论文总字数：51102字

摘 要

法国著名社会学家皮埃尔·布尔迪厄在《关于电视》一书中提出了新闻场域理论。其新闻场域理论的研究主要集中于传统媒体领域，而缺少对新媒体领域的关注。同样，布尔迪厄在90年代提出了象征性暴力这一概念，随后在《男性统治》一书中拓展了这一概念与性别的关系，指出性别上的不平等来自于固有的女性服从于男性的社会日常。

随着新媒体场域中个体与机构言论自由空间的拓展，特别是通过拥有丰富多样受众群体与自媒体意见领袖（KOL）用户的微博、微信公众平台，带有象征暴力的信息传播扩散速度加快。中国当代社会受到传统父权主义社会建构影响的网络性别事件层出不穷。与此同时，人们受到社交媒体所曝光媒介在报道过程中所描述塑造的性别形象的深刻影响，其中不乏对于这种象征暴力的察觉与改观。要想使场域理论与时俱进，有必要对其在新媒体领域进行相对应的研究，为后续的拓展研究提供理论基础。在过去的两年中，社会性别事件屡屡登上微博热搜榜，刷屏朋友圈推送，近期的俞敏洪“女性无用论”和偶像节目中突破传统的性别形象等现象引爆了网络群体的激烈讨论。

本篇论文会集中关注媒介内容表达过程中出现的新兴社会现象，结合实例，将中国的网络性别暴力定义为一种新媒体场域里的象征暴力。本论文还将象征性暴力的概念运用到女性主义和媒体研究的领域，并聚焦于中国的网络环境下的热点性别事件，对新媒体时代的社交媒体中出现的事件进行解码与编码形式的分析，探索中国社交媒体对社会性别领域的重新建构。

关键词：新媒体场域，象征暴力，网络暴力，中国语境

Table of Contents

Acknowledgment i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Table of Contents iv

Introduction 1

Literature Review 2

Thesis Structure 4

Chapter One: Symbolic Violence in Online Gender Issues 5

1.1 Bourdieusian concept of field theory 5

1.2 Three implications of symbolic violence in fields 6

1.3 Gender, symbolic violence and new media field 7

Chapter Two: Social Representations of Symbolic Violence in Chinese New Media Field 10

2.1 Stereotypes of gender groups 10

2.2 Hashtags on female stigmatization 12

2.3 Transgression: reverse discrimination 14

Chapter Three: Reasons behind Gender Issues in Chinese New Media Platforms 18

3.1 The traditional patriarchal Chinese society 18

3.2 Under the new media age 19

Conclusion 21

Works Cited 22

Introduction

Bourdieu’s field theory has been concentrated on the traditional journalism area, with only little attentions to the new media field. What is more, in his book La Domination Masculine, he illustrates the relationship between gender, symbolic violence and fields. As the era of new media has come to us, researchers from worldwide start to focus on this area. So, Bourdieu’s theory is expanded and enriched in new media field all the time. The Chinese internet users are using the poplar social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat for the reason of colorful audience and opinion leaders they have attracted.

The widespread of new media provides a relatively free field for netizens, and cyberfeminists who proclaim rights and social status online, appealing for a better gender relation. Meanwhile, ideas and comments with legitimate symbolic violence will be spread rapidly through the new media platforms. Many gendered tags have appeared online. These labels as the social representation of symbolic violence are caused by the conventional classification of capitals in social field, the long-time distinctions between two dichotomized genders, and the mechanism of new media communications. Netizens take the stereotyped tags for granted because of its legitimacy, imposition and trait of being symbolic. Revealing the symbolic violence behind the online gender issues could accelerate the process of gender equality to some degree.

Literature Review

Since French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has put out the media field idea in his lecture On Television in late 20^th century, the idea has been adjusted and improved continuously through his and other scholars’ studies. Bourdieu’s focus on the traditional journalistic field is criticized for its lack of reference to new media field. With the continuous adjustments, field theory reveals the complicated relationship between new and old media (Benson and Nevue 8).

