Cyberfeminism in China: Act under a stigma

Student: Huan

Supervisor: Ako Tomoko

Introduction

Background

On the Chinese Internet, Feminism is increasingly not being called Feminism. On

Weibo, China's largest social media platform, other words like "Women Punch" and

"Rural Feminism" are used to describe Feminism. The pronunciation of "Women

Punch" is the same as Feminism in Chinese, and it denotes that feminist activities are

just immature women waving fists for unjustified rights and even more benefits

regarding gender issues. At the same time, "Rural Feminism" means that Chinese

Feminism, unlike "true" Feminism in the western world, is inferior, biased,

unscientific, and inefficient. Wan (2018) elaborates on the specific content of Chinese

rural Feminism, which includes 3 points. The first one is extreme hatred of men and

patriarchal society. The second overemphasizes women's physiological disadvantages

while asking for more interests and avoids discussing social responsibilities. The third
is against all gender symbols with traditional nature.

Gender is one of the most discussed topics on Weibo. But the heated discussion is not

a black and white, and it resembles a double-edged sword. On the one hand, feminist

voices can bring new perspectives to gender issues. On the other hand, stigmatized

terms spread as a form of soft repression by society to discourage objection. Weibo,

the field of public opinion, has a common disadvantage like all other social media

platforms worldwide. For example, the rise of group communication increases the

difficulty of dialogue, and degrading stereotypes intensify group conflicts. The straits

make it challenging to decrease stigma since the recommendation algorithm will

conform to the user's preferences. People don't want to step outside of their cognitive

circles, and it is hard for them to recognize that their views are stigma. And trapping

in the information cocoon room brings a seemingly everlasting stigma loop.

And Weibo also owns some Chinese characteristics, such the marketized

authoritarianism and totalitarianism. Although Weibo is owned by a private internet

company, it is responsible for the content on its service. It is subject to fines and loss

of operating licenses if found in violation. The company strictly controls content

providers by an Internet filtering system. What should be pointed out is that Chinese

central news agencies are all government-controlled, which means they have low

flexibility and little speech freedom when facing sensitive topics. In the Chinese

context, sensitive issues equate to topics that contribute to the social movement. The
empowerment of Feminism by the Internet has brought about a boom in relating

issues and attracted the government's attention. Dominate media use deliberate

strategies to stigmatize distance and Black Feminism. The stigma is exacerbated by

the unprofessional nature of the Chinese news production system, which is only

responsible to the Communist Party, not the public. A recent example reveals how

these characteristics of China's dominant media contribute to increased stigma.

On April 13, the Communist Youth League (CYL), which is thought to represent the

attitude of the CPC and the Chinese government, released a web post titled "Extreme

Feminism is an Internet cancer. " This is the first time the dominant media has clearly

stated its attitude towards Feminism. The post caused a stir on Weibo, with more than

270,000 comments,600,0000 likes and 600,000 retweets.

The post is more about attitude than content. The CYL got that irritated because some

people condemned the CYL for not using women's pictures when they memorized the

Long March, one of the most significant events in determining the success of the

CPC. The memorization of Long March is to establish the consensus and collective

memory, advertise the difficulty of fighting the KMT, colonialism and imperialism,

and admire the strong will and outstanding ability of the CPC to rescue the Chinese at

that time. When constituting the collective memory, it is rational for feminists to ask

the dominant media to use more objective and unbiased materials. But the CYL got

super irritated and refused to revise some basic information errors even though the
tweet does not conform to basic journalistic morals and lacks basic facts. Blaming and

insulting feminists has become common and even supported by the dominant media

on the Chinese Internet.

There are a bunch of research about how the traditional media form negative

stereotypes of feminists and portray them as emotional, indifferent, pushy women

who reject family and declare it abnormal by using repeated expressive depictions and

violent verbal gestures in the report. And these stigmatized narratives continue and

transform in the Internet generation. How did the stigma of feminism form on the

Internet? What is the role of the dominant media played in the stigmatized process?

