Speaker 1: Yota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special
Speaker 1: of The Front Page, the nz AT Herald's daily news podcast.
Speaker 1: While the Front Page is on summer break, we're taking
Speaker 1: a look back at some of the biggest news stories
Speaker 1: and top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: New episodes will.
Speaker 1: Return on January thirteenth.
Speaker 2: People respond to election losses in various ways, from protesting
Speaker 2: to legal action to considering moving country. But what about
Speaker 2: adopting a vow of celibacy through something called the four
Speaker 2: B movement. That's what some young women in the US
Speaker 2: promised on social media in protest of Donald Trump winning
Speaker 2: back the White House. No dating, no sex, no childbirth,
Speaker 2: and no marriage in world where the next US president
Speaker 2: was found liable for sexual abuse, online, vitriol against women
Speaker 2: is skyrocketing, and the term your body, My Choice is
Speaker 2: trending online. How effective could this four B movement be?
Speaker 2: University of Otago PhD candidate Rachel Billington has researched how
Speaker 2: young people interact with each other online and joined us
Speaker 2: in November on the Front Page to discuss this growing movement. Rachel,
Speaker 2: can you explain a little bit about the origins of
Speaker 2: the four B movement. Where did this come from and
Speaker 2: what are those four bs represent?
Speaker 3: So the four B movement started in South Korea, and
Speaker 3: it's really pushing back against had a very misogynistic and
Speaker 3: patriarchal society. The four bees represent four Korean words. They
Speaker 3: each begin with be bi, meaning no or not to do.
Speaker 3: So the bees each represent four things that women are
Speaker 3: choosing not to do, and those are marrying men, having
Speaker 3: sex with men, having children with men, and dating men.
Speaker 3: So it's really about pushing back against the patriarchal structure
Speaker 3: which really almost treats women as incubators for the next
Speaker 3: generation rather than people in their own right.
Speaker 2: I've seen some comments online saying that the four BE
Speaker 2: movement is something that the West has picked up and
Speaker 2: ran with. Basically, do we actually know how popular the
Speaker 2: movement is in South Korea?
Speaker 3: No, And to be honest, I can't even really speak
Speaker 3: to how popular it is as well, because I'm just
Speaker 3: learning about it too. I think what's happened post Trump
Speaker 3: election re election is that it's really gained attraction because
Speaker 3: a lot of women are actually saying, oh wow, you
Speaker 3: know what people are already doing this taking political reasons
Speaker 3: to swear off men is not a new thing. You know,
Speaker 3: this happened in the seventies with feminist movement as well,
Speaker 3: but really this reinvigoration and noticing how in South Korea
Speaker 3: a lot of the problems that women are facing are
Speaker 3: about kind of economic struggles, housing struggles, things that they
Speaker 3: actually if we're going to have children, if you want
Speaker 3: us to have children, maybe work on helping us build
Speaker 3: a society and live happier, more flourishing lives in the
Speaker 3: first place, and then maybe we'll think about it. But
Speaker 3: if that's not happening, then we don't understand your priorities
Speaker 3: and we don't agree with them. And I think that
Speaker 3: that's starting to resonate with people across the world as well.
Speaker 4: I thought I was going to have a boyfriend by now.
Speaker 4: I had never thought about marriage, but I thought I
Speaker 4: would be at least with someone. It's hard for us
Speaker 4: to let go of this dream and this fantasy that
Speaker 4: was sold to us as women. But it's like men
Speaker 4: are not going to save us in this eleventh hour,
Speaker 4: Like we are not coming to be saved. We have
Speaker 4: to stick together and help each other.
Speaker 2: Well, we've seen this idea gain ground in the US
Speaker 2: over the last week. As one way young women are
Speaker 2: responding to Donald Trump's election victory. On the campaign trail,
Speaker 2: he came under five for comments about women, from everything
Speaker 2: around reproductive rights to Trump saying he'd protect women whether
Speaker 2: they like it or not. And then you had, of
Speaker 2: course JD. Vance came at childless cat ladies, which I
Speaker 2: know struck a chord with me, and I'm not even American.
Speaker 2: Do you think all this has contributed to the uptick
Speaker 2: in this four B movement?
