I decided to split my posts into two as the tones of each do not match. So this is part two to my International Women’s Day post.

So, the second issue I wanted to talk about is the 4B Movement. I have recently heard that the movement is not inclusive of all woman, i.e.: trans women have been excluded. I will come back to this point later.

If you are not familiar, the 4B Movement is in South Korea and is a response to the patriarchy and misogyny women face in the country. South Korea currently has the world’s lowest birth rate and their government is trying to improve that.

Woman who are a part of this movement have sworn off of sex with men, having children with men, marrying men and… I can never remember the last one. Hold on. Oh it’s dating men, that’s the last one. The B refers to how it is pronounced in Korean.

This movement has been praised by those outside of Korea as Western woman (I can only say Americans and British people as they’re the ones who come up on my FYP) are impressed that they made a threat and followed through with it.

How many times have we thought, yeah we should just cut men off? But then we never do it.

Radical feminism is a thing however it didn’t take off in the same way as the 4B Movement has.

I will say the movement should be more inclusive as trans women worldwide suffer at the hands of cis men too. In fact, they are killed by them. Trans women are not the enemy, cis men who make us feel unsafe or harm us are.

Like I said earlier, we won’t be free until we are all free.

Feminism is not just for white women or cis women, it is for all women as we all suffer at the hands of patriarchy and misogyny. It’s actually shocking how much we suffer from it till this day.

When I was a kid I thought men of my generation would be better but no! That is not so. If a man is raised by a misogynistic man then aren’t they going to be misogynistic? Unless they do the work to reject misogyny and challenge it they will end up going down the same path.

Even us women because of the society we are raised in we are in danger of having internalised misogyny. Where do you think the pick mes come from, internalised misogyny!

The hatred of femininity can be seen in how a lot of us went from hating pink to loving it in adulthood. The pine line is real.

When I was a kid I loved the colours pink, yellow and sky blue. Then my love of pink overtook the other two. I loved  dresses and skirts and all the girly clothing. I also loved dungarees. However, as time passed I grew to hate pink and I rejected the girly clothing.

I didn’t want to be seen as super girly. Also, I didn’t understand how I could love football and be a girly girl at the same time. Only one thing can be true at once right? No.

So then my favourite colour became purple and my teens were spent like that. I went to a girls’ school as well and the hatred of pink was widespread.

Then as I became an adult I thought, it’s so stupid that I’m afraid to like pink because of what people may think. I then went from liking dark pink, to including bright pink to loving all kinds of pink. I may have overcorrected. My wardrobe right now…

#noregrets

I remain loving dungarees and having days where I just wear trackies but I also embrace my dresses, skirts, crop tops etc.

So, yeah that was the internal misogyny I had to combat in my life. It’s small but you don’t really realise it’s a thing until you challenge why you hate anything feminine and where that hatred came from.

I’ve also found that the older I get and the more I see women suffer in relationships, in the work place, in the family and in politics, the more radical I become. I get the mindset that brought about the 4B movement and I am perfectly fine with cutting myself off of men till they act right.

Because honestly, why should we suffer? To repopulate the earth? There are plenty of people on this planet and I personally want to adopt and help children who do not have homes or a family to all their own.

Plus, luckily we don’t need men to open a bank account or own a house. The way America is trying to take away women’s rights it’s like they’re trying to force them back into being dependent on men. I reject that wholeheartedly.

In the same way I will never be with someone who isn’t black unless they are strongly anti racist, I won’t get with any man unless they are truly strongly anti misogyny.

It is the bare minimum for me. And I have seen that such men do in fact exist. Thus, I will not settle for less.

I also love that recently women have put more weight into female friendships and being a girl’s girl is hyped up. We should love each other, our friendships are just as important as romantic relationships and we should have each other’s backs.

So on this International Women’s Day, think of those women who are still fighting for their rights. We have a long way to go still for the rights of women. Roe v Wade got reversed, women are dying because of misogyny still to this day and domestic violence against women rises when a sports team loses. We have a long way to go.

We are not free until we are all free.

Anyway that is all I had to say on this topic. It’s been a while since I wrote anything for my blog so this feels all over the place but I hope it made sense