Censorship, Discourse, and Resistance: Feminism on Weibo
Junyi Li
February 2023
On April 12, 2022, the official Weibo account of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League (CCCYL), a representative of the official voice of the Chinese government, posted that “extreme feminism has become a cancer on the Internet.” This post came with pictures showing “extreme feminists” attacking the “lack of female images” in patriotic propaganda posts.
However, about two and a half months before this post was posted, a short video had raised public attention on Chinese social media platforms. In the video, a woman was chained in a broken hut, she appeared to be mentally disturbed and was said to have given birth to eight children (seven of whom were boys). This incident has been called the Xuzhou Chained Woman Incident, or the Xuzhou Incident. In this incident, many netizens were dissatisfied with the government’s efforts in solving the case. On the Internet, posts about the Xuzhou Incident were heavily censored, and discussions among netizens on it were largely suppressed.
Against this background, CCCYL’s post sparked heated debates on Weibo. In contrast to the government’s failure to provide a satisfactory solution to the incident on women’s rights, its criticism of these so-called “extreme feminism” was very harsh. This difference in attitude has caused outrage among netizens. It has been reposted over 580,000 times and commented on over 275,000 times. Those reposts and comments include many questions and criticisms. The comments of this post have now been set to be not visible.
Figure 1. CCCYL’s post accusing extreme feminism, comment section no longer visible. Auto translated by Weibo Intl.
In recent years, feminism has received increasing attention in China. On the Internet, posts that focus on women’s survival and advocate for women’s rights often receive many responses, and social incidents related to women’s rights usually attract a lot of public attention. However, the development of feminism on Weibo is also facing many difficulties. The prevalence of conservative ideologies, the lack of objectivity in media’s presenting of issues related to women’s rights, and the strict censorship of sensitive content on social media have all conflicted with the demands of feminism and have provoked dissatisfaction among female users, making feminism a controversial topic on Weibo. In this project, based on the results of online fieldwork and semi-structured interviews with three female Weibo users, I explore how female users construct their own identities and discourses when engaging in feminist discussions on Weibo by focusing on the affordance of the platform and the construction of discourses. For ordinary female users, the social and entertainment nature of Weibo allows them to build female communities in the platform, and these communities become the basis for the spread of feminist ideas and discussions. And the female discourse constructed in the communication process further strengthens the sense of community and has an impact on online public opinion on social events related to women’s rights.
In this article, based on literature and the results of my observations, I will first provide some background information on characteristics of Chinese feminism and Weibo as a platform. Then I will present the results of field observations and interviews and follow by a discussion. Finally, I will summarize the study and reflect on the weakness of this study.
Chinese feminism and Weibo
The development of feminism in China has a complex historical and political background. Prior to the rise of the Internet, the development of indigenous feminism in China, for example, the women’s liberation movement and gender equality practices during the Maoist era, was often led by governmental propaganda. Yet these practices have been controversial in academic discussions, as Stacey (1985) argues in a book review of a book discussing women’s liberation in China, “the Chinese revolution established little basis for feminist consciousness or activity.”
In the Internet age, the development of Chinese feminism is no longer dependent on governmental propaganda and leadership. The focus on women’s rights based on liberal values constitutes the discussions of modern Chinese online feminism. Wu and Dong’s (2019) article suggests that Chinese feminism and its opponents are a new cultural formation that emerged from negotiations with a specific hegemony in the context of “shifting political economy and the rise of a post-socialist marriage market.” 1 Mao (2020) also positions the new generation of feminists as voices outside of the government’s Women’s Federation system when reviewing the history of Chinese feminism. Mao (2020) claims that as ordinary users repost and comment on social media platforms, they engage in collective resistance, revealing the potential for social media to become a platform for feminist movement.
Weibo is one of the most popular social media platforms in China. Like Twitter, Weibo is a social media platform focusing mainly on text and image content, but it also supports video posting. Discussions on social and political currents in Weibo are more currently seen than in other popular Chinese social media platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, QQ, and RED (Xiaohongshu). Chinese central and local government agencies have also opened accounts on Weibo as an important platform for publishing information and announcements.
