The 2024 election, 4B and where we go from here
Can I just say this collectively, for all of us?
What the fuck.
While I admittedly live my life in the type of bubble of college students, artists and queer folk that does not have any inclination towards the hatred-spurred policies of Donald J. Trump’s administration, I was shocked by the outcome of the election. I genuinely thought that Harris would win, and when the results were swept so easily to the red label, I had no preparation for how to react.
Working on a play-by-play election update stream for the Reynolds School of Journalism’s Reynolds Sandbox account on Instagram reels until 7 p.m., my friends and I were not shocked to have to report on a gradually reddening map. After all, the reported votes always swing red first, that is how American politics works.
As the evening drew into night, however, that anticipated switch from leading red to leading blue never happened. Our jokes turned less playful and more into coping mechanisms. The tension rose with no break.
In need of a vice after the filming of the election results came to a close, I walked back to my apartment building with plans to meet up with friends and wine.
The election party, prepared to go all out in a celebratory win and having earlier that day joked about the need to binge drink in response to the other result, had lost much of its steam by the time I arrived. Fun times with friends turned to people huddled around a computer screen, hopefully cheering or wincing at each new update in the count.
Disappointment and wine-induced melancholy set in, and most of the group decided to head to bed at a somewhat reasonable time, planning on checking the results in the morning. Still, I and most others I had spoken to about the election believed that the results would not come in until at least later on Wednesday, if not Thursday morning.
A bump of a computer mouse, the curse of instant internet updates at our fingertips, and at 3 a.m. I had accidentally seen the overturn of the electoral college and popular vote in the favor of Donald Trump.
All I could do was sit and stare at the computer screen, hold my friend in a much-needed hug.
Denial is a form of disbelief that seems idiotic until one slips into it themselves. As much as I can recognize this, I genuinely believed while taking in the glowing LED map of the United States that the results were not true. At first, speculation that this was a prank - but I knew that these people wouldn’t do that. Then figuring that there must have been a mistake in the AP’s reporting, surely the wrong code was put into the map, or a state reported incorrectly. It would fit with American politics well enough.
No, the result was real. And this means that the society we live in did have enough people who either were duped into the promises of the Republican party through Donald Trump or who genuinely believe in hate and self preservation more than the common and greater good. So where do we go from here?
In the days following the election, my “For You” pages, social media feeds and group chat conversations were inundated with a variety of responses.
Despair. Hope. The ugly celebration of the American people’s choice to care about promised financial gain more than their own neighbors and friends. Admonishment of those who didn’t vote, or didn’t care enough to educate their vote.
One topic that kept coming up on my algorithm-recommended feed, profiling me as a young and left-leaning woman, was that of the “4B” movement.
In case you too were not also fed numerous TikTok videos and Instagram and Twitter infographics on the topic, 4B is a early 2010s feminist movement originating from South Korea. Spurred by gender-based violence and discrimination, South Korean women vowed to follow the 4 “no”s, or 4 “B”s as a protest. These are as follows: no sex with men, no dating men, no marrying men, and no having children.
This protest essentially does the same job as the increasingly popular American women’s trend of “decentering men”, where women who are able to cut men out of their lives outside of cordial and professional settings surround themselves with female friendship and feminine/non-binary support.
It is a wonderful idea, something out of a first and second wave feminist theory novel brought to life. I applaud the women it works for, as it can most definitely serve as a real-world coping mechanism and defense of oneself. After all, how much of women’s trauma comes from interactions with men or others who act in the best interest of the emotionless patriarchal idealist agenda?
But there is a reason that this is out of a dystopian-based novel. That is because in modern American society, it would not work.
We live in a patriarchal society. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. No matter how much we would like to believe the illusion of equity and equality, it is simply not the case.
For fuck’s sake, Donald Trump just won the popular vote in the election for the first time because over half of our country could not imagine a woman as President. While that does sound like a far-fetched idea to the American mind, ⅓ of UN member states have had female heads of state. America simply leads as one of the strongest and also most backwards-thinking of them all.
In a patriarchal society such as ours, relation to men is currency. It is a form of power, and giving it up takes courage that can end in a very misaligned situation.
The first issue with implementing the 4B movement into America, the issue that knocks the movement down at the roots before it even begins to grow, is that not everyone is going to follow it. This is a radical, left-fringe idea, meaning that even if thousands of women decide to boycott relations with men it will make no difference in the grand scheme of the nation. A staunch Trump supporting man is not going to be upset that the hard “blue haired leftist” woman won’t sleep with him; he’s going to go home to his stay-at-home wife and mother of five children who also voted for Donald Trump.
Admittedly, I am a part of the second reason why the 4B movement will not succeed on American soil. To put it simply; I’m not doing it.
I like going on dates, I enjoy sex, flirting is a fun activity and there are men in my life who I genuinely care about deeply; as more than just a duty. I want to have a family one day, and I am not committed enough to my country nor my country’s future to choose her over my own future life.
Scaling the movement down to the next four years, I also know that if I wear a tighter black dress from my closet as opposed to an oversized one, I am more likely to get an interview. If I do my makeup and wear gym clothes for a barista shift, I double my tips. There is no way around it, giving up the disadvantages that every highlight of the 4B movement puts women at also gives up the advantages women gain from those same things.
Finally, the scariest part of the movement is that in a long shot it just may work. So what happens if it does?
We remove a good percentage of the left-voting population from the common social sphere? We have at least four years of decreased birth rates in progressive families? We isolate the political factions of our country until they are even further apart?
While action is necessary now more than ever in America’s political state, this is not the kind of action that is needed. Yes, it is an easy one to pick up and run with, as it is an abstaining action and not an additional one. It takes less effort. It seems easier.
Instead, the forward thinking people of our country must focus on ground-based, citizen led actions to hold our own against our own government.
The supposed checks and balances of power that we grew up learning about through Schoolhouse Rock songs in elementary school are no longer set up to function in the way they were supposed to. There is a conservative majority in every branch of government now, legislative, congressional and judicial. This means that the checks and balances cannot be trusted to follow public opinion. They must be assumed to follow party lines.
Which is where the public, the people, come in. I don’t care how you voted this November, I care what you believe in and how you act upon it. It is almost guaranteed that expectations will be subverted, that promises to the American people will be broken and mistreatment of citizens and people living here (who all deserve decency, at base level) will take place.
It is now on citizen action to be the fourth check and balance of our system. America isn’t a stranger to people with little to no governmental representation still making themselves a voice and forcing a way to be heard on an official level, in a way that can make real change happen.
In the next four years, and preparing for even longer, it is the individual voice and action that will save our country’s pride, people and purpose. It is up to each of us to live up to it.
Padilla, M. (2024, November 9). No sex. no dating. no marriage. no children. interest grows in 4B movement to swear off men. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/no-sex-no-dating-no-marriage-no-children-interest-grows-in-4b-movement-to-swear-off-men
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