However, scholars are facing difficulties in defining the field of new media. At present, the unfixed limitations of fields allow scholars to seek the interrelationships of fields when new media has become a part of modern life (Willig, Waltrop and Hartly 9). Stevenson considers “new media” as a “relational category” carrying symbolic power, which is defined and redefined by the field (1092). Nick Couldry illustrates media as a single or a collection of fields, which is with “a different pattern of prestige and status and its own value” (657). Meanwhile, the concept of “symbolic violence” of media field has been discussed as a dominant but invisible power, which helps construct legitimized social practices and beliefs (Lumsden and Morgan 11). Meanwhile, social structures make the world in an accepted order by categorization and classification based on the symbolic capitals a group or individual has (Hilgers and Mangez 11).

As for the gender issues, Bourdieu’s work La Domination Masculine depicts an unawareness of gender inequality, a type of masculine domination which is a form of symbolic violence “exercised upon social agents” (Bourdieu, “An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology” 167). Lumsden and Morgan argue that “symbolic violence” towards female in new media era is encouraging complicity by “reproducing and reinforcing established gender roles (12).” Under the Chinese context, both of the symbolic violence and feminism ideas began relatively late especially in social media fields. For mass media, gaining the capital is an unavoidable choice, and disadvantaged groups are excluded from the media field (Zhu 139). The related research about Chinese social media did not show up until 2000s, when Dong discussed the reshaping of cyber gender images in new media field out of competition for capital, pointing out that strict requirements on female aesthetics in China are exerted in the form of symbolic violence behind the screen (37).

According to Bourdieu, only we when changed the habitus behind the masculine dominations, could the sexual equality be achieved (“La Domination Masculine” 170). Li and Liu are appealing to Chinese women for building their own field by seizing their own social capitals and voice (1). In the modern society, we could see the efforts and progress those brave people made in revealing the inequality and invoking the equality through the new media field. Feminism was aimed to change the situation of gender inequality. The term “Cyberfeminist” was created by Sadie Plant in the early 1990s, which has elaborated the relationship between gendered power and digital technologies (Paasonen 335). Women are making use of emerging digital technologies to voice their rights. Female was depicted as an independent, smart and powerful image instead of being dumb on their media representations (Gill 29). Nonetheless, the idea of legitimate femininity was reinforced and reconstituted through repetitions on internet. Though women’s struggle against gender injustice is regarded as a useful and effective process, the “victory” is rooted in the construction of “femininity-as-fail” (Barratt 13). In this article, the relationship between symbolic violence against women would be further analyzed under the Chinese new media field.

Thesis Structure

In this article, the core theory is Bourdieu’s theory of fields. I will explore the field of new media in China by illustrating the online gender issues in Chinese new media platforms mainly including Weibo and WeChat. To clarify the points, I firstly will make a brief explanation on Bourdieu’s theory of fields and narrow down the realm of fields to the field of new media in China, defining the related concepts including symbolic violence, habitus, agents, capital and the field of new media and their connections with each other. Then I will outline several specific online gender issues or phenomena to illustrate the symbolic violence against disadvantaged gender groups: the female useless comments made by Minhong Yu, a well-known Chinese business man; the creation of stigmatized buzz words online in Chinese; the reverse discrimination toward gender groups. The three listed cases are used to reveal the unrealized symbolic violence against specific gender groups in Chinese social media context. At last, I will articulate those reasons behind the phenomenon of symbolic violence mentioned above from both micro and macro level. A discussion will be given to find the connections between gender roles and symbolic violence on internet and to conceive a trend of online gender discourses development in future ten years. I will make a conclusion by readdressing the existence of the symbolic violence in media platforms and the mechanisms behind the new media fields in general.

Chapter One: Symbolic Violence in Online Gender Issues

1.1 Bourdieusian concept of field theory

According to Bourdieu, a field is defined as a network or a configuration located with social positions and agents. It is said that the field exerts effects on or even shapes the behaviors of agent. However, the field theory has never been given a fixed structure and limitation. However, the change within fields is made by maintaining internal power balance (Hilgers and Mnagez 11). The fields are in an unfixed pattern with blurred boundaries, especially in the everchanging new media field. But previous research highlighted mainly traditional media field. Thus, the development of digital media provides us a novel vision to study the new media field.