Speaker 3: Yes, I would say absolutely. You know, I think a
Speaker 3: lot of women and the USA are really reeling after
Speaker 3: the reelection of Donald Trump, just knowing his history with
Speaker 3: sexual abuse allegation since the nineteen seventy sixual assault allegations.
Speaker 3: This is a man that a lot of women feel
Speaker 3: he doesn't respect them, he doesn't respect women, and to
Speaker 3: see him put in this position of power with so
Speaker 3: much power of a woman's life and reproductive rights, certainly
Speaker 3: people are feeling really shocked and really afraid of what
Speaker 3: this is going to mean for them, for their rights
Speaker 3: and for the progress that has been made for women
Speaker 3: by women over the generations.
Speaker 2: I know one male white nationalist and holocaust Deniers social
Speaker 2: media post where he spouted your body, my choice that
Speaker 2: went viral and fuelled some of this four B discussion.
Speaker 2: The fact that someone with such a platform and so
Speaker 2: many followers can feel comfortable enough going online and sharing
Speaker 2: something like that, it feels like a bit of a
Speaker 2: backward step.
Speaker 3: Pay you know, I do think that social media companies
Speaker 3: have a lot to answer for for the way that
Speaker 3: these kinds of messages, these narratives travel, and the way
Speaker 3: that polarization, ideological polarization along gender lines, and political polarization
Speaker 3: are really exacerbated over the last fifteen years. Commentsate that
Speaker 3: online awarded by the algorithm because they're provocative and because
Speaker 3: they're shocking, because people engage with things that make them
Speaker 3: feel outraged or shocked. So it's really partly the responsibility
Speaker 3: of the way these social media algorithms are actually designed
Speaker 3: to reward provocative content. Saying something like that in this
Speaker 3: climate does speak to the way that some people are
Speaker 3: really emboldened by these misogynistic ideas. I don't know that
Speaker 3: it's a sincere reflection of what he actually believes. I mean,
Speaker 3: he's got some very troubling beliefs anyway, But my reading
Speaker 3: of that post is really just about provoking people to
Speaker 3: a sense of rage and to a sense of anger
Speaker 3: at each other, which will just stoke more and more
Speaker 3: tension and increase the sense of polarization and increase this
Speaker 3: animosity between groups.
Speaker 2: And just another stat that has completely blown my mind.
Speaker 2: Posts calling for the repeal of the nineteenth Amendment, which
Speaker 2: gives women the right to vote, surged by six hundred
Speaker 2: and sixty three percent on x or formerly known as
Speaker 2: Twitter in one week. Is this alarming?
Speaker 3: It is alarming. It is alarming, and I don't I
Speaker 3: do feel like we've got to be careful not to
Speaker 3: stoke a kind of moral panic about these things, because
Speaker 3: it is in a lot of ways it is just
Speaker 3: about provocateurs doing what they do, provoking tension, provoking polarization.
Speaker 3: But it is troubling in the way that it is
Speaker 3: normalizing very anti woman discourses and ideas about repealing women's rights,
Speaker 3: because I think a lot of the thing about, you know,
Speaker 3: part of their anger and the anxiety around the reelection
Speaker 3: of Donald Trump, is that the abortion of for example,
Speaker 3: it's really about rights, women's rights, reproductive rights, autonomy, equality, humanity.
Speaker 3: And since this reelection and with the repealing of a
Speaker 3: lot of you know Roe v. Wade for example, and
Speaker 3: challenges to women's rights. It's not just about reproductive rights,
Speaker 3: it's about women's humanity. And these kinds of discourses that
Speaker 3: start to travel online start to normalize these questions about
Speaker 3: whether women really do deserve equality, whether they really do
Speaker 3: deserve full autonomy, whether they are equal to men. And again,
Speaker 3: it is really provocation and it is really about stoking outrage.
Speaker 3: But when you've got people young men online just sitting
Speaker 3: in the space where all this information is coming into them,
Speaker 3: it really does skew or give them a skewed perception
Speaker 3: of the world potentially, and when they're developing their ideas, entities,
Speaker 3: their political identities, trying to form relationships, trying to come
Speaker 3: to understand themselves, these kinds of discourses can do a
Speaker 3: lot of harm.
