About the 4B/6B4T movements

[WellThisWentWell]

I was reading about these amazing South Korean feminist and it got me wondering if we’ll ever see the day in western countries where women make these kind of strong choices and just leave men and dating and having kids behind.

https://www.thecut.com/2023/03/4b-movement-feminism-south-korea.html?utm_source=tw&utm_campaign=thecut&utm_medium=s1

No. I don't think so. I think the existence of these movements in South Korea and China is a reflection of the culture and social structures in those countries.

It's a hard ask to expect or to ask women to forgo having children and having a satisfying relationship and sexual life in the name of feminism.

Some already have. I get the impression that there is a lot more emphasis on marrying and starting a family in South Korea than there is over here, whereas it's more acceptable to quietly opt out as a single woman in the UK.

I know a fair number of divorcees that have decided never to marry again or bother with kids/wife-work.

I suppose I mean I don't think it will be a specific movement that young women sign up to explicitly. As TheABC says, it's easier in the UK to opt out of some or all of those things without it attracting lots of opprobrium.

I am not part of a movement, but I am a woman who no longer participates in this aspect of society after the breakdown of my LTR in my late 30s. Some older women find themselves in this position. Broadly, after the relationship ended (childless, due to him) I had the strong feeling that I had been sold a massive crock of shit throughout my life, the world as it is presented is only one possible world, and I was no longer willing to take part in upholding that one version that is ultimately so limiting for women. It’s a bit like my very own version of a red-pill moment, and one that is quite different to a MRA/basement-dweller pill. I had lost so much in the pursuit of this one thing that I was told I should want to have. I did seriously consider getting inseminated for a child but the reality of what it would mean for my life did not ultimately appeal.

I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

It's not really a long term solution though is it to just avoid men altogether and stop having children?

The North Korean population will reach 26.65 million in 2030 and decrease further to 26.56 million in 2050 and 22.79 million by 2100.
The South Korea population from 51,704059 at the moment by 2100 is projected to be 24,102932 and so they will more or less have halved.

Surely it makes them more at risk from their neighbour if they have half the resources, a smaller economy and less manpower and so I don't see it as a positive thing.

There must be other solutions to make motherhood more attractive though I'm not sure what they are and I don't advocate returning to patriarchal religions etc.

https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/KOR/south-korea/population-growth-rate

There are other solutions, but unlikely they will be implemented. Consider how absent fathers are from the abortion debate. If their bodies were legislated for in the same way ours are we would have a whole different debate going on. We get one life and it can’t only be about reproduction. I absolutely understand the desire to have children as I had that myself, but it’s far too expensive in all possible ways for women and far too cheap for men.

But why is population decrease such a terrible thing? There are arguably too many people on the planet right now. A big population decrease would surely be the most effective way of reducing carbon emissions.

The problem isn't women choosing to opt out of our reproductive 'duties' by having no (or less) children in favour of a better more equitable quality of life, but how we deal with the pyramid scheme that is retirement and elderly health and social care. Why is this a problem that women have to fix (either my having babies or working in low paid/ unpaid carer roles)?

Yes, there are articles also that pop-up every once in a while saying more women are choosing to be single and also childree is on the rise.
Although often the ’single’ means not married, so they might not be actually single.

Anyway, I wish this were more true, I’d like to find them and form a friendship group!

There must be other solutions to make motherhood more attractive though I'm not sure what they are and I don't advocate returning to patriarchal religions etc.

But not everyone wants children and as it has become a little less of an taboo, the number of childfree people have risen.
It doesn’t mean that motherhood is or isin’t attractive idea, I don’t want go back/stay in times where women are just seen as potential morhers.
And that everyone want (or should have) kids.
That’s certainly not the way.

I would presume that "making motherhood more attractive" means for those who would otherwise choose to, but are dissuaded by the treatment of mothers in the society/culture in which they live. If I was a young woman in the UK in the era where you were expected to be married before having children, and to give up work entirely on getting married or having children and rely on a male partner, then I might not have chosen to have a relationship with a man and have children in that environment. Especially if access to birth control and abortion was restricted or unavailable altogether.

It's not wrong for women to want to have children, or to want to have a fulfilling relationship with men if they are unavoidably heterosexual and a fulfilling sex life. Nor is it somehow anti-feminist, or a weak choice that only happens because women take part it it unthinkingly.

If you are faced with a rigid social system that looks unlikely to change in your lifetime then I can see the appeal of these 4B movements.

Voluntary celibacy was a thing in the second wave. I think the pioneering US group was Cell 6 or 16 or something.

want to have a fulfilling relationship with men if they are unavoidably heterosexual and a fulfilling sex life.

Fulfilling isin’t exactly a word that comes to mind what it comes to many women in relationships/having hook up’s.

And it isin’t that black and white.
I know women have for centuries been told and threatened how empty and cold and useless their lives are without men and kids, but seems like some women have realized that thise been lies all along.
Life can be very fulfilling without relationships and sex. Even more so, even.

Yes absolutely. I didn't say a fulfilling life, I specifically said a fulfilling relationship and a fulfilling sex life. It's not abnormal for women to enjoy sex. Even heterosexual women who by necessity want to have it with men can enjoy sex. Men can be one half of a fulfilling relationship, although clearly often they aren't. Many women would find a life without a (decent) partner and an opportunity for a sex life to be unsatisfying for them. Not for every woman, but for them.

Clearly many many women have fulfilling lives and fulfilling relationships without being in a partnership with a man. I wouldn't suggest otherwise.

I suppose there aren't many people in English-speaking countries who really understand social conditions in Asian countries, and maybe it's wrong to say there's a "trend". But there have been articles about how young Japanese people don't have much motivation to get married and start families, and the government there is worrying about a nation of elderly people and a serious decline in population. It's similar in Korea, which has a definite feminist aspect to the situation. At least in Europe there are immigrants eager to move in, if Europeans themselves aren't reproducing. (Sample article linked.)
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14645548

Lots of second wave feminists did this.

The main reason that S Korea and Japan have falling populations and the UK doesn’t is immigration, we have it, they don’t. If we didn’t have immigration we’d be in a not dissimilar position.

Thank you, how interesting those women sound, and they are brave and witty.

I noticed the writer of the article didn’t quite get why the 4B women would not be entirely convinced a ‘woman’ with an adam’s apple should join them.

What happened?
Did they continue, or did they go back to men?
Why is there really no talk of them?

I know there was a lesbian separatism, but that’s not exactly what I mean right now, considering they could/can still have a lifepartner and companion, so it’s not truly doing the hard work in that sense.

Nuns did it in their way.

Nuns still have to put up with priests & bishops, though of course that’s a very different relationship. And quite often they stop in, are deferred to, then the nuns get on with life.