The agents own a practical sense to create the position in the field, which is called habitus. Habitus can be understood as “a mind structure”, characterized by “acquired schemes, sensitivities, dispositions and taste” (Nicolaescu 3). Bourdieu described the relationship between field and habitus as a “reciprocal” one (“the Logic of Practice” 213-238). Individuals learn and practice behaviors and attitudes through schooling, educating, communicating, etc. in social field. As Miller said, they acquire “classed, gendered, and racialized dispositions” in an unconscious way (331), which is closely related to cultural capital (332). The habitus constitutes the meanings in the field and vice versa: the repetition of habitus reinforce or reproduce the structure of fields and practical logics.

Moreover, the habitus is highly hierarchized and deep rooted. In le Domination Masculine, gendered habitus is illustrated to be formed out of a deeply-rooted “system of dichotomies”. The existence of gender roles seems too natural to become integrated into our social orders, which are embodied in subject matters and habitus behind behaviors, ideology and knowledge (7). For instance, in some western language systems such as French and Greek, words have their genders, and the rules have been accepted and followed continuously. However, not all language has gendered characteristics. Chinese people do not give characters specific gendered properties. We could not make sure whether the arguments are available once being put into another type of culture. Moreover, the habitus embedded with gender roles has still not been proved through clear demonstrations. The habitus needs to be formed in a socially oriented environment and there are little models predicted their assumptions on rational action (Weininger 121). According to Miller, Bourdieu’s arguments on habitus-field relationship is not consistent with his arguments on gender roles, and to understand the relationship we should pay attention to how field’s conventions shape the practice of gender (332-333).

1.2 Three implications of symbolic violence in fields

The study of symbolic violence is derived from the theory of fields mentioned by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu in 1993. His theoretical works are based on daily life practice.

The domination is widely accepted when they are not an apparent violence, which is to say, a symbolic violence. The euphemistic domination appears as a legitimate behavior especially in culture field. In this section I will discuss three main implications on symbolic violence according to Bourdieu’s several researches on fields: (1) the meaning of the term “symbolic”. (2) symbolic violence is imposed on individual in fields. (3) its legitimacy.

First of all, Bourdieu applies the concept of symbolic relation as a type of social distinction. In his work Distinction, he gives an example of social tastes, the rules that distinct beautiful and ugly, kind and evil things (Hesmondhalgh 214). The distinction on tastes reveals individual positions in the field. Moreover, there is another concept called symbolic capital. For example, prestige, honor and attention are invisible, but in Bourdieu’s opinion, they are the key elements of power in fields. Individuals who own more symbolic capital are using them to against the disadvantaged agents. In the other words, compared with the physical violence such as gunshots and bloody murders, symbolic control may involve “the moral imposition of irrational beliefs” (Colaguori 389).

Second, the process of imposition shows a relationship of violence inside hierarchies, groups and institutions in each field. Bourdieu then introduced the concept of exercising symbolic violence to elaborate the process of imposing thoughts and perceptions upon social agents. Symbolic violence, which is closely related to habitus, is naturally accepted on the basis of “misrecognize” identified by dominant and the dominated (Zhou and Li 3). Once people misrecognize the imposition, it becomes legitimate and the reproduction of the symbolic system will continue working.

Third, Weininger discusses the legitimacy and classifications of society via taking lifestyles as an example. Bourdieu assumes legitimate culture as “distinguished”. As a part of the legitimate culture, lifestyle is “socially ranked” (137). The distinction between male and female’s body structure are imposed with a social definition, which is an outcome of social structure (La Domination Masculine 28). In the masculine order, women are excluded from complicated labors, and instead, they usually do the simple tasks. Besides, the subordination of female could be indicated when they are inculcated some morally reasonable manners in many cultures: women are taught how to behave gracefully such as eyes forward and head up (37). The phrase “man up” is used to describe a tough and brave image, which is used both on men and women as a positive manner. Social production and reproduction are male-centered, which can be understood as a practical consensus. Female practice the consensus and then keep their dominated role as a legitimate thinking pattern (46).

