Some social media users have started to fight back after women are shaving their heads to protest President-elect Donald Trump's second administration.
What started as a trend on TikTok for women to shave their heads in protest of the election results has become somewhat a more sensitive topic for others with alopecia and those who had to shave their heads for diseases like cancer, conditions where baldness is not always a choice.
"To the women shaving their head for the 4B Movement, you say you're saving your head so 'men won't want you' but does that mean that men shouldn't want women that have struggled with hair loss due to alopecia or chemo?" a TikTok user @xlaurnalexis posted with a slide show of photos of her. "You're (sic) actions are very selfish and it's only effecting (sic) the women that have struggled with hair loss. Should we not be able to feel loved by a man?"
Newsweek reached out to Lauryn as well as other TikTok users on the issue.
@alyssakp1 shared a "PSA" that she is bald but not for political reasons.
"I bald because my body hates me, not because I hate men," @alyssakp1 posted. "Justice for the alopecia baddies and the hair loss community."
The trend of women shaving their heads seems to have started with Maria Barbieri, who posted under the handle @girl_dumphim. Barbieri said she woke up "feeling spicy" and used both a razor and clippers to say "f*** being all the things that the patriarchy wants us to be because, clearly, they don't give a s*** about us."
Barbieri's original video and account seem to no longer be on the TikTok platform, but other women have taken to the trend as well. Sidney, who has the username @sidneyandthecity, said she "took the clippers to my head and shaved it all off" in order to take "back the narrative."
4B Movenent ✊🏼 Today, I took the clippers to my head and shaved it all off. It wasn’t just a change in style. It was a rebellion—a loud, intentional, in-your-face protest against the patriarchy and the suffocating grip of the male gaze. For far too long, women have been conditioned to believe that their worth is wrapped up in strands of hair, the curve of their hips, or how closely they conform to standards dreamt up by a society engineered to objectify and commodify our existence. The idea that beauty must align with what men find attractive? That ends now. This is me taking back the narrative, redefining beauty on my own terms, and pushing myself—and anyone who feels a stirring reading this—to step beyond the confines of societal expectations. Shaving my head wasn’t about rejecting femininity; it was about defying the idea that our femininity needs validation through the lens of male approval. As a proud member of the 4B movement, this was also an emotional reminder that women, myself included, are at a critical juncture where we need to focus on things outside of our looks. We have bigger battles to fight, greater visions to build, and voices that need to be heard for what we say rather than how we look while saying it. Existing outside the male gaze is a form of feminist protest. It’s a declaration that we see ourselves, for ourselves. We decide our worth, our style, our identities, and none of it needs to be filtered through what makes anyone else comfortable. If it makes some people uncomfortable, good. That means it’s working. The system doesn’t change until we make noise, break norms, and embody choices that refuse to cater to anyone’s gaze but our own. So here’s to bald heads, shaved sides, and every act of defiance that screams we own this. LFG.✊🏼 #4B #5B #6B #B4B #fthepatriarchy #DefyThePatriarchy #4BMovement #4bmovementusa #Feminist #ReclaimYourNarrative #LFG #RadicalFeminist #proudfeminist #UnapologeticallyMe #shavedhead #4btiktok #4bmovementexplained
♬ Little Girl Gone - CHINCHILLA"It was a rebellion – a loud, intentional, in-your-face protest against the patriarchy and the suffocating grip of the male gaze," Sidney said in the video's caption. "For far too long, women have been conditioned to believe that their worth is wrapped up in strands of hair, the curve of their hips, or how closely they conform to standards dreamt up by a society engineered to objectify and commodify our existence.The idea that beauty must align with what men find attractive?That ends now."
This mindset, however, is what TikTok users like Noell Babb have an issue with, noting in a video that it's "as if shaving your head is going to make you ugly or less attractive."
"I'm all for women's rights and fighting for what you believe," Babb posted. "But shaving your head to try and correlate baldness to being unattractive is a slap in the face to those who lost their hair not by choice but from poison aka cancer treatment."
Gina Corbin posted a video on TikTok making fun of the women who are shaving their heads, saying she has "no words" because "that's your hair and you're just going to shave it?"
"I'm just not sure what else to do at this point," Gina Corbin posted. "The best thing I can think of is I'm gonna have to shave my head and stop wearing makeup and divorce my husband...Are you kidding me right now?"
What is 4B?
Thousands of people on TikTok and X, formerly known as Twitter, have been posting about participating in the 4B movement, a feminist protest movement that originated in South Korea in 2019.
The movement is gaining traction in reaction to the male majority that voted for Trump and could have strong sociopolitical ramifications.
The 4B movement stipulates four "nos": no sex with men, no giving birth, no dating men and no marriage with men. The words for the terms in Korean all begin with the prefix "bi" which means "no," as reported by Bustle.
The 4B movement, which began on Twitter in 2017, officially took off in 2019 amid a wave of anti-feminist movements following the election of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol.
Trump's rhetoric and his appointment of three of the Supreme Court justices, who overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022 leading to abortion bans nationwide, have helped leave supporters of 4B in the U.S. feeling that gender inequality is a major problem, with women on average paid 84 percent of what a man is while working full-time, year-round, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
For many, Trump's legal history has further fueled female outrage, since he was found liable for sexual assault against E. Jean Carroll, an event that some say normalizes predatory behavior.
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