No dating, no sex, no marriage, no children: Southern Korea’s growing movement that is feminist

• Posted on Mar 1, 2020

SEOUL – Bonnie Lee does not worry about finding a boyfriend or even a fairy-tale wedding, and can determine her very own happily-ever-after: “I’m a right girl who’s not any longer enthusiastic about having relationships with males. ”

She actually is one of many.

A growing amount of South Korean women can be banding together to reject rigid patriarchal norms and vowing not to wed, have actually young ones and even date and also have intercourse.

“I’ve constantly felt that as a lady there are many more drawbacks than advantageous assets to being hitched, ” stated Lee, a 40-something expert who lives along with her dog near Seoul.

Now she’s got gone even more, adopting the nation’s radical feminist movement called 4B, from the “four address nos”: no relationship, no intercourse, no wedding and no child-rearing.

Wedding prices are plummeting in Southern Korea, where wives in many cases are anticipated to work, raise children and take care of aging in-laws with small state or community assistance.

“In the wedding market, your past life and work experience don’t matter, ” explained Lee, who’s two master’s levels.

“For some absurd explanation, being extremely educated additionally becomes a point that is minus. What truly matters probably the most being a prospective spouse is whether or perhaps not you will be effective at looking after your spouse and in-laws, ” she included.

She’s got witnessed friends that are well-educated obstacles at your workplace and experiencing dilemmas in the home after having kiddies.

Such problems would be the topic of a present hit movie, “Kim Ji-young, Born 1982. ”

According to a controversial feminist novel, it focuses on a married South Korean girl who may have quit her job and struggles to increase limited support to her child.

Feminine audiences ranked the movie the average 9.5 away from 10 movie movie stars regarding the South’s top search motor. Guys offered it 2.8.

An increasing number of ladies are switching their backs regarding the conventional objectives of Southern Korea’s society that is male-dominated where working wives invest four times much longer on domestic chores than their husbands.

About ten years ago, very nearly 47 per cent of single and never-married Korean ladies stated they thought wedding had been necessary. This past year, that dropped to 22.4 per cent. How many partners getting hitched slumped to 257,600 — down from 434,900 in 1996.

4B users say the movement has at the least 4,000 supporters.

An independent YouTube that is feminist channel features messages of boycotting wedding and child-rearing has significantly more than 100,000 readers.

Lee has additionally used some principles of Escape the Corset, a motion against Southern Korea’s strict beauty criteria. Some adherents have actually provided viral videos of themselves smashing up their makeup collections.

The teams are rising against a backdrop of anger over Southern Korea’s spy-cam porn epidemic, whose victims are typically females, and instances of intimate misconduct uncovered in the global #MeToo movement.

The ultimate straw for Lee arrived just last year each time a modern male politician who utilized to proclaim himself a feminist ended up being convicted and imprisoned for raping a feminine aide.

Lee said: “I noticed this culture is something it marriage or dating — became meaningless to me. That I cannot accept as a woman, and from then any encounter with men — be”

Yoon Ji-hye, a 24-year-old youtuber, seems South Korean women can be often anticipated to be “passive, childlike and bubbly, ” in addition to appealing, become desirable.

She’s got completely embraced Escape the Corset, cropping her locks brief and going bare-faced, shunning the country’s booming beauty industry.

“I utilized to pay hours perfecting make-up strategies watching YouTube videos, and invested about $200 on cosmetics each month, ” recalled Yoon, whom lives along with her moms and dads.

Her ex “preferredshe says” her with long hair and did not support her feminist inclinations.

Now additionally a member that is 4b she will not miss dating or sex: “There are also choices and approaches to please your self. ”

Yoon is convinced many South men that are korean their 20s and 30s have actually watched spy-cam videos or revenge porn — footage released by male exes — one explanation she no further would like to build relationships some of them.

4B and Escape the Corset would be the many radical kinds of feminism the South has ever seen, based on Shin Gi-wook, a sociologist at Stanford University.

“The four groups — wedding, motherhood, dating and intercourse — usually put ladies in subordinate position to men … and what exactly is represented in ‘corset’ is that are also similar women need certainly to look particular approaches to please men, ” he said.

The consequences risk reinforcing the united states’s looming demographic tragedy.

South Korea’s total fertility price — how many kids a lady is expected to possess in her own lifetime — dropped to 0.98 in 2018, far underneath the 2.1 necessary to keep a populace stable.

The us government predicts the South’s 55 million populace will drop to 39 million by 2067, whenever half the world are going to be age 62 or older.

Authorities have already been attempting to market wedding by providing newlyweds housing advantages and mortgages that are low-interest.

But also for Lee, the long term is feminine.

She insisted, “My fantasy is always to build housing just for ladies who want to never ever marry. ”