1.3 Gender, symbolic violence and new media field

Bourdieu also argues that gender domination is the typical form of symbolic violence. As Lois McNay and Bridget Fowler point out in their work, gender is not a field, and it is “a symbolic violence in the culture field” (Skeggs 24). Women admit sexism by virtue of legitimate femininity and masculinity domination. It is argued that men and women get different dispositions in social competition (Nicolaescu 7). In the classified society, male exercise symbolic violence by taking advantage of their dominating position. He concentrates on formed sexual division of labor and generates a sexually differentiated view.

However, femininity is not a “bounded” term, and the appearance of it can be transformed based on empiricism (Skeggs 24). In 1970s and 1980s, the concentration of gender studies is about the normative and dominant “male sex role”, and then in 1990s the research has been expanded into a worldwide scope. 20 years later people realize that there are diversities in masculinity types, though the traditional “hegemonic masculinity” still existed (Nascimento, Connell 3979). The traditional division of gender is being challenged. With the change of man and women’s roles, there are terms like househusbands, sissy boy, iron lady, tough girl, etc., from which we see much more possibilities of gender roles especially in online communities. Gender fluidity has faced some aggressive words. In art field, transgender and mix-gender groups are exposed all the way through the more fluid new media information stream, where masculine and feminine characteristics are expressed in persistent innovative ways.

Some sociologists argue that the phenomenon does not meet the legitimate conventions on gender social expression. French scholar Marie Duru-Bellat argues that despite the acceptance of new gender roles in art field, there is still a “hardening of attitudes” and “reinforcing of ideas” of the divergence between men and women (qtd. in FashionUnited.uk). Anti-words against gender fluidity as a conservative force are emerging especially in political field. US president D. Trump banned the military participation of transgender people in 2017. The “not conventional gender groups” are facing different situations with traditional gender groups.

The traditional Chinese gender view is based on Confucian thoughts, which is the rational bases for China’s gender inequality. In China, as a post-patriarchal society, men are endowed with the role of bread-winner in the whole family, while women are told to be a traditional housewife. The studies have reported gender differences which support men more than women in administrative positions (Xie 3). Besides the political, cultural field and job markets, nonetheless, as the growth of mobile web users, online communication turns out to be an accessible measure and there are influencers and key opinion leaders voicing for the gender equality. Weibo is a famous public sphere for netizens to voice their gender opinions, especially for Chinese cyberfeminists.

The bourgeoning new media field in China has reshaped public and private environment in modern China. New media has provided a new platform for personal expression. According to CNNIC 2019, The man-to-women ratio of Chinese netizens is 52.7:47.3, which is broadly flat compared with 2017 (23). By the end of 2018, the total number of Chinese netizens is 829 million, and within Chinese netizens the mobile internet use has increased to 98.6% (19). From the statistics we could see that mobile devices have been disseminated to nationwide in a rapid speed. Both male and female are the major users of internet, and most of them are using mobile devices. The researcher should put their focus on Chinese netizens’ discourse and behavior under the specific new media field in China. The click rate of Weibo is 42.3% in 2018, and it has increased by 10.9% compared with 2017. The short video is 78.2% (26). The trend of new media using would be a constant increase in Chinese internet field, and there are lot of gender-biased comments online in the forms of short videos, short messages, reposts and other innovative forms. So, my research would focus on the gender issues online based on Chinese internet background.

Chapter Two: Social Representations of Symbolic Violence in Chinese New Media Field

2.1 Stereotypes of gender groups

According to Leibold, the “blogsphere” is a good information breeding atmosphere, which allows individual to put their own fragmented comments online. The problems are usually coming in the form of misinformation, polarized or unnational thoughts and actions. In China, due to the “interactive, asynchronous” weblog environment, different online communities have been built.

The term “Stereotype” was coined by journalist Walter Lippmann in 1922, according to whom it means the “picture” draw by people used to understand the surroundings (Seiter 3). Some sociologists argue that stereotypes are not always based on people’s first-hand experience. Instead, they could come for mass media. As a stereotype, gender hierarchy is illustrated in advertising field by using the idea of “functional ranking” (Myles 86). Then, I will discuss the stereotypes caused by the hierarchy in Chinese new media field.