Speaker 2: I know that figures from Amnesty International already show that
Speaker 2: in New Zealand, around one out of three women surveyed
Speaker 2: said they had experienced online abuse and harassment. Do you
Speaker 2: think the heightening of abuse against women online could get
Speaker 2: worse in Altieroa as well?
Speaker 3: Yes, I think any trend that we see because of
Speaker 3: the way that social media operates. You know, we're a
Speaker 3: global community now. Little old New Zealand used to be
Speaker 3: that it would take a little while for trends happening
Speaker 3: overseas to arrive here, but that's not the case anymore.
Speaker 3: We're no different We're in no different situation technologically, so
Speaker 3: we certainly may well be affected by these kinds of narratives,
Speaker 3: particularly when we know that our young boys in schools
Speaker 3: and young men here, like many places across the world,
Speaker 3: are seeing content made by misogynistic influences on TikTok, on Instagram,
Speaker 3: on x wherever it is. Based on their demographics, they're
Speaker 3: seeing this content. Whether they're really choosing to or not,
Speaker 3: this content ends up in their social feeds and it
Speaker 3: becomes normalized. They just start to absorb these ideas that
Speaker 3: are being shared to them. And it's definitely the case
Speaker 3: in New Zealand.
Speaker 5: It was twenty twenty four, what the hell is going
Speaker 5: on here with people who are sitting there in their
Speaker 5: arm chair, operating their keyboard, making comments about people that
Speaker 5: they do not know, about area they do not know,
Speaker 5: and they're just file We has a bit of decency.
Speaker 5: This is outrageous behavior and New Zealand is not known
Speaker 5: for this, and we are better than it.
Speaker 2: I know. At least one American school district is sent
Speaker 2: a warning to parents this week. It said, in the
Speaker 2: days after the election, we have received reports of some
Speaker 2: students using the phrase your body, my choice, often directed
Speaker 2: at female students. That was from the superintendent of Stephens
Speaker 2: Point School District in Wisconsin, and that email was then
Speaker 2: sent to CNN. Is there a fear that this online
Speaker 2: harassment against women could actually spill over to the real world.
Speaker 3: Yes, there is that fear. There is that fear, and
Speaker 3: it could be you know, in some cases, it could
Speaker 3: be the boys and young men and maybe some other girls. Actually,
Speaker 3: girls aren't immune from their skills, and women aren't immune
Speaker 3: from absorbing these kinds of messages too, And even if
Speaker 3: they're bringing it into school or into work, or into
Speaker 3: university or wherever, even if it's bringing in as a joke,
Speaker 3: jokes do have a way of changing the atmosphere of
Speaker 3: a place, making people feel less safe, making other people
Speaker 3: feel more emboldened to express potentially more extreme views, and
Speaker 3: it normalizes the sense that there is that actually find
Speaker 3: things to think and find things to express. So there
Speaker 3: is a need to really push back against these kinds
Speaker 3: of jokes when they come up, whether their jokes or
Speaker 3: not to begin with, they have a way of becoming
Speaker 3: more insidious the more they are said.
Speaker 2: Well, I've read things about what's called the manisphere, which
Speaker 2: apparently sucks in and radicalizes young men online. I've also
Speaker 2: seen a lot of post election analysis digging into the
Speaker 2: fact that young men seem to have been influenced by
Speaker 2: podcasters and men's rights activists.
Speaker 1: Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2: What is the manisphere?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it is fair to say so. The
Speaker 3: manisphere is kind of a loosely connected network of different
Speaker 3: online channels, influences across different platforms. It tends towards well,
Speaker 3: it's kind of I feel like there is room to
Speaker 3: have quite a nuanced conversation about this, because when I
Speaker 3: talk to our teenage boys and my research, there was
Speaker 3: a sense that a lot of them really did find
Speaker 3: a real sense of belonging and affirmation in those kinds
Speaker 3: of spaces that they weren't getting anywhere else in their lives.
Speaker 3: There was the sense that they helped them to develop
Speaker 3: a sense of self acceptance, a sense of self confidence.