And what is the outcome of this stigma, and how do feminists deal with the stigma?

What can NGOs do to help them build stigma management, and what can we do to

decrease stigma? I think these are all topics worth discussing, especially in the context

of the Chinese Internet. Discussing these topics creates a harmonious public opinion

environment and promotes more healthy and scientific dialogue among people.

Literature review

2.1 Stigma: degrading marks

There is a lot of research on stigma. Stigma became an academic concept in the 1960s

when Goffman published "Stigma, Notes on Impaired Identity Management."

According to Goffman, stigma is the use of a negative identity to divide people, and
this negative identity makes the stigmatized person socially degraded. After Goffman,

stigma research mainly focuses on two aspects: one is to describe the concept and

characteristics of stigma and describe the formation mechanism of stigma, which are

combined with stigma research on specific groups. The second aspect is to provide the

means to destigmatize. Yoshioka and Maeda (2020) recommend nine practical

suggestions for stigmatized groups in the Fukushima nuclear issues. And Goffman

mentions stigma management and counter-narratives to deal with it.

2.2 Feminism and the Internet: empowerment is a two sided sword

The definition of Feminism has always been complex and vague. The term feminism

first appeared in the Western world in the 1880s to support equal legal and political

rights for men and women. Today, the meaning of Feminism is constantly evolving

and changing. Zheng Wang believes that Feminism is not a fixed doctrine composed

of definitions and concepts but an open and dynamic place where various ideas clash

and blend (Wang, 2001). David Miller considers the term an umbrella term for a

complex social phenomenon, which can be understood primarily as the theory and

practice of striving for equal rights between men and women in society based on the

knowledge that women suffer because of their gender. In this research, Feminism is

summarized as a social movement with the political goal of eliminating sexism,

sexual exploitation, discrimination, and sexual oppression and promoting equality of

the sexual class, as well as the ideological and cultural revolution that resulted from it.

Feminists are those who are genuinely involved in the feminist movement, its ideas
and artistic process.

And with the development of social media, much research takes the Internet as an

essential influencing point. Some believe that social media helps decrease stigmatized

images. The rise of the Internet offers new opportunities to disseminate Feminism and

galvanize activists. Chiris Atton(2000) thinks the media is "counter-hegemonic"

because it challenges the existing roles, routines, and signs through different

experimentation. James(2000) believes the traits of media could make Feminism more

accessible by putting forwarding de-professionalization, de-capitalization, and de-

institutionalization. Women could easily access feminist knowledge without

professional training and formal organizations. Taryn Riera(2015) founds that the

sharing of the lived experience of women could integrate females and form a

community that provides access and education to feminist knowledge.

Otherwise, some think the traits of social media determine the emergence and

broadening of stigmatized images, and the Internet also provides a platform for

attempts to silence and marginalize feminists. Ruth (2016) believes the silencing of

Feminism and related abuse on the Internet is just new bottles with old wines, which

means existing verbal abuse towards Feminism continues offline to online. Ferree

(2015) believes the primary vehicle for voice, the mass media, does not change the

role of mass media in creating a shared reality that is simultaneously known to be

shared. He understands news as a process that reflects the values, expectations, and
perspectives of those who construct the stories. My focus here is that the information

will reinforce the stigmatized words.

2.3 Feminism history in China: the inherited stigmatized discourse

and the voice from a feminism perspective

Ma Junwu translated the 16th chapter of Social Statics by Herbert Spencer in 1902,

and it was the first time China received the systematic concept of Feminism. He also

said that "the way a nation treats its women determines how civilized its people are."

Feminism theories in the early 20th century did not focus on pure gender issues but on

"human liberation" and "progress of civilization" to fight for national sovereignty.

Under the influence of cultural Darwinism introduced into China in the middle and

late 19th century, scholars were optimistic to think that the artificial obstacles

hindering women's independence should be removed to promote social development.

Still, they did not realize that establishing a new order of equality between men and

women needs to transform the current male-centred power system.

