After the election, pro-Trump social media influencers trended a misogynist campaign called “Your body, My choice” which normalises rape and forced pregnancy. (AP/ PTI Photo)
Nov 17, 2024 14:01 IST First published on: Nov 17, 2024 at 16:00 IST
The election of Donald Trump as US president has unleashed a wave of despair amongst most American women. In the aftermath of the results, the 4B movement, which originated in South Korea a couple of years ago, became one of the most searched topics online. It is a radical feminist movement wherein women denounce men and the systems of oppression in heterosexual relationships by adopting “Four Nos” — no dating, no sex, no marriage, and no childbearing. Many American women took to social media to announce that they are adopting it in their lives. It is a radical approach, but perhaps one whose time has come given the tumultuous fight for bodily autonomy American women have been undergoing over the last few years.
When the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, taking away the constitutional right to abortion, it undid more than 50 years of activism. The battles that second-wave feminists fought and won are now to be fought all over again. According to a New York Times report, as of November this year, 21 states have banned abortion or restricted the procedure earlier in pregnancy than what was granted in Roe v Wade. Idaho, Tennessee, and Alabama made it a crime to assist anyone to get an abortion. In several Texas counties, it is criminal to travel on their roads to access abortion. In some states, there are legal battles being fought in courtrooms to block the bans and restrictions.
Against this backdrop, abortion rights were a central theme in this presidential election. Earlier, Trump took credit for the overturning of the law as three of the Supreme Court justices who were part of the majority judgment were his appointees. He even claimed to be the “most pro-life president in history”. He and his running mate continuously degraded childless women and referred to them as “psychotic” and “cat ladies”. Their overall agenda to control women’s bodies and restrict their agency reverberated throughout the campaign. After the election, pro-Trump social media influencers trended a misogynist campaign called “Your body, My choice” which normalises rape and forced pregnancy. Undoubtedly, the slogan was an antithesis of the feminist slogan “My body, My Choice”. The underlying idea is to strip women of their agency.
The attack on the bodily autonomy of American women is being carried out on all fronts — legal, physical, psychological, and online. There are eerie similarities with the battles that second-wave feminists had to fight in the 1960s. It is no surprise that the radical feminism of the current 4B movement is in consonance with the second-wavers.
When we trace the journey of feminism, the second wave can be considered the most crucial and radical in expanding feminist principles. While the first-wavers got women’s suffrage, it was the second-wavers who challenged traditional gender norms and questioned the systemic oppression of women. Their slogan, “personal is political”, made people aware that subjects which were considered personal — sexual harassment, relationships, abortion rights, and domestic labour — were political and systemic. They had also famously protested at the Miss America 1968 pageant against the objectification of women. Such acts of openly calling out sexism and rape culture led to more people recognising how pervasive it was.
On this foundation, they won various legal and legislative victories including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title IX which gave educational equality to women, and Roe v Wade which granted abortion rights. They also worked to outlaw sexual harassment at the workplace, opened rape crisis centres, raised awareness about gender and sexuality, etc. Some of these are relevant even today.
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Seeing the similarities, I believe that the 4B movement is an inflexion point in the current fourth-wave feminist discourse. In America, the movement is not just about resisting deeply-rooted systemic inequalities — traditional gender roles and the disproportionate burden of domestic responsibilities — but also about women reclaiming agency over their bodies from the looming threats, legal as well as misogynistic men. It is a war cry. Hopefully, it’ll create awareness and help redefine the contours of heterosexual relationships by moving away from patriarchal norms. Quite probably, future generations may look back and thank the 4B feminists for pushing the boundary, as we do to the feminists who came before us.
The writer is a political activist and the lead author of the book The Fifteen: The Lives and Times of the Women in India’s Constituent Assembly
