Women turn to celibacy in wake of Trump re-election
From the morning of November 6th, the war on women in the US became all too real with Donald Trump's re-election into the White House. The four-time accused federal criminal is backed by Project 2025 or ‘The Presidential Transition Project; an extremist policy created by former Trump administrators, and Conservative think tank - The Heritage Foundation. These plans look to merge church with state, completely removing abortion access and severely limiting voting rights. These prospective changes will have disastrous results for women and members of the LGBTQI+ community. The election result has split the US in two, with sales of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, a: female centric dystopian novel, set in the male run world of Gilead soaring 400 places up the chart to the top three on US Amazon Best sellers' chart.
This is sadly not a strange coincidence. Atwood has long declared that all horrific themes of oppression and sexism featured in her book have all happened at some point in history. With Trump's re-election, the overturning of Roe Vs Wade, and a Republican majority senate, her predictions feel all too real. All liberal women’s fears have come true. After the supreme court overturned Roe vs Wade in 2022, 2 states have since banned abortion with 12 states already having a ‘near-total ban’. This leaves 32 million and 137,000 women without any reproductive or autonomous rights. With Trump back in power this number is only expected to increase, according to the Guttmacher Institute, with a further 24 states expected to ban abortion and restrict female reproductive care.
The election result has caused a significant increase in circulation of extremist feminist movements on social media, with women turning to celibacy as a form of protest. However, with Trump's new government appointments announced daily- (A Fox News anchor, a sex trafficker, an anti vax bear killer, and an ex-WWE boss) it is expected that women's equality and independence is only going to regress over the next 4 years.
Soon after the election result information on the 4B (4 no) movement began to circulate on social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram and mainstream media. The radical feminist movement that originated in South Korea in 2019 after the push back from the #metoo movement, as well as patriarchal expectation of marriage held in South Korean culture.
The 4 Bs (B stands for Bi- or no in Korean)
1. “Bisekseu” - No sex with men
2. “Bichulsan” - No childbirth
3. “Bihon” - No marriage with men
4. “Biyeonae” - No dating
The decision to become completely celibate, cuts off the sexual power men have over women, and as such gives them a sense of control and freedom over their lives. Already having 4,000 members in 2019 the movement has been relatively quiet in the western political echo chamber until most recently.
However, the 4B movement is radical, and quite unprogressive when analysing modern feminist theory. Members do not believe trans women have rights, and as part of their movement aim to ban trans women from their pursuit of equal rights. Transphobia has been discussed within feminist communities for decades, with most modern-day feminist including trans-women in their fight for equality, and visibility. Pushing this kind of ideology within young communities on social media, will cause a disruption. This could damage the lives of many members of trans communities in western countries, when their voices are already trying to be silenced by conservative groups. This is seen in the enactment of ‘the bathroom bill’ in 13 US states: a law denying transgender individuals from using public restrooms, with a following 15 states planning to introduce the bill in the future.
Many are predicting a national crisis for American women, driven from the fear that key issues on women’s rights, post-election will slip quite quickly to the bottom of the barrel. In exit polls produced by Pew Research Centre, only 51% of voters believed abortion was a key issue, which although is an 11% increase from the 2020 election remains extremely low in comparison with the economy, where 81% of voters see it is as the most key issue.
After these statistics where released, it caused American women to believe, their brothers, husbands, boyfriends, grandfathers all voted for Trump over the women in their lives. However, the data shows that it was not just a huge influx of men voting for Trump, but women too. Reuters exit polls show 50% of women aged 45-60 voted for Donald Trump. Proving that celibate protest might not actually fix the problem when your own gender is also part of it.
Analysing exit poll data further white men were the highest vote count overall for Trump, which is not surprising, since Trumps target demographic are white conservative men. Although according to Circle (Centre for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) in 2024 young men aged 18-29 were 12% more likely to vote for Trump, with an 8% exit poll increase of Trump votes in comparison to 2020. Not only is this the lowest young male vote for Democrats in the last 10 years, the data also aligns with a poll taken by The American Survey Centre. They discovered that “In the US, Generation Z men view on feminism now align with Generation X (men born between 1965 and 1980) with the lowest rates of 43% of young men ages aligning themselves with feminist ideology.”
Why could this be the case?
Statistics show that 66.6% of men use the social media platform X, in comparison to only 33.1% of women. This highly concentrated male platform, which is owned by Elon Musk, ally of Trump and newly appointed ‘Head of Department of Efficiency’ has been deemed a hub for far-right communities. According to Jo Mulhall, as seen in The Guardian; “Elon Musk is himself inculcated with radical right politics. So, it is behaving much more like a bespoke platform, created by the far right.” This controversial content drives engagement as well as indoctrination of impressionable young voters, who use twitter as a news source.
In a vox pop interview posted on social media platform TikTok, ex- CNN anchor Don Lemon interviews two young male British tourists and asks them who they would vote for in this election. This interview highlights the true problem a platform like X causes for the manipulation of young male voter perspectives.
One young man replies to Lemon: “I’d vote Trump because right know Kamala is letting so many immigrants in and immigrants who will vote Democrat.”
Lemon counters, fact checking him “She is not the president she is not directly in control of the border, her role was to fix the countries around the border, so that it would be an incentive for people not to come in. The congress and senate oversee the border”.
“It’s not what we’ve been hearing” the young man counters.
“Where have you been hearing this” Lemon retorts.
“Twitter” the young man states.
This interaction is evidence of a greater issue of how global political issues are misrepresented on X and how this changes voters' perspectives, even ones who are not able to vote in the US.
Source- TikTok: @donlemonoffical
Although, the data finds that young male voters did not see abortion as a key issue, it does not necessarily mean that aligning yourself with an extremist group is the solution. The 4B movements growing popularity is clear indication of the anger American women and girls feel. However, this does not prove every man they know voted for Trump purely because of his strict plans to tackle abortion. Immigration, economy, and healthcare were all covered as key issues by voters. Also, it is vital to remember that White and Hispanic women were also largely part of Trumps vote, according to Reuters, with 53% of white women and 38% of Hispanic voting for him.
The extremes of the 4B Movements ethos of ‘swearing off men’ altogether can cause more segregation. Grouping men into a dangerous majority, rather than specific members of society will only cause more anger between extremist parties on both sides. With a President who already has connections to the far-right, America’s future is in the orange-tinged hands of its very own political villain.