Ashli Pollard is done dating men. And with the election of Donald Trump, more women say they’re done too.
The 36-year-old entrepreneur says she’s been part of the 4B movement for two years. Originating as a protest against misogyny and sexism in South Korea, the movement has four requirements for women who participate: No dating men, no marrying men, no sex with men and no childbirth.
Following the results of the 2024 presidential election − during which abortion became a sticking point for many voters − some women are encouraging each other online to bring the movement to the United States. The aim, advocates say, is to protest Trump and Republicans, who tend to favor more restrictions on abortion than Democrats do.
Pollard didn’t join the 4B movement for political reasons. She says she’s simply happier single than dating a man. However, she says, the movement is now catching on among liberal women fed up with people who support policies that they believe put their rights in jeopardy.
“A lot of women don’t feel taken care of by the government in their homes in many different ways. We see Brock Turner getting let off. We see Brett Kavanaugh walking. We see Trump becoming president,” Pollard says. “And so there comes a time when women going through life start to notice all of these experiences, noticing all of these cultural moments, and feeling completely overlooked.”
The 4B movement is controversial for many reasons. For starters, political issues − even ones steeped in gender politics like abortion − don’t cleanly split along gender lines. Plenty of women oppose abortion, and plenty of men support it. Plenty of women voted for Trump, and plenty of men for Kamala Harris. Plus, mental health and relationship experts say, taking your political frustrations out on the person you’re dating isn’t a good idea. After all, what if your partner shares your values and feels just as upset about the state of politics as you do?
For Pollard and other women, however, the 4B movement gets at something larger.
“Somebody in my comments had a really great analogy where she said: ‘If you had a bowl of Skittles, and you were told that one of those Skittles was poisonous, would you dissect and study and take hours and hours to understand which one of the Skittles was going to do it? No. You would dump out the bowl. You would walk away,’ ” Pollard says. “That’s what we’re seeing with the 4B movement.”
What is the 4B movement? It’s gaining steam after Trump’s election
The “4B” movement gets its name from four Korean words that all start with the letter “b”: bihon (heterosexual marriage), bichulsan (childbirth), biyeonae (dating) and bisekseu (sex). You join the movement by giving up all four with men.
Online, 4B has garnered interest among women angry with the results of the presidential election. “We can’t let these men have the last laugh… we need to bite back,” one X user wrote in a post with 470K likes. “If they want to take over your bodies, Don’t let them have it,” wrote another. “don’t give in until they start listening. then they will start to panic,” another added.
One X user noted the movement isn’t just about women avoiding men but also about supporting each other: “Seek out relationships with women, women-owned businesses, women-made media, etc; surround yourself with women and our culture.”
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Pollard, who makes videos on TikTok about why she doesn’t date men, says she’s seen an uptick in content about the 4B movement on the app since the election.
“I saw four back-to-back videos of young women saying we have to start the 4B movement here,” she says. “4B starts today. We have to be doing this immediately. Men don’t look out for us; we don’t look out for them.”
Still, mental health and relationship experts are skeptical about the 4B movement as a response to Trump’s election. While every American has the right to peacefully protest the election however they please, they say swearing off dating and relationships as a whole is largely misguided.
Amy Chan, a dating coach and author of “Breakup Bootcamp: The Science of Rewiring Your Heart,” says one positive aspect of the 4B discourse is it might encourage women to prioritize self-development, personal growth and discerning the values that matter most to them in a partner.
Outside of this, she says encouraging people to swear off relationships as a form of political protest is likely counter-productive.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to cut yourself off from romantic relationships or intimacy as a way to punish men or the administration — it ultimately ends up being self-punishing,” she says. “It also fuels the rhetoric that just because some men are harmful or anti-feminist, all men must be. We won’t create a better world by seeing men as evil or as the enemy.”
What does the 4B movement bode for the dating world post-election?
Whether or not the 4B movement will have a major impact on American dating culture remains to be seen. Still, the discourse its started online might signal some newer dating trends for the next four years.
Psychotherapist Stephanie Sarkis says the divisive election has likely motivated singles to think more deeply about what values they want to share with a partner − and what deal breakers they won’t tolerate.
“It’s important that your values align,” she says. “When you have fundamental differences in that, it’s really hard to bridge that gap.”
Chan says the 4B movement might also motivate people to stand up for themselves and what they want in a relationship.
“Maybe the extreme of joining the 4B movement might not be the answer,” she says. “But for those who want long-term, committed relationships, adopting a stance that doesn’t tolerate ambiguous situationships and hookup culture can be healthy. We may witness a shift away from casual hookups toward more intentional dating practices that prioritize emotional connection and compatibility.”
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Pollard says she’s gotten a lot of backlash to her 4B TikToks, but also support. Some of the support, she says, has come from men privately messaging her saying they need to do better standing up for women to their friends.
Her goal with sharing her videos, she says, is not to insist every woman must forsake sex, dating and marriage with men. Rather, she says, she wants women to know they have options − and, if they feel they would be happier single, that’s OK.
“I had been dating, and all of these men kind of mirrored what my friends, my female friends who are married, tell me are bad marriages. I have friends who tell me about the fact that they have to cook and clean for their husband, that they have to tiptoe around their emotions, that they can’t tell them who they voted for,” she says.
Choosing to not pursue dating, she says, is her choice, and it’s one other women, regardless of how they voted, are free to make too.
“Marriage is not what I’m made for as a woman,” she says. “I’m made for so many more beautiful things. There’s so many other deep relationships I can have.”
