores the widespread nature of domestic violence and the urgent need for collective action to address it.
Gender inequality in the workforce is a prevalent issue in many countries. According to data from the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2020, the global gender pay gap stands at 16%, meaning that women earn on average 84 cents for every dollar earned by men. This disparity persists across various industries and occupations, highlighting the systemic barriers that hinder women's economic empowerment and advancement.
As for femicide, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that approximately 137 women are killed by a family member every day worldwide. This alarming statistic underscores the urgent need for comprehensive measures to prevent and address gender-based violence and discrimination.
In South Korea and many other countries traditional gender roles proceed to inflict harm upon everyone, especially women. The disproportionate number of women impacted by revenge porn, domestic abuse, unfair pay and, of course, femicide stem from traditional gender roles which perpetuate a harmful dichotomy in which men are pressured to conform to a stereotype of unchecked assertiveness, while women are confined to submissive roles burdened with emotional labor.
In the context of the 4B movement, traditional gender roles serve as the foundation upon which many societal norms and practices are built. For example, women are often expected to prioritise marriage, motherhood, and caregiving over personal fulfillment and professional ambitions. This expectation limits a woman’s opportunities for self-actualisation and perpetuates the idea that their primary value lies in their roles as wives and mothers. (Something you might have thought we have progressed passed already, though unfortunately we have not.)
Traditional gender roles often reinforce power imbalances between men and women, contributing to a culture of male dominance and female subservience. This manifests in various forms of gender-based violence and discrimination, including domestic abuse, sexual harassment, and unequal pay.
The 4B movement challenges these traditional gender roles by withholding from society everything a woman is expected to be and do in order to cement the idea that we are more than that. By refusing to participate in these institutions, these women are asserting their autonomy and reject the notion that their worth is tied to their relationship status or reproductive choices. Moreover, some of the movement’s participants are motivated by their view of Korean men as irredeemable, and are thus intent on changing social structures rather than individual men. The movement aims to provide an alternative lifestyle for women but doesn't seek to change men directly. While the movement’s long-term sustainability is uncertain, it has certainly influenced online discourse, politics, and the lives of individual women in South Korea.
And it must encourage an analysis of one’s own national or sub-national culture, and its implications for women so that we can actually strive toward a better world instead of getting caught up in a trivial debate whether or not an outsider should care about the 4B movement.
Section II: Emotional Labour
(I would not be me if I did not insert some naval-gazey, self-indulgent rant about the misogyny in my own life.)
Reflecting on my own experiences with gender roles and what not, a pervasive issue in my life as of recent has been the expectation to take on emotional labour. Emotional labour encompasses the often unseen and undervalued work of managing emotions, providing support, and maintaining harmony in interpersonal interactions. As a woman, there has been an implicit assumption that I should naturally excel in this domain, taking on the role of caretaker and emotional nurturer, and I feel like I really do not. This gets so burdensome and limiting sometimes that I find myself pushed to the other extreme of not caring, and being an asshole (do not follow my example,).
Emotional connection and empathetic engagement in relationships is undeniably valuable and necessary, the assumption that it is solely the woman’s responsibility to navigate and manage the emotional landscapes of others is unjust. It places an additional burden on women, reinforcing trad gender roles that maintain that women should prioritise the emotional needs of others above their own. The expectation of handling emotional labour can lead to a depletion of one's own emotional resources. Constantly tending to the emotional needs of others without reciprocity can result in emotional exhaustion and burnout. It becomes a cycle of giving without replenishing, leaving one feeling drained and depleted.
At this point, when I am forced to reckon with my own emotions I feel as though I am being suffocated to the point of implosion. Sometimes I would rather live oscillating between unchecked emotional frenzy and an emotionally-devoid milieu, while simultaneously never appearing as a maladjust. In other words, sometimes I would rather live like a man.
I plan to, aim to, hope to, yearn to, perhaps write more about emotional labour once I have gotten closer to figuring it all out.
Until then.