Speaker 3: They helped them overcome kind of addictions to pornography and
Speaker 3: help them, encourage them to get outside and be more
Speaker 3: active and start working on their body. And for a
Speaker 3: lot of young men, these are really experience is very
Speaker 3: positive things, and they may well be positive in that sense. However,
Speaker 3: the general philosophy that circulates or underpins these spaces is
Speaker 3: very anti feminist and quite anti women and misogynistic. There's
Speaker 3: this idea that men are suffering because of the winds
Speaker 3: of feminism over the generation, and men have less power
Speaker 3: now than they deserve ultimately. So the manisphere, while it
Speaker 3: can really offer a sense of acceptance and safety and
Speaker 3: belonging and affirmation to a lot of boys and young men,
Speaker 3: it's really also trading in this ideology which is incredibly
Speaker 3: dangerous anti women, which serves to really further alienate men
Speaker 3: and young boys from people in their real lives. So
Speaker 3: they become captured within this space in a way that
Speaker 3: makes it very difficult to get out.
Speaker 2: What else have you seen or heard from young men
Speaker 2: and women about how they're interacting with each other online.
Speaker 3: In my own research, there was much interacting with each other,
Speaker 3: and I think that's quite interesting, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: they see the worlds of other young men and young
Speaker 3: women online. I think one of the things that really
Speaker 3: struck me, particularly for the young men that they spoke to,
Speaker 3: is a lot of their understandings of women. Not all
Speaker 3: of them, but a few of them. A handful of
Speaker 3: them talked about this, and this really struck me. They
Speaker 3: don't necessarily have much to do with women in their
Speaker 3: offline lives if they go to All Boys Skills for example,
Speaker 3: and the exposure that they have to women online is
Speaker 3: largely through pornography and semi pornographic content. And part of
Speaker 3: the problem with this, I mean, we can talk about
Speaker 3: there's many problems with this, but a lot of the time,
Speaker 3: because of the logics of social media, this content comes
Speaker 3: across their feeds, whether they're seeking it out or not.
Speaker 3: So part of the problem here is that they are
Speaker 3: unintentionally being exposed to pornographics semi pornographic content which they
Speaker 3: actually would prefer not to see. So starts to skew
Speaker 3: their perspective of women, and it starts to it actually
Speaker 3: also leads them often into these manisphere spaces which are
Speaker 3: ostensibly quite anti pornography, partly because they see it as
Speaker 3: how feminism over years has led to kind of degeneration
Speaker 3: of traditional values and pornographi is a symptom of that,
Speaker 3: and this pornography is a symptom of women's liberation. So
Speaker 3: for young men who struggled with pornography addiction or they're
Speaker 3: coming across it and they'd rather not see it, but
Speaker 3: then you know, they have the response that they're going
Speaker 3: to have whether they like it or not, and then
Speaker 3: they might be feeling shame or feeling anger or feeling
Speaker 3: anxiety about that. Then they find a sense of a
Speaker 3: sense of support within these Manisphere spaces. So often it
Speaker 3: is the fact that they don't have real meaningful connections
Speaker 3: with people of the opposite sex, that they do find
Speaker 3: themselves trapped within these spaces which paint women as the enemy.
Speaker 6: For example, known that members of other online communities do
Speaker 6: frequently migrate two channels espousing more extreme views. The twenty
Speaker 6: twenty one study found that the overlap between users in
Speaker 6: the Manosphere and the alt right is substantial, and it's
Speaker 6: common for users who once commented exclusively in the Manosphere
Speaker 6: to eventually engage.
Speaker 3: With alt right content.
Speaker 6: And it makes sense, as I've said, that a person
Speaker 6: who has been radicalized to think women are the enemy,
Speaker 6: and I am the victim and women should be put
Speaker 6: in their place, would also be susceptible to further radicalization. Indeed,
Speaker 6: reports have shown that alt right leaders do active recruitment
Speaker 6: in the manosphere because of this very premise.
Speaker 2: What about young women, I mean, this full BA movement
Speaker 2: does feel a little radical in some ways as well.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've seen tiktoks with women talking quite positively
Speaker 2: about serial killer Aileen Wernos, for example.