In the 1980s, Feminism was introduced to China as a western idea. Because society

still believes in women's duties, which included improving productivity, the new

concept was stigmatized and condemned by Western discourse. (Hou, 2015) Then, the

Fourth United Nations Conference on Women (FUNCW) was held in 1995 in Beijing.

Though the representative ability of FUNCW was questioned (Wang, 2005), it was
believed to challenge the ACWF's governmental discourse with diversified women's

voices. During the same period, women/ gender studies and related institutions were

recognized and supported by some universities. The professors and mainly college

girls held feminist activities on campus and closely interacted with FUNCW.

"Feminism" no longer appears with the modifier 'bourgeoisie' and is likely to be

debated and circulated. One of the most famous of these scholars is Li Yinhe. Li's

saying vindicates Feminism: "Feminism's criticism of male-dominated thinking and

male-dominated social system is not to compete for social resources and political

interests that should belong to men, nor to cause gender confrontation, but to strive for

the liberation of women all over the world, to help women break through the shackles

of traditional consciousness and to enable them to correctly recognize their value to

let more women can live independent, free and dignified lives."

Methodology

This research focus on the complicated interaction between stigma and Chinese

Feminism. Although there have been studies of the process by which stigma is

generated, I expect to find richer details and connections within the Chinese context.

Moreover, I am also curious about Chinese feminists' experience of feminism stigma

and their measures to deal with it. Their different actions and personal experiences

with stigma can provide new ideas for solving stigma. So, I decided to take the

following methodology.
3.1 Literature analysis

The application of literature analysis runs through the whole research. This research

will collect the required primary and secondary literature materials, consider the

reliability and validity of literature materials, systematically study the current research

results of gender studies, stigma studies and gender and stigma studies, understand the

history and development of Feminism in China, and try to find the unique background

of Chinese Feminism.

3.2 Deep interview

An in-depth interview is a commonly used data collection method in qualitative

research. It refers to the face-to-face conversation between visitors and interviewees

in a separate and personal interactive way to achieve the purpose of exchanging

opinions and constructing meanings. Through the process and content of the

interview, I can discover and analyze the interviewees' behavioural motivation,

beliefs, attitudes, and opinions.

The in-depth interview method can increase the data collection diversity and

understand the interviewees' thoughts and attitudes towards questions. Questions can

also be clarified through the interactive process of questioning and answering to

confirm the interviewees' true feelings and behavioural cognition. So, I could acquire

what feminists feel about stigma and their own stories to find their counter-narratives.
3.3 Text analysis

This study selects Sina Weibo as the basic scope of the study and then sets accounts of

dominant media on Sina Weibo. The research process is as follows: professional

microblog data analysis platforms are used in this paper to analyze and evaluate the

content composition, media form, narrative structure, user sentiment and

communication characteristics of Feminism related issues in dominant media.

3.4 Case Study

Expected findings

1. Reproducing the stigmatization process of stigma

 The limitation of the social media and its traits for exacerbating the stigma

How do the simplified language and higher emotional words influence

stigma? (When analyze the text, how to code the non-text?)

 The unequal totalitarian voice and the unhealthy filtered opinion sphere

The soft repression and the support from the company

2. The damage of the stigma(personal statement), the treatment of the

stigma(personal statement) , and the inspiration for better dealing with the stigma

from a macro, and mini level.

Potential defect of this research

In addition to the representativeness of research objects, the reliability and validity of

interview materials, the definition of cyberfeminism and cyberfeminists need discuss

in detail. While focusing on the actual experience of online Feminism, it is also

necessary to maintain researchers' objectivity when participating. Beyond that, the

answer to dealing with stigma is hard to find.

Also, I think it is hard to talk about the influence of class and ethnicity on Feminism

on this topic. Because feminists who feel stigmatized should first have access to the

Internet and accept primary education, it is hard to include the experience of minority

females and the bottom class because they may even not have a consciousness of

Feminism. However, they are the majority of Chinese women.

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