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