As a social media platform, Weibo has three significant features. The first is its entertaining nature. Weibo is a multifaceted platform with a diverse range of entertainment content. Celebrities and entertainers frequently use the platform to promote their work and share updates with their fans. Regular users can choose to follow different types of entertainment content based on their interests and engage with other users through retweets, comments, and private messages. In this way, Weibo serves as a social hub for entertainment-related interactions.
Entertainment content on Weibo has a significant commercial value, and that brings its second nature of commercialization. While recognizable advertisements are one form of commercialization, Weibo also incentivizes users to create and engage with content. The platform offers monetary rewards for posts with high views and interactions, and users can purchase promotion services to increase their post visibility. Moreover, accounts with a large following and high engagement are more likely to receive commercial advertising cooperations from brands.
The third feature of Weibo is its strict censorship system. Censorship means that Weibo administrators will intervene in posts that are judged to contain "sensitive content". Censorship can take varies forms, including disabling pictures, deleting posts, disabling comments and reposts, disabling hashtags, muting or banning accounts. A complementary feature to censorship is the fake-anonymity of Weibo. In China, most software requires users to register with a mandatory "Real-name system," which requires them to provide a cell phone number that can be traced back to their real identity, and Weibo is no exception. Most Weibo users' identity information can be traced through their cell phone numbers. Thus, even though users cannot see each other's cell phone numbers, Weibo is not really an anonymous platform.
Figure 2. Form of censorship: disabling pictures
Figure 3. Form of censorship: disabling comments and reposts. This is the comment section, repost section and like section of the same post, all data are no longer visible.
Figure 4. Form of censorship: disabling hashtags. This is a post related to the feminist discussion. The post lists four hashtags, the blue ones are still available, and the black ones are no longer available. The images (A) and (B) marked on the left are screenshots of the search results for the first two hashtags, respectively. Since the original post is no longer visible, I searched for the two hashtags on Weibo and put the corresponding screenshot on the right.
Figure 5. Three different (possible) forms of censorship: banning accounts, deleting posts, disabling posts. Note that although the screenshot shows that the last two posts were deleted and disabled by the authors, we usually cannot tell whether the authors deleted the post by themselves or were forced to delete the posts.
The current feminist discussions on Weibo are mostly based on invoking theories from Western feminism and critiquing the gender inequalities prevalent in Chinese society. In this context, these discussions have two distinctive features. On the one hand, the atmosphere of discussion on this platform determines that the content that can be widely disseminated is often fragmented, lacking in depth, and sometimes very emotional. On the other hand, discussions about feminism on Weibo have a wide range of concerns, covering topics ranging from second-wave feminism to fourth-wave feminism. However, these discussions tend to be simple applications of theories, with little consideration of the history of feminist theory's development. This has led to Weibo feminism's characteristics of a weak theoretical foundation, chaotic theoretical systems, and huge internal disagreement.
Female Users on Weibo
My three interviewees are friends I met in fandom communities on Weibo. They have different occupations, but they are all young women who have received higher education and have good English reading and writing skills. They all show a high level of interest in feminism and social reality in their daily use of Weibo. In the following analysis, I will present the results through four perspectives: the female discourse and expression, the influence of censorship, the characteristics of the platform, and the construction of identity.
In the discussions related to discourse and expression, I divided them into two topics: the use of words and the utility of expression. For the former, I discussed with my interviewees about some common internet phrases related to feminism and asked them about their use and perceptions of these phrases. For the latter, I summarized from the importance of speaking.
“Nvquan” (女拳, female fist, a homonym for 女权, feminism, in Chinese) is a common derogatory description of feminism that has emerged on the Chinese Internet in recent years. It is used by some to describe people whom they consider to be radical in supporting women’s rights or against male chauvinism (BBC News, 2021). “Quanshi” (拳师, boxer) and “daquan” (打拳, boxing) are words derived from Nvquan (女拳). These words refer to feminists and feminists’ criticism of gender inequality separately. When asked about this topic, the interviewees said that they actually actively use these words to refer to themselves. They see it as the scramble and resistance to discourse.
Nian: We don’t want to conform to their language system, we will have our own language system, we will make a new interpretation of words. It’s something that is in our hands. It’s up to us to decide.
