The New Wave of 4B
Photo courtesy of Raven Thissel
A conversation with Raven Thissel on intersectionality and healing within the 4B movement
No sex, no dating, no marriage, and no children with men—these are the four “no’s” of the South Korean 4B movement that many American women are adopting, worried for their safety and wellbeing following the 2024 presidential election. Raven Thissel, a Dallas-based author and women’s integrative healing coach, is one woman exploring this path forward. We sat down to talk about the goals of the budding United States movement, her new book on empowerment and healing, and the foremost role of intersectionality in this conversation. Quotes have been edited for concision.
After the election, you started a private Facebook group for women who are interested in joining a 4B-inspired movement. What types of support are you offering one another?
What stands out the most is the diversity of thought among us and the shared desire for community. There are married mothers in our group who have loving husbands, but they still want to support women who are in unsafe situations, or maybe they want to redirect their spending into woman-owned businesses. Some members are more politically focused, while others are focused more on just learning how to decenter men in their lives. We all have this conditioning that we're trying to unravel. Right now we’re discussing the scope of our work as we go through renaming the group to something that’s more authentic to the United States.
How and why should we differentiate the American 4B movement from the South Korean one?
We're all inspired by the 4B movement, but it's disingenuous to call what women are doing in the U.S. ‘4B.’ Most of us don't even know what the four B’s are; we can't even pronounce them. Korean women created the 4B movement because it worked specifically for the Korean problem. In the U.S., intersectionality and inclusion must be at the center of any successful women's initiative. The original feminist movements in the U.S. were exclusively and unapologetically for white women, and had they not been so short-sighted and committed to their whiteness before their womanhood, we would all be farther along in this fight. Intersectionality is the reason why I call what I do ‘womanism’ and not ‘feminism.’ Womanism improves on feminism because it acknowledges the overlapping issues of oppression, racism, classism, ableism, and LGBTQIA+ inclusion which all exacerbate gender inequality. South Korea has a largely Korean population, so they don't have the same layers of competing oppression and we cannot solve anything in the U.S. without addressing that.
What is the purpose of a U.S. 4B movement?
Before the election, women's decision to shut down sex and dating was a natural result of the misogynistic and unhealthy trends in dating and marriage, and worse, violence at the hands of men. The outrage that followed the election was a big motivator for more women to speak out and seek community.
The purpose of the 4B movement since the presidential election is women recognizing how a culture that centers men's preferences and comfort isn't just inconvenient, it's a threat to our existence as sovereign beings. A lot of women have gravitated toward the Korean 4B movement because it's the only example in recent history of women demonstrating in an organized way to claim ownership of our own bodies and to become the deciders of our own futures.
What do you hope will result from the U.S. movement?
Right now, I’m not sure if what we have is a movement. Right now, I think we’re collectively identifying our goals, who should strive toward them, and how to organize to achieve them even after the outrage dies down. I would love to see women who are choosing to center themselves in their individual lives above everything else. A lot of women are waking up to the fact that major parts of their existence and choices are built on disempowering ideologies that elevate men at the expense of their own authenticity and wellbeing. When women are well, anything is possible. It would be so dope to see this community become a network of women providing financial support, emotional support, shelter for women who need refuge from an abusive spouse, from an unhealthy situation, an unsafe situation. I would love to see more white women learn how intersectionality plays out in their own lives and how they can make the world more inclusive.
You have a book coming out this month. Can you share any lessons from it with us?
The book is called ‘Fuck Them, Heal You.’ It’s an unapologetic guide to removing every obstacle to your wellbeing and breaking free from the patterns that keep us stuck in cycles of disempowerment. It’s my story and everything I’ve learned so far about deprogramming the bullshit, fully accepting yourself, and being the writer of your own never-ending healing story. There was a time when I was making decisions that were a byproduct of trauma-based habits, low self-worth, and societal conditioning. There had to be some decolonization of my own mind to empower myself. Over the course of many years, through a combination of therapy, spiritual resourcing, somatic healing, and becoming certified as an integrative trauma and sexuality coach has landed me in a place now where I move through my life with maximum agency. There are many layers of that which I walk through in the book to help women be empowered. It's life-changing to access the type of love for yourself that sets you free.
At the core of this movement is a paradigm shift that will require deep psychological and emotional work. What internal work needs to be done to achieve the systematic changes that the 4B movement in the U.S. is pushing for?
I will always bring this back to intersectionality, first and foremost. We live in a country that was built on the otherization of people in order to make one feel above, to feel special, to feel safe. There's got to be a mass identity shift that a lot of people are not ready for.
To do adequate healing work, we must feel all of the feelings, including the anger, the outrage, the fear. When I look at the number of women who die at the hands of their romantic partner—the person who is most likely to end your life is the person that you've chosen to give all your love to—that is a horrifying statistic. When we look at the #MeToo movement, one in three women is outrageous. The anger and the vitriol is justified, and it's compounded; many Black women have opted out of the 4B conversation because of the level of distrust that those exit polls highlighted. I salute and stand with the Black women in the Great Step Back. For some Black women, that is the work: to say, “I'm going to rest right now.”
The work of bringing multiple generations, classes, and races of women together is a healing process. To move forward, it’s going to take more truth, more authenticity, more nakedness, and more discomfort.
What would you say to those who think that 4B ideologies are divisive?
That is a gaslighting take that comes from patriarchal-minded folks. Women are not making it up that we are not safe. As a result of the trauma that women have endured at the hands of men, it is justified for women to desire spaces that are healing for us—spaces that don't include the people who are responsible for the harm. I wouldn't call anything about it divisive. There are some women who need complete separation and isolation from men in every way. For those women, I hope that they are able to create that safety for themselves.
The politicization of women's bodies is extremely problematic, and simply making the decision to cross our legs should not be criticized. Every woman should have the right to decide whether or not she will be sexually active, and I don't understand why it would be divisive to simply disengage in that way. I want to make it clear that I don't speak for all women within this group, and I don't speak for all Black women.
This piece was included in our inaugural print issue, Taboo. To explore this edition of MEUF Magazine, please visit the issues page.