Chinese feminists on social media: articulating different voices, building strategic alliances

ABSTRACT

This article considers the importance of social media to contemporary Chinese feminism, in the process introducing two important groups, Feminist Voice and Women’s Awakening, who have used social media platforms for their activism in the past few years. Various online strategies have been taken up by their young members to ensure the best outcome for their advocacy. In particular, these feminists use social media to articulate a specific presence, or voice, that would be more difficult to sustain using more traditional modes of Chinese feminism. And they also attempt to cultivate relationships with mainstream journalists, building alliances they hope will encourage more gender-conscious reporting and more positive representations of feminism. While social media does not overcome all the obstacles to feminism that is becoming more visibly influential in China, these media groups stand out as key voices in Chinese feminist and youth activism today, with implications for how we understand contemporary feminism on an international scale.

KEYWORDS:

• Chinese feminism
• social media
• youth activism
• Feminist Voice
• Women’s Awakening

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The word ‘Weibo’ means microblog in China. Although other Chinese companies (such as Tencent QQ) have also opened microblog platforms, the one run by Sina has clearly been the most popular among Chinese internet users. Thus, in this article by Weibo, we specifically refer to Sina Microblog.

2. It is relevant in this context that International Women’s Day began as a socialist rally in 1911, later nationalised as a celebration of woman suffrage in Soviet Russia (from 1917), and adapted to international politics by the UN in 1975–77. In China, IWD was first celebrated in 1924 and later co-opted into the political agenda of both Nationalist and Chinese Communist parties (Edwards 2016). After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, it became more formally recognized as a ‘holiday for parts of the citizenry’, along with Children’s Day (June 1st), Youth’s Day (May 4th), and Army Founding Day (August 1st, for soldiers). Private companies do not usually observe this holiday as paid leave is not legally mandated.

3. Various Chinese words for women have a different conceptual history and contemporary significance; see Tani Barlow (2004) and Stephanie Donald and Yi Zheng (2009) for more detailed discussion.

4. Chinese social media uses double hashtages to signpost a discussion theme.

5. Women’s Awakening on Weibo (https://weibo.com/p/1008080738813470eda6b33acafa75be98097c?k=%E5%8F%8D%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%83%E8%BF%87%E4%B8%89%E5%85%AB&from=501&_from_=huati_topic).

6. We thank one of our anonymous reviewers for pointing this out. Indeed, Girl Students’ Day has been an occasion for some male college students to spread discriminatory and offensive messages on campus. We do not extend our discussion to these issues here as they were not the focal point of WA’s campaign in 2015, but it is certainly worthy of more attention in subsequent research.

7. These Weibo statistics are available at https://weibo.com/p/1008080738813470eda6b33acafa75be98097c?k=%E5%8F%8D%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%83%E8%BF%87%E4%B8%89%E5%85%AB&from=501&_from_=huati_topic.

8. This fieldwork was conducted from March to June in 2016, for Bin Wang’s (2017) doctoral dissertation, Chinese Feminism: A History of the Present (University of Sydney, 2017), including mainland feminist academics and students as well as activist groups.

9. In China WeChat is the most popular messaging and social networking app, and owned by Tencent.

10. On celebrity feminism as a particular formation of the putative fourth wave that also demands historicisation, see Anthea Taylor (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bin Wang

Bin Wang is a Lecturer in Media Studies in the Qu Qiubai School of Government at Changzhou University. His research interests include gender studies, youth culture, new media, and small towns. Bin completed his PhD in the Department of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney in 2017. His thesis examined the development of popular and academic feminism, as well as feminist activism, in contemporary China.

Catherine Driscoll

Catherine Driscoll is Professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the University of Sydney. Her research focuses on youth and girls studies, media and popular culture, rural cultural studies, and cultural theory. Her books include Girls (2002), Modernist Cultural Studies (2010), Teen Film: A Critical Introduction (2011), The Australian Country Girl: History, Image, Experience (2014) and, with Alexandra Heatwole, The Hunger Games: Spectacle, Risk, and the Girl Action Hero (2018).