In 2018, the taxi service giant Didi taxi has been trapped into a big scandal after a series of murder case in one year, in which the victims are all female and the murderers are all male. The death of a 20-year-old flight attendant in Zhengzhou has triggered the heated debate in online communities. The news has been released on multi-media platforms mainly in Weibo and WeChat. Comments on the murder case went polarized. Most netizens reprimanded the taxi driver’s cold blood and Didi company’s ignorance harshly. While there are online communities focusing on the victimized girl: her selfies and personal information have been exposed online, and her appearance and outfits have been discussed again and again. Moreover, some comments even connected her death with her good-looking and attractive appearance. The girl was accused of wearing a revealing skirt and having an attractive face. Such unreasonable comments could be found on news comments section in Weibo, friends circle in WeChat and QQ groups.

Stereotypes depict all female in terms of their sexuality and their personal relationships to male all the time (Seiter 19). Some Didi drivers’ QQ groups have been exposed by anonymous netizens that they had published comments alike, which reflects that the crime risk actually exists based on stereotypes. The interesting point is that some female groups would give such a comment. According to Souhu video, a female taxi driver sent a text massage in a Didi drivers chatting group saying that the victim who wears skimpy outfits looked like a slut who deserve this. Meanwhile, the group of females has suffered symbolic violence due to the stereotypes. It has been so well accepted by the mass netizens that even female take the idea for granted. They believe that female’s good looking is for male’s amusements and fulfillment. Behind this idea, female has already been put underneath the male’s social positions. Attractive girls are the targets of crimes since their beauty is dangerous both to themselves and the men around them as the gendered stereotypes depict. So, some opinions online blamed the girl’s beauty, ignoring the main responsibility of the murderer and Didi platform.

However, Netizens have formed a system of surveillance while taking the role of reinforcing the gender norms. Stereotypes-related words are transmitted through mass media and especially new media, but some avant-garde opinion leaders in new media field are inspecting and challenging the norms. After the stereotyped comments being exposed online, the related netizens were held in custody for 10 days due to his or her improper remarks in media field.

According to Didi’s official report on their female drivers’ employment status, the number of female Didi drivers wide up less than to 7.4% until 2019 (4). Male drivers, which is the dominant group in the ride calling platform, are judging their female customers with stereotypes. Symbolic violence turns to the physical violence, and at the worst, a series of murder cases. On the level of the Didi application platform, it is reported that the Didi Chuxing app’s customer review system was accused to be full of driver’s remarks on their passengers’ looking and wearing. A lot of female passengers found they were attached with the tags like “super good-looking”, “big breast and long legs”, “cute girl” and etc., which are the symbolic images of a traditional beauty (Zhang 51). According to Zhang, media would elaborate a fixed stereotype of women and ignore their subjectivity and diversity (50). The Didi platform serves as a window of displaying information and endowing the gender stereotypes with a legitimate reinforcement. The users, which are mostly men, can judge female customers by giving a tag in a conventional value, while they also can read these tags, getting to know and following how the comment system works. Thus, the value behind the tags has been spread through new media platform. The symbolic violence against female has been reinforced through new media dissemination. However, differentiating the gender groups simply according to several labels would irritate those who bear the discriminations and cause irrational online discourse.

Moreover, according to what learnt a lesson from Didi’s series of rape and murder case, long time symbolic violence can grow up and arouse physical violence without control and surveillance. Compared with the netizens and involved parties of these crimes, Didi company, who owns the most capital in new media field, takes advantage of the new media platform by developing their app into a social media and allowing those symbolic labels on sexism to exist and be disseminated widely, rather than controlling the tags and reviewing all the platform users carefully, to pursue more profits in the emerging ride sharing service.  

2.2 Hashtags on female stigmatization

Hangtags could be seen as a quite universal type of stereotypes. In Chinese, the phrase “putting a tag on somebody”, as a network language, means exerting stereotypes on a general group such as female group or male group.

