Ashli Pollard is done dating men. USA Today-
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.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.”
