The 4B movement and the politics of beauty
Let's get into it.
I won’t sugarcoat it: I’m angry, despondent, and stressed AF after the 2024 election results.
To cope, I’ve been re-playing Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, specifically listening to “Screwed.” 1) It’s a fantastic song featuring Zoë Kravitz. 2) It has clever lyrics that paint the dark, vivid imagery about the state of women’s rights. The song was released in 2018, two years after that evil man’s first presidential run—but it couldn’t ring more true today.
“Hundred men telling me cover up my areolas / While they blocking equal pay, sippin' on they Coca Colas (oh) / Fake news, fake boobs, fake food, what's real? / Still in The Matrix eatin' on the blue pills (oh) / The devil met with Russia and they just made a deal / We was marching through the street / They were blocking every bill (oh) / I'm tired of hoteps tryna tell me how to feel / For real”
Janelle then transitions into “Django Jane,” which provides an epic strategy: “We gon' start a motherfuckin' p*ssy riot / Or we gon' have to put 'em on a p*ssy diet.”
But this isn’t just a cheeky play on words or hyperbolic. The same year Janelle released Dirty Computer, South Korean women put it into practice with the #EscapetheCorset movement: a movement fighting against unrealistic beauty standards that force women to spend time, money, and energy on their appearance to uphold patriarchal values.
This systemic “rebellion” then catapulted the 4B movement, where South Korean women created their own social system: The “four nos”—No to dating men, no to getting married, no to having kids, and no to having sex.
So, how does this affect the U.S.? For one, American women are already pledging to follow in the footsteps of South Korean women with the 4B movement. Take one look at Twitter/X, and you’ll find countless posts similar to this one: “Never underestimate how much men truly hate women.” It’s no wonder they’re reassessing their relationship with men.
Secondly, beauty is political.
In 2017, a South Korean poll found that 40 percent of people experienced discrimination based on their appearance, per Elise Hu’s Flawless. Another poll found that 60 percent of job listings required headshots on a resume, and used terms like “neat” and “beautiful” to describe ideal candidates. Hu even recounts how one job posting specified that a “C” cup was their ideal bra size, while other listings noted that “government bosses like ‘high noses.’”
Even worse? The Ministry of Employment and Labor once tweeted that job seekers were encouraged to get “cosmetic surgery,” suggesting that it was one of the credentials needed for employment.
I don’t have to imagine a world where this will become the norm in the U.S., especially with who is in office. In fact, a woman’s natural hair type can easily get her fired or not hired for a job. The CROWN Act, which ensures protection in the workforce and public schools against discrimination based on raced-based hairstyles—including braids, locs, twists, knots, etc.—has only passed in 27 states. That means, 23 states allow for hair discrimination.
And now more than ever, social media profiles like LinkedIn and Instagram are requested in job applications. We’re not only being surveilled by potential employers, but judged well before they even get to know the value, experience, skills, and strengths we bring to the table.
With this employment process becoming the norm, it’s only a matter of time before more women start admitting that their cosmetic procedures—Botox, filler, facelifts—are linked to remaining youthful so they can either maintain their job or find a new one (and not be discriminated against for their age, because yes, it happens even if it’s illegal).
As if that weren’t oppressive or restrictive enough, the conservative party is also creating a world where we’re forced to reproduce and stay hot. This is the ideal image conservatives promote when they prance around their trophy wives at their rallies, applauding them for raising their kids and looking like models. It’s the rhetoric our president has bragged about countless times before.
Worse? This propaganda is working, especially with trad wife content skyrocketing online. It’s no wonder people think Mrs. Ballerina Farms is living the American Dream with her wealthy husband, sprawling land, and thin body. But all I see is someone suffering from forced labor, stress, insomnia, and a laundry list of other mental and physical issues that could easily be “fixed” with the riches her husband is supposed to afford her.
And I’m going to call it now: It won’t be long before beauty companies tell women they can pull themselves up by the bootstraps with a bold hair transformation, or razor-sharp cat-eye, or “wellness” supplement.
Sarah Creal already did it with her new “Speak for Yourself” lipstick collection, which launched right before the 2024 election and features shade names like “Invisible Labor,” “Pay Equity,” “Double Standard,” and, drumroll, “Red v. Wade.” Yes, really.
The girlboss-ification of these $50 lipsticks may have seemed tongue-in-cheek in 2016, but in 2024, when women’s rights are literally on the brink of extinction, it just feels crude, cruel, and out of touch. Not to mention, this line caters to women who are 40 and older, a demographic that f**king knows what it’s like to have gone through several waves of the feminist movement and witnessed progressive laws get passed. Hello????
Moreover, “self-care” content and products will boom, yet it’ll become a luxury only for the wealthy, as basic toiletries like toothpaste, soap, and deodorant won’t even be attainable with T**mp’s proposed tariffs. And all of this “self-care” messaging will be a more harmful form of self-improvement that will be reminiscent of Stepford Wives. Again, between trad wife content and a rigid beauty ideal, this style won’t be a choice, but a requirement. This isn’t a reach, either. Look at our history, and look at the current situation South Korean women are facing.
That’s why it’s incredible what they’ve achieved with the 4B movement. They cracked the code on a simple, yet effective way to have autonomy in a society that controls their bodies and livelihoods.
In Flawless, Hu wrote, “Rejecting appearance standards has led to a growing number of young women in Korea to reject behavioral standards at the root.” Beauty isn’t so skin-deep when it has real-life repercussions and is a fundamental metric of a patriarchal society.
“By 2020,” Hu continued, “[the birth] rate was the lowest in the world. At this rate, Koreans will be extinct around the year 2736.” I don’t know what the future holds, but women do have power—even if it doesn’t feel like it.
As Janelle reminds us in “Django Jane” …
“We gave you life, we gave you birth / We gave you God, we gave you Earth / We fem the future, don't make it worse / You want the world? Well, what's it worth?”