“Sex-role stereotypes” have dominated the increasingly active field of stereotype research since the early seventies (18). Chang thinks that the hashtags show its wide range online and the trend of stigmatization (People.com.cn). In such a stereotyped discourse system, “the second generation of rich” must be a lavish on spending money, and “phenix man” in Chinese must be a snobbish who is pursuing “rich girls” all the time. According to the editorial comments, the groups that have been attached a label to are the “silent majority”, who did nothing wrong but were criticized due to one specific characteristic. Female online are always being labelled as several distinct image (Zhang 51): (1) female as a housewife: in advertisements, 51.6% of female roles is housewife; (2) female as “big girl” image, who are work-oriented iron women; (3) symbolic female image as a beauty. Female groups are enduring the prejudice and discrimination.

Weibo and WeChat communications in Chinese new media field are similar, which allow all the netizens to be a narrator in a multimedia way, and the repost function might arouse much more significant influence online (Zhao and Ran 418). In 2018, the founder of New Oriental Minhong Yu pronounced that the degenerate of Chinese women caused the degeneration of China in one of his public speeches. The news has caused a notable debate in Chinese net world, and even some foreign media reported this issue. What he believes is that all women in China prefer a man with money and overlook men’s other good qualities. As a successful leader in overseas student service field, Yu has been regarded as a key opinion leader in China, so his inappropriate opinion could be spread rapidly through internet.

The continuous blame on the victim has aroused great furiousness from female citizens. Consequently, Chinese female netizens voiced online to express their opinion, telling their own discriminated experience on gender discriminations. With online protest’s snowball effects, it has become a trending topic in the form of hashtag topic. On the evening of the same day, Yu Minhong apologized for his comments on Chinese women under the pressure of pubic opinions online. Cnwomen newspaper, Chinese female actress Zhang Yuqi, screenwriter Liuliu and other key opinion leaders online, voiced for women’s equality and right. Zhang condemned that Yu’s high-level education did not make him understand what gender equality is. However, at the center of the argument, there are still a lot of internet users appearing to support Yu’s remarks on women. CEO of Dangdang.com Li Guoqing interpreted his remarks as a support of women, which has revealed the current situation of this society. Some female netizens also asked back: “Aren’t so many girls in China acting just like what he said?”. Women seeking rich husbands does become a common sense in different countries. Behind this phenomenon, it is the habitus shaped by patriarchal society that women will never have such great power.

Chang from people.cn also thinks that the tagged differentiation online would deepen the gap between different groups, which is a form of distinction according to Bourdieu. The buzz word “money worship girl” has been used as a hashtag to describe a group of girls, which reflects the deep-rooted argument that Yu has proclaimed in his speech. A wide spread internet motto “She would rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bicycle” is one explanation of this word in the net world. The word, or in another word, the tag, is always being used as a sarcastic ad negative adjective. Netizens often concentrate and exaggerate one stigmatized personality and forget the diversity of one specific targeted subject.

Negative words alike are mostly aimed at female: “green tea bitch (angelic girl)”, “tough girl”, “tomboy” and etc. Thereinto, most words are imposed with a patriarchal thinking pattern. “green tea bitch” refers to the girls who look innocent and attractive but with an intention of snagging a rich partner. Urban dictionary explains “tough girl” as “a girl who is strong, independent and capable of self-supporting”. Compared with “tomboy”, the boyish girls, the word “tough” gives this phrase the facets of independence and self-evidence, qualities which men own as a rule. Tough girl has been seen as an opposite group to the traditional girly female image. What is worse, even some girls joke about themselves in the same way: they think that tough girl has masculine characteristics that is the symbol of a higher social position. Bourdieu depicts in his book that women’s self-evaluation draws mainly from other’s social depictions on her in a subjective level (La Domination Masculine 92). They are imposed with symbolic tags unconsciously, which are actually violent comments causing distinctions. The society told them the idea that “masculinity is better” during their interactions with the society.