Speaker 3: I do it's quite interesting because I do think, you know,
Speaker 3: every action is a reaction. So when we think about
Speaker 3: the rise of manisphere and the rise of misogynistic anti
Speaker 3: feminist ideology, you know, that comes in reaction to the
Speaker 3: gains of feminism and the rising status potentially of once
Speaker 3: marginalized groups, you know, women for example. But there's the
Speaker 3: sense that for many young men, the sense of anxiety
Speaker 3: that comes along with that, just a shifting status order
Speaker 3: where they're not sure where they fit and where they
Speaker 3: do have real struggles with mental health, cost of living, unemployment,
Speaker 3: these kinds of things. But then, of course the four
Speaker 3: B movement is a reaction to that misogyny as well,
Speaker 3: and I think a lot of girls and young women
Speaker 3: well feel liberated by this and well feel that it
Speaker 3: is a way to dip into their own autonomy and
Speaker 3: their own equality and their own freedom, and actually that
Speaker 3: they don't necessarily need men or the approval of men
Speaker 3: to be happy. And I think that there is a
Speaker 3: way to see it coming a bit more radical, particularly
Speaker 3: in the reaction that is going to come back against it.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm quite concerned about, is the reaction
Speaker 3: to the four BE movement from those manisphere misogynistic spaces.
Speaker 3: But I do think it's also important to acknowledge that
Speaker 3: the real difference between these two kind of opposing groups,
Speaker 3: the four B movement versus these misogynistic movements, is that
Speaker 3: the four BE movement is really about championing equality, autonomy,
Speaker 3: and right, whereas these misogynistic movements are not about that
Speaker 3: at all. They're more about control. So they're not really
Speaker 3: comparable in that sense. They're very different goals.
Speaker 2: How can we prepare our young men and women for
Speaker 2: the future, and how to navigate this kind of online
Speaker 2: environment because these newer generations have grown up in quite
Speaker 2: a unique set of circumstances. Right they've grown up online,
Speaker 2: They've had access to information but also misinformation, disinformation more
Speaker 2: than any other generation before them. How do we actually
Speaker 2: sit down and give them the tools to try and
Speaker 2: navigate it.
Speaker 3: I really think the only way through is communication. We
Speaker 3: need to have really frank conversations with our young people
Speaker 3: about what's going on in the worlds that they are
Speaker 3: a part of. Listen to them as well. It's really
Speaker 3: important give give them the opportunity to talk about what
Speaker 3: it is that they're saying and what it is that
Speaker 3: they are coming to believe or understand about the world.
Speaker 3: I think often, and what I've found in my own research,
Speaker 3: is given the opportunity to talk through our ideas, we
Speaker 3: start to hear the nuance of our ideas, or we
Speaker 3: start to hear the ways that we maybe don't necessarily
Speaker 3: agree with those perspectives. But often it's only in the
Speaker 3: talking that we get to hear that. So communicating listening
Speaker 3: to young people is really really important. Also, I think
Speaker 3: educating young people being very open about how these algorithmic
Speaker 3: technologies work, so that they start to realize that if
Speaker 3: they're in these spaces, it's not necessarily because of their
Speaker 3: own free will. So show them, teach them how these
Speaker 3: algorithms work, Teach them about what the platforms are getting
Speaker 3: out of their engagement so that they have more of
Speaker 3: a sense of whether they actually want to be engaged
Speaker 3: or not. And one thing that I have found which
Speaker 3: is really heartening is actually a lot of young people
Speaker 3: are turning off social media. They get to a point
Speaker 3: and they realize that they're not as in charge of
Speaker 3: their own lives as they ought to be or they
Speaker 3: thought they were, and they're starting to switch off. So
Speaker 3: my real hope is that more and more young people
Speaker 3: will start to switch off.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, Rachel, Thank you, Chelsea, lovely to
Speaker 2: be here. That's it for this episode of The Front Page.
Speaker 2: You can read more about today stories and extensive news
Speaker 2: coverage at enzedherld dot co dot nz. The Front Page
Speaker 2: is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is
Speaker 2: also a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The
Speaker 2: Front Page on iHeartRadio or where you get your podcasts,
Speaker 2: and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.