"You Are Characterless": The Everyday Patriarchy Women Face
"You are characterless." "Sports have very little scope for girls." "Where is your dupatta? There are male teachers here." "Only two girls?" "Menstrual leave? Your pay would be deducted." "Don't wear jeans." "You're grown up now. You shouldn't be roaming around. It's better for young girls to stay indoors." "I think I'm barely considered a woman."
These lines are not extracted from the screenplay of an ultra-feminist film where the protagonist dramatically walks away from patriarchy in the closing scene. They are actual statements spoken to real women in real classrooms, playgrounds, homes, and workplaces across India. These remarks emerged in response to a simple yet revealing question: 'What is it that you got to hear because you are a woman?'
When asked whether they took any action against such comments, the answer was predominantly negative. Women often internalize these microaggressions, navigating a system that constantly polices their bodies, choices, and existence.
The Radical Refusal: South Korea's 4B Movement
Meanwhile, in some parts of the world, women have begun undertaking something truly radical: they have stopped trying to negotiate with patriarchy altogether. In South Korea, a small but profoundly impactful feminist movement emerged in the late 2010s that rejected not just misogyny, but the entire social institutions built around it. Known as the 4B movement—short for 'four Nos'—this ideology represents women opting out of four fundamental aspects of traditional life.
What exactly is the 4B movement? The answer lies in four Korean words beginning with bi, meaning "no": bihon (no marriage), bichulsan (no childbirth), biyeonae (no dating), and bisekseu (no sex). While these terms might sound extreme, they represent, at their core, a powerful language of refusal to participate in patriarchal norms that have long dictated women's lives.
Together, these four refusals form a clean, deliberate break from heterosexual relationships as traditionally structured in South Korean society. Like earlier separatist feminist movements, 4B is not merely about personal lifestyle choices but constitutes a form of political resistance—a rejection of institutions that many women perceive as pipelines to unpaid labor, diminished autonomy, and systemic inequality.
The Roots of Resistance: What Triggered 4B in South Korea?
There was no single incident that sparked the 4B movement, no neat catalyst that explains why some South Korean women began collectively opting out of marriage, motherhood, dating, and sex. Instead, 4B coalesced through accumulation—years of online hostility, public violence, and institutional indifference layering into something heavier than outrage: resolve.
The backdrop was already hostile. In the early 2010s, the rise of Ilbe Storage, a notoriously misogynistic online forum, helped harden what became known as South Korea's "gender wars," normalizing slurs, rape jokes, and open contempt for women in mainstream digital culture. Against this tide, feminist counter-spaces began forming.
By 2015, ideas that would later define 4B were circulating within the Megalia community, known for its "mirroring" tactics—reflecting misogynistic language back at men to expose its violence and absurdity. In mid-2016, resistance took physical form with the "escape the corset" movement, where young women rejected South Korea's rigid beauty standards by cutting their hair short and destroying makeup on camera.
Later that year, the Gangnam Station femicide—where a woman was murdered by a stranger who claimed women had ignored him—shattered any illusion that misogyny was merely rhetorical. Mass protests followed. The release of a "pink birth map," which reduced women to their reproductive potential, further inflamed feminist anger.
By 2017, the term "4B" began appearing on Daum Cafe forums and Twitter as South Korea's #MeToo movement gained traction. Through 2017 and 2018, these online circles solidified the movement, propelled by the aftershocks of the Gangnam murder and growing sex crime scandals. By 2019, 4B achieved broader recognition on social media, peaking in visibility before declining domestically—even as its ideas continued to reverberate globally.
Parallels in India: A Stark Reflection
The conditions that produced 4B in South Korea are not exceptional—and in India, the parallels are often stark. As in South Korea's "gender wars," India's digital spaces have increasingly normalized misogyny. In 2020, the Bois Locker Room incident exposed a private Instagram group of teenage boys sharing morphed images of underage girls, issuing rape threats, and casually discussing sexual violence.
What unsettled many observers was not just the content but its ordinariness: the ease with which entitlement and cruelty flourished in supposedly liberal, urban spaces. Much like South Korea's Ilbe Storage, the episode revealed how online ecosystems can incubate misogyny long before it escalates into physical harm.
India's reckoning with gendered violence, however, predates social media scandals. The 2012 Nirbhaya gang rape and murder in Delhi remains a defining rupture—a moment comparable to South Korea's Gangnam Station femicide. The crime triggered mass protests, legal reforms, and global attention. Yet the burden of change fell unevenly. Women were urged to be vigilant and resilient; institutions were reformed on paper, while everyday patriarchy remained structurally intact.
The scale of violence women face in India remains stark. According to the NCRB's Crime in India 2023 report:
- Cases of crimes against women rose slightly by 0.7% in 2023, from 4.45 lakh to 4.48 lakh cases
- The most common crime was cruelty by husband or relatives, making up nearly 30% of all cases—about 1.33 lakh incidents affecting 1.35 lakh women
- While this category saw a small dip from 2022, it continues to dominate the data, underscoring how violence is often rooted inside the home
- The NCRB recorded 29,670 rape cases in 2023, involving 29,909 victims, with over 10,700 cases still pending from the previous year
- Most victims were young: nearly 20,000 were between 18 and 30 years old, and 852 were children, including some below the age of six
Personal Stories: The Indian Classroom Experience
Shravya Singh, a teenager studying in a co-ed school in Ranikhet, recalled the differences in treatment meted out to boys and girls in her school. "I remember once, when I was standing with a friend, a teacher came up to us and said that your body looked 'heavy' and the shirt looked 'odd' and asked to go sit in the medical room instead," she shared.
When asked if she saw a possibility of "ditch the sweater" as a protest in her school—akin to South Korea's "escape the corset" movement—she responded that attempting any such action would likely mean "direct suspension."
Is 4B Possible in India?
"Too far fetched," said Varalika Aditya Singh, a law graduate currently navigating life after marriage. However, she added that she agreed with the concept "of sort of abstinence from every possible aspect where patriarchy does play a huge role."
"But in India I still believe we only do things to please, a lot under pressure to be accepted, validated and to be looked at a certain way. Women might choose to live this way but secretly," she explained.
Neeraja Nath, who works as a news writer, echoed this sentiment: "In India it's mostly vocal, nothing in action."
Given that marriage is deeply ingrained in Indian culture, when asked if it was a patriarchal institution, Singh "absolutely" agreed. However, she added nuance: "Marriage might not be entirely patriarchal but the conditioning has always been that."
"I cannot and also don't want to defy an entire institution because patriarchy has seeped everywhere. Marriage is just more convenient also because there's a lot of stigma attached if in the longer run the relationship doesn't work out," she concluded.
The Core Question: Is 'Opting Out' the Only Way?
"Patriarchy breaks every sense of one's existence. As much as you might want to resist you somehow see yourself being a part of it. It's a sad state because then you don't feel honest but also can't help," reflected Varalika Aditya Singh.
She emphasized the importance of breaking through conditioning: "Breakthrough from the entire conditioning is important. I don't believe we can resist and also be a part of it."
Bhagya Luxmi, a former journalist, captured the pervasive nature of patriarchal control: "Patriarchy's hold on women runs so deep that from the moment they are born until they die, the dark, unyielding shadow of men follows them everywhere."
In this context, movements like 4B represent not just personal choices but political statements—attempts to create spaces where women can exist outside patriarchal frameworks, even if only symbolically. Whether through radical refusal in South Korea or quiet resistance in India, women continue to navigate and challenge systems that seek to define their worth, their bodies, and their lives.
