The election of Donald Trump as the next US president has sparked a surge in social media posts and internet search interest in South Korea’s fringe feminist “4B” movement, which urges women to refrain from dating, having sex with men, having children and getting married . men.

Across TikTok, dozens of American women disappointed by Tuesday’s election results have posted videos saying they intend to participate in their own version of the 4B trend. Over 200,000 people checked out “4B movement” on Google on Wednesday, making it one of the most popular topics on the online search engine.

The 4B trend, which began in South Korea in 2018 in the wake of The #MeToo movementhas become a way for some women to protest misogyny, gender discrimination and violence against women, according to Meera Choi, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Yale University studying heterosexual refusal among South Korean women.

“Women started thinking about how the government and the state and men are failing them,” Choi said, and they then “started not rewarding men by not participating in heterosexual relationships.”

The renewed interest in 4B comes in the aftermath of an election where gender played a big role. Some believed that questions about the future of women’s reproductive rights would turn away voters for Vice President Kamala Harris and hand Trump a crushing defeat — instead, women stopped being drawn to him. Harris won women by 8 percentage pointswhile President Joe Biden won that cohort by 15 percentage points in 2020according to NBC News’ exit poll.

Still, for many women, Trump’s win was an indication that their reproductive rights are diminishing.

Trump has varied in his approach to one nationwide abortion banwho previously supported legislative efforts to establish one and also said the issue should be decided by the states.

While Harris had strong female supportTrump ultimately connected more with voters on his promise to fix the economy and to separate from the current administration, helping him take the lead across the country.

Data from NBC News’ exit poll from Thursday afternoon showed that among women, who made up 53% of the electorate, 53% voted for Harris and 45% for Trump. Among women voters, 91% of black women voted for Harris versus 7% who voted for Trump, and 57% of college-educated white women voted for Harris versus 41% who voted for Trump. Among white female non-college graduates, only 35% voted for Harris compared to 63% who voted for Trump.

Among men, 42% voted for Harris and 55% for Trump. Among male voters, 37% of white men voted for Harris versus 60% who voted for Trump, and 47% of college-educated white men voted for Harris versus 50% who voted for Trump. Among white men without a college degree, only 29% voted for Harris compared to 69% for Trump.

American women who are still disillusioned with the government and Trump’s win “are now channeling that anger and channeling that hopelessness into this new activism in their private sphere where they boycott men and boycott heterosexual relationships, and (refuse) to participate in the patriarchy as a way to cope , Choi said.

South Korea is in the midst of what some scholars have called a “gender war“, where concern for inequality has awakened a deep gender divide that has become a central part of the country’s national politics. In 2022, President Yoon Suk Yeol blamed feminism for the country’s low birth rate and said he would increase penalties for false accusations of sex crimes, denying the existence of “structural discrimination based on gender.”

That, in turn, has sparked movement among feminists in the country to sound alarm bells over their rights, including an embrace of the 4B movement. While Choi described 4B as relatively niche, she said she has found that many women have resonated with the idea of ​​using their reproductive choice and bodily autonomy to respond to anti-feminist sentiments and policies in the South Korean government.

The 4B movement has gained more interest and popularity on an international stage in recent years, especially as young women around the world have learned about it on social media, according to Choi.

Aleisa Mora, 30, has posted a TikTok about the 4B movement in March after reading the English translation of the book “Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982” by Cho Nam-Joo, which is largely credited as the book that started the 4B movement.

Mora’s original video, which she reshared after the US election, has amassed more than 5.9 million views and sparked backlash from some men. She said her posts have ended up in the right-wing corners of the internet, where men have wished her ill. But she said those comments only underscore her belief in why the 4B movement is needed in the United States.

“We’ve tried to reason,” she said. “We’ve tried to be very attentive, very humble, talk to people about how to treat us right but it’s not working.”

“Now that we don’t need a man for anything, and men continue to actively take away our rights, we’re just saying, ‘OK, we’re just not going to deal with you,'” Mora added.

Marykate Cecilia, who made a TikTok about the 4B movement after the US election, said she believes South Korean women’s efforts to boycott men are working to their advantage.

“It works because the government is worried about population decline,” said Cecilia, 22, referring to South Korea’s low fertility rate, which fell to 0.78 in 2022 from 0.81 the year before. according to data from the World Bank Group. There is no data to indicate that the 4B movement is a factor in the decline.

“Maybe nothing changed right away, but now it’s actually a problem that they have to deal with,” Cecilia said.

But 4B is a flawed movement, Choi said, because it can often exclude women who don’t fit into its specific definition of feminism, including transgender people, married women and women who have children.

The cultural differences between the US and South Korea, such as how diverse and monoracial the respective societies are, may also affect how a 4B movement would look among Americans.

For women like Cecilia, seeing 4B continue to build momentum to continue writing about the trend and taking part in it is still a motivating factor.

“If enough women decided that it was, you know, possible, it would be great to actually see a change happen,” she said. “And to see that women are important.”