Liberal women withhold sex, shave heads to protest Trump win: ‘My bodily autonomy matters’
Liberal women are withholding sex from men and shaving their heads to protest President-elect Donald Trump’s landslide victory over Kamala Harris.
The demonstration was inspired by South Korea’s “4B” movement against gender-based violence where some women in that country have vowed to follow the four “no’s” — no sex, no dating or marriage and no having children with men.
The trend took off in the US on TikTok after Trump’s win Tuesday, with many women posting about their refusal to engage with men romantically or sexually over the next four years, citing dwindling abortion access across the nation and an increase in young male Republican voters.
“As a woman, my bodily autonomy matters, and this is my way to exercise sovereignty over that,” said a TikTokker, who encouraged other women to “delete their dating apps” in solidarity.
“If you need someone to cuddle or give you a kiss, I bet you one of your girlfriends would do it, and you don’t even need to be gay. It’s OK to have a lot of platonic love for the next four years,” she said.
Other users have taken to the platform to encourage women to “take it a step further” and “collectively get hysterectomies,” while some said they are “breaking up with their Republican boyfriends” in the wake of the election.
“F–k being skinny, f–k being hot, f–k being all the things that the patriarchy wants us to be, ’cause clearly they don’t give a s–t about us,” said one user who began haphazardly shaving her full head of hair on camera.
“Stop dating men, stop having sex with men, stop talking to men, divorce your husbands, leave your f–king boyfriends, leave them,” she said.
Exit polls support the premise that young men have become overwhelmingly conservative in the past four years — while women ages 18 to 29 went overwhelmingly left, in part because of concerns over reproductive rights.
Young women supported Harris over Trump by 18 points, while young men backed the president-elect by 14 points, according to Tufts University Tisch College research.
In South Korea, the “4B” movement — which stands for the four vows that begin with “bi” (“no” in English) — was an offshoot of national protests against the “spycam” epidemic, where women were often unknowingly filmed during sex or while in the bathroom without their consent.
South Korean leaders became worried over the “4B” movement when it allegedly began having an effect on the country’s birth rates after launching in 2017 and picking up momentum in 2019.
In 2021, the country’s president, Yoon Suk-yeo, said feminist movements were “blocking healthy relationships” between men and women in the nation, Chosun reported.
For three years in a row, the country has recorded the lowest fertility rate in the world, with women of reproductive age having less than one child on average, according to the New York Times.
In the US, only 25% of men between the ages of 18 and 29 identify as politically liberal, while 40% of women in the same age group do, according to a recent Gallup poll.
Experts say the US political gender divide has led to Gen Z dating woes, as many young men embrace the ideologies of popular podcasters such as Joe Rogan, the Nelk Boys, and Adin Ross — all of whom were thanked for helping to get the president-elect to victory by UFC CEO Dana White during Trump’s Wednesday victory speech at Mar-a-Lago.
Some people have opposed the movement, poking fun at those who have modified their appearances in solidarity and called for extreme measures of divorce.
” ‘Join the Republican Party, keep your hair’: Never thought I’d have to say that,” one user said in reaction to the movement.