And from perspective of expression, I talked with my interviewees about how they engage in discussions about social incidents related to women’s rights on Weibo. Because of the influence of the MeToo movement on Chinese social networks, more and more women are willing to speak out online to expose gender violence or gender inequality issues that they or others have experienced. Interviewees claims that they will actively repost posts that defend women’s rights, to help spread them and bring them to the attention of more people. Sometimes, they will also write original posts to comment on the events.
As mentioned earlier, Weibo has a strict censorship system. In the interviews, interviewees mainly talked about the impact of censorship on ways of expression and their desire to express, as well as their concerns about the impact of posting sensitive content on their real lives. In terms of expression, the interviewees said that if they were unable to post something due to censorship, they would use other methods to modify the text. For example, they would use argot or abbreviations to replace sensitive words. They would also generate images for long paragraphs of text, then invert or mirror the images, and add intrusive lines to the text or blur the sensitive words in the images. They use these technics to fight the algorithms and prevent sensitive words from being identified.
Figure 6. Examples of ways to counteract the censorship. The first image is edited with intrusive lines, the second image is inverted and edited with intrusive lines.
When it comes to the desire to express themselves, the interviewees generally reported that censorship had a negative impact. They explained that if they were constantly censored, they would lose their motivation to speak. However, they also mentioned that in certain situations, censorship made them more determined to speak out.
Aside from its impact on their desire to express themselves, the interviewees also expressed concerns about how censorship might affect their real lives. All of the interviewees had experienced being banned or blocked for posting or reposting sensitive topics. Some of them deliberately avoided discussing politically sensitive issues online because they were worried about how it might impact their real lives.
During the interviews, the interviewees discussed the impact of the nature of Weibo on the discussion environment. They noted that the strong commercial nature of Weibo, where bloggers benefit from the number of views they receive, creates a poor environment for discussion. As a result, some bloggers intentionally post controversial content to stir up emotions and attract more views. However, they also argued that much of the content on Weibo is simply emotional venting without effective reflection on events.
Despite the strict censorship, the interviewees continue to use Weibo due to a variety of reasons. Some cited their attachment to the social relationships they had built on the platform, while others mentioned the convenience and familiarity of using Weibo. Additionally, the lack of alternatives also played a role in their decision to continue using Weibo.
Regarding the construction of self-identity, the interviewees’ responses were varied. When faced with women’s rights issues, the respondents said that they would pay attention to the events out of concern for the disadvantaged and their empathy as women. On the term feminist, the three interviewees had different views. Except for Shuang, who has an academic background in social sciences and immediately affirmed her identity as a feminist, Lily and Nian both showed some hesitation when facing the label. For Lily, she herself sometimes has some traditional misogynistic thoughts influenced by her upbringing, which she is trying to fight against. She said becoming a feminist was a process for her, and every time she speaks out for women, it strengthens her identity. Nian, on the other hand, felt unsure about her position. In her opinion, feminists should be more visible in their actions, such as bringing more attention to women’s rights online or offline. She believes that she has not done enough, but she is also trying to become such a feminist. It can be seen that although they were not clear about their position, they did not reject the label “feminist” and were actively working towards becoming feminists in their understanding.
Platform, Discourse, and Identity Construction
As an online platform for public discussion, Weibo has become an important medium for the development of online feminism in China. As mentioned earlier, Weibo is a multi-natured platform. Its entertainment nature allows users with similar hobbies to gather here and build communities with strong emotional connections through daily communication and interaction. The establishment of such community relations makes it more likely for female users to pay attention to the information forwarded by their friends in the community. Therefore, women's rights issues are more likely to receive attention and get reposted.
At the same time, Weibo is also a highly censored platform. The prevalence of censorship (whether it is on political or socially relevant topics or simply topics of interest, are at risk of being censored) has led users to develop a unique set of communication styles to avoid and satirize censorship. As Nordin and Richaud (2014) point out, this approach (stated as egao in their article) does not abolish censorship, but rather perpetuates it, and should therefore be seen as a potential political question. I argue that the significance of such discourse lies more in the construction of community and a sense of community. As demonstrated in this project how women's discourse is constructed: female users actively fight back against the stigmatization of feminism and compete for the right to interpret and create their own discourse. And it is only after the community is constructed and grows that feminists have the ability to change the public opinion environment or negotiate with the government to seek change from the legislation level. Referring to Weibo, despite the persistence of moral accusations against victims in various rape cases, there has been an increasing number of calls to reject victim blaming in recent years2.
