South Korea More and more young women are not interested in finding a boyfriend or dreaming of a fairy wedding.

"I'm a real woman, but I'm not interested in a relationship with men," said Bonnie Lee, 40, a single woman living near Seoul. She was not interested in finding a boyfriend and vowed to decide her own happiness.

Lee is not alone, as more and more Korean women turn away from the rigid patriarchal rules of marriage in the country and vow never to marry, have no children or even date or have sex. sex.

"I always feel that a woman getting married will have more disadvantages than advantages," Lee said. She has two master's degrees and lives with a pet dog in a house near Seoul.

Lee is currently a member of the "4B" or "4 no" national radical movement, including "no sex, no dating, no marriage and no parenting."

"In a marriage, it doesn't matter what your previous work experience or life is," Lee said. "There are even some ridiculous reasons, that high education becomes a minus point in marriage. The most important thing for a wife is whether you have the ability to take care of your husband and her husband's family," she said. say more.

Lee witnessed friends with good academic background, success at work but having problems after getting married and having children. This issue has even become a topic in a recent Korean hit film "Kim Ji-young, Born in 1982".

The film is based on a novel on the controversial feminist topic by female author Cho Nam-joo, a former scriptwriter for television shows. The novel is about a Korean woman who gives up her job after marriage, struggles to raise a child in a patriarchal living condition, without any help from her husband.

The film became a phenomenon in the land of kimchi and was rated by a female audience of 9.5 / 10 on the leading search engine in this country. Meanwhile, the male audience only rated the movie 2.8 points.

Not only Master Lee, more women are turning away from traditional attitudes, which value the dominance of men in Korean society, where wives spend four times more time doing household chores. with husband. Ten years ago, nearly 47% of single and unmarried Korean women thought marriage was necessary. By last year, this number had dropped to 22.4%. While the number of engaged couples decreased to 257,600, from 434,900 in 1996.

There is no official data on the size of the 4B movement, but its members say they have at least 4,000 followers. Meanwhile, another feminist YouTube channel with the aim of boycotting marriages and giving birth has more than 100,000 subscribers.

Master Lee is also a member of the "Escape the Corset" movement, a movement against Korea's strict beauty standards. Some followers of this movement share videos that destroy their personal makeup. The group emerged after a number of hidden camera movements and to protect women who are sexually abused in South Korea as well as globally.

Yoon Ji-hye, a 24-year-old YouTuber, argues that Korean women are often perceived as "passive, childish and effervescent", but attractive and desirable. She also participated in the "Escape the Corset" movement, cut short hair, bare face as a way to challenge the world-renowned cosmetic industry of Korea.

"I used to spend hours learning professional makeup techniques through videos on YouTube and spent about $ 200 on beauty products every month," said Yoon, who lives with her parents. The 24-year-old said that her ex-girlfriend liked her with long hair and did not support her feminist movement. Yoon doesn't boycott dating or sex, but she explains, "there are different options and ways to satisfy yourself".

Shin Gi-wook, a sociologist at Stanford University, USA, thinks that "4B" and "Escape the Corset" are the most radical feminist groups in Korea. "Four things - marriage, motherhood, dating and sex often put women in a position that depends on men," Shin said. He said this movement is helping Korean women to strengthen women's rights.

South Korea's total fertility rate, which is the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, drops to 0.98 in 2018, lower than the 2.1 level needed to stabilize the country's population. this.

The South Korean government predicts that 55 million people will decline to 39 million by 2067 and half of the population will be 62 years of age or older. The Korean authorities have also strived to promote marriage by providing benefits such as housing for couples and low-interest mortgage loans. But for people like Lee, the measures don't seem to work.

"My dream is to build houses for women who never intend to get married," she said.