2.3 Transgression: reverse discrimination

The situation of gender discriminations mainly against female exists online by means of verbal violence, sexual harassment and so on. What is more, there is an emerging idea called reverse discrimination caused by the actions against discrimination, both in gender and racial identities (Joyce 1145). As mentioned before, while under a patriarchal reign, Chinese males are going through reverse discrimination as female were treated before especially in the anonymous new media field. Chinese men traditionally bolstering and putting great value on male chauvinism, feel threatened by female counterparts who are having a competitive edge in male dominated fields.

Though Chinese cyber feminists are oppressed by the country ruled by man, their power has gradually been strengthened through internet communications. With the joint efforts from active feminists and dissemination of gender issues via mass media, modern Chinese female are educated and encouraged to be independent and strong individual. According to the report from South China Morning Post, activist and writer Hong Fincher argues that feminist thoughts are heading to the “mainstream” Chinese culture mainly through internet communication such as online interactions and multimedia posts (Lau).

However, parts of the rise of Chinese cyber feminists are going to an extreme end, by violating the gender egalitarianism and showing disdained reprimands and discriminations toward male. According to a survey conducted by UK think tank Demos, 50% of female netizens should be responsible for the online aggressive remarks including discriminated words (Murgia, The telegraph). In the Chinese version of Quora--Zhihu, some male netizens note that Chinese males have been threatened by these years’ growing excoriations on their remarks of women, lifestyle and characteristics from not only cyber feminists, but also normal female netizens and they fear to give comments on female at present. It is considered that Chinese extreme radical feminists are trying to build a female-dominated or privileged society through internet propaganda, who consider and purport that male are on their rival side.

The normal stereotypes of Chinese men are expressed through buzzwords online in Chinese. The most famous one is that Chinese men are described as a male chauvinist pig (MCP) frequently on internet by Chinese women when mentioning that Chinese men who are stubborn and arrogant but paying little attention to their appearance. “The Cancerous straight man” is always the target for cyberfeminists to attack, which refers to a stereotyped Chinese male group. From the word “Cancerous” we could see how deep the gap between two gender groups has become (Li, Pandaily.com). Yu’s comments on women are considered as a typical idea expressed by a “cancerous straight man”. Remarks such as “Chinese boys are always wearing sloppy clothing and they even do not care about how ugly it looks” are pervasive online.

Additionally, the show-up of transgender groups and ambiguous gender identities have shaken the traditional gender roles. Buzz word “bromeo” is the mix of “bro” and “Romeo”, meaning a male bosom friend of a girl. The word represents a new type of relationship between two genders. Another term is called “sissy boy” (Verberg, Whatsonweibo.com), which refers to the feminized Chinese male image. A large group of people with both female and male netizens spurn at the “sissy boy”, while there are still quite a lot of people arguing that they could tolerate the difference, and even emerging communities have been attracted by feminine-looking boys’ image especially young fans of idol pop stars. The idol culture in China, which has been affected by J-pop and K-pop, puts great value on male’s appearance with female’s good-looking elements such as delicate makeup, big eyes and small face, but some female fans would post verbal sexual harassments online toward their male idol. The oppression of Chinese male’s animus inside, to some extent, causes the discrimination against sissy boys and online symbolic violence against the minority group. All in all, sissy boys are not accepted by Chinese mainstream culture since it is against the longstanding China’s patrilineal society. Many Chinese netizens would even regard those good-looking males as a gay directly due to the inertia thinking pattern of gay stereotypes.

Meanwhile, the Chinese social media sometimes shapes a henpecked male image since there are groups of men who act like this in real life, which can be regarded as an inversion of martial hierarchy in Chinese society. The image of a henpecked male, which is named as “phenix man” online, has been mentioned as a joke online and has been displayed in Chinese TV programs, films and social apps for a long time.

Honestly, more evidence is needed to indicate the situation of reverse discrimination against male in the Chinese cyber context. The phenomenon of discrimination against women and reverse discrimination against man online can be observed in Chinese social platforms, but there is a few statistics and case studies on reverse discrimination against male in a Chinese context.

Chapter Three: Reasons behind Gender Issues in Chinese New Media Platforms

3.1 The traditional patriarchal Chinese society

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