The construction of discourse and community plays a critical role in shaping female users' identities. This study reveals that participants do not reject the label "feminist," which contradicts previous studies showing that some women who advocate for women's rights do not want to be identified as feminists (Mao, 2020; Yin & Sun, 2021). By challenging censorship and participating in discussions, female users on Weibo have embraced feminist ideas and identities. Although stigmatization persists, those concerned about women's rights no longer resist the term "feminist." And a de-stigmatized feminism will make more people willing to learn more about its ideas and advocacies.
Limitations and Future Studies
This study explores how female users on Weibo construct their identities, but it still has some limitations. Firstly, the participants in this study were all women with higher education and proficient English reading and information retrieval skills. Therefore, the views of women with lower education levels and limited access to information are not represented, despite the fact that such users constitute a significant portion of Weibo's user base and the Chinese internet as a whole. To provide a more comprehensive analysis of the development of online feminism in China, the perspectives of these users should be included and given more consideration.
Secondly, it is important to note that the interviewees in this study were limited to the author's personal network, who tend to hold more moderate views. However, there are also feminists on Weibo who have more radical perspectives. These radical feminists often spark heated discussions, which both draw attention to feminist ideas (even if they are considered radical), and also prompt people to engage in critical thinking. Therefore, it is important to take into account the ideas put forward by these more radical feminists, as they are also valuable for understanding the development of online feminism in China.
For future research, it is important to note that this study only focused on some female users on Weibo, while feminism has taken on a different form of development on other social media platforms in China, such as TikTok and Xiaohongshu. As I have not conducted extensive research on these platforms, I cannot provide a detailed analysis here. However, to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current state of feminism in China, it is crucial to consider the role of these additional platforms in the development of online feminism.
Notes
1. In their article, Wu and Dong advocate the use of the term “C-fem” to distinguish Chinese feminism from existing academic concepts. I think this perspective proposed by Wu and Dong is valuable, but I choose not to use this terminology in the analysis part of this article for now. On the one hand, Wu and Dong’s study is based on ethnographic data obtained between 2012 and 2017 and focuses primarily on marriage market-related discussions3; while as of 2022, when this article is written, feminist-related discussions have become more diverse on Chinese Internet. On the other hand, my project attempts to explore the construction of ordinary users’ self-identities, whose perceptions of feminism are closely related to their attitudes toward the term “feminism,” or more precisely, Nvquanzhuyi (女权主义) in Chinese. (For explanations on possible negative implications of this term, see Wu and Dong’s article.) I argue that although the use of the word “feminism” in the interviews of this project may be ambiguous at the academic concept aspect, the meaning of the word itself has been ambiguous in its use in Chinese Internet, and therefore this ambiguity forms part of the interviewees’ self-perceptions. For reasons of space limitation and pragmatic implication, I decided to retain this ambiguity in the presentation of the field observations.
2. As an example, consider the Kris Wu rape case, where some have questioned the motives and morality of the victim, Du Meizhu, after she revealed that she initially spoke out to gain online fame. However, advocates for Du argue that her potential moral flaws do not diminish the severity of the incident. While the details of the case are complex and beyond the scope of this article, Du's courage in speaking out encouraged other victims to come forward with allegations against Wu, ultimately leading to his arrest and conviction.
3. The marriage market, along with fertility issues, is a commonly discussed topic in Chinese feminism. Currently, feminism is often critical of the institution of marriage, and there is a widespread dissemination of the risks associated with childbearing, which can make young women hesitant to get married and have children (notably, economic and social pressures’ contribution to the low fertility intentions of both young women and men are not to be ignored). The government views the declining marriage and fertility rates as potential causes of demographic and economic problems, which it wants to avoid. Weibo, as a social media platform, serves as a place for users to discuss social issues, while also being subject to government control over the content. Thus, censorship involves the interaction of users, the platform, and the government. It is inappropriate to categorize censorship of feminist content as either a platform action or a government action. This argument is presented here tentatively, and due to space constraints, a more detailed account cannot be provided.