By Jiannan Luo
In late April 2024, a man committed suicide after allegedly being swindled by his girlfriend, igniting gender tensions on the Chinese internet. Millions of online comments defended the man, known as ‘Fat Cat’, and attacked the girlfriend — discourse that quickly grew into generalised criticism of all women, accusing them of having a ‘money-worshiping’ mentality and squeezing men out of the dating market.
On 19 May 2024, the Chongqing Public Security Bureau;issued a statement;clearing the girlfriend of any responsibility. Official media outlets such as;the;People’s Daily and China National Radio weighed in, calling for rationality and condemning rumours and cyber violence against the girlfriend.
The official statement did not end the controversy. Some pro-government ‘patriotic bloggers’ became divided, with some supporting the official government stance, viewing further conflict as malicious, while others believed that official media supporting the woman’s innocence;was;infiltrated by ‘extreme feminists’ and accused them of ‘ignoring public opinion’.
Gender issues have long been contentious in China. The interplay of economic pressure and a long-standing patriarchal culture has fostered a strong conservative stance on gender issues, particularly among so-called incels. China’s anti-feminists often advocate for marriage based on ‘traditional morality’ and oppose feminist campaigns, often referred to as ‘feminist fists’ — a pun in Chinese where ‘rights’ and ‘fists’ are homophones — implying that feminists are extremists.
Anti-feminist rhetoric is unique in that it often opposes state-backed institutions on gender issues, including media outlets, police, local governments and state-supported organisations like the All-China Women’s Federation. A 2021 amendment to China’s Civil Code that introduced a 30-day;cooling-off period;for divorce was criticised by feminists, while the same law’s provision not to accept lawsuits solely based on ‘marital fidelity’ was also criticised by anti-feminists fearing it might condone female infidelity.
Some analysts suggest that some propaganda institutions have;utilised gender conflicts;to their advantage, responding to feminists and anti-feminists by both emphasising gender equality and hinting that feminist movements disrupt social stability. But the ‘Fat Cat’ incident demonstrates that many official media outlets often play a reactive role and are vulnerable to criticism by anti-feminist voices. While the Chinese government can usually mobilise public support on diplomatic and economic issues, it struggles to do so on gender issues.
The usual tactic of restricting comments to control public opinion can also be ineffective due to the overwhelming volume of anti-feminist comments. During the ‘Fat Cat’ incident, when Weibo restricted and monitored the spread of the topic, the ‘suppressed trending searches on Fat Cat’ became a hot topic.
Similar to Confucianism’s intertwining of patriarchy and dynastic loyalty, patriarchal rhetoric in modern China closely aligns with patriotic sentiment. Critiques of the government often target specific institutions rather than the state itself, such as the Chongqing police during the ‘Fat Cat’ incident. As there is no critique of the state, these opinions are rarely suppressed by the government.;
But patriotism is also becoming a tool for feminists, who accuse their opponents of receiving support from ‘foreign forces’ and thereby protect themselves from being suppressed.
At present state discourse and policies do support women’s rights. The;All-China Women’s Federation;is a ministerial-level public institution and the proportion of female representatives in the National People’s Congress has steadily increased to over 26 per cent. President Xi Jinping frequently addresses women’s employment discrimination and the importance of welfare system guarantees.
But Beijing’s efforts to improve women’s rights often focus on formal discourse or institutional principles rather than implementation, and avoid discussing gender tensions in public discourse. Its understanding of gender equality itself is limited, demonstrated by attempts to link women’s rights with ‘family harmony’ and ‘reproductive support’. This leads to a disconnect between the problems the state believes it needs to solve and the actual problems women face, resulting in inaction or denial of gender issues. Official media framed the ‘Fat Cat’ incident as cyberbullying against an individual woman, avoiding the underlying gendered dimension.
Due to the state’s inaction, many institutions are becoming more susceptible to anti-feminism. In 2019, the Beijing Evening News criticised public opinions that ‘insult women’. By 2022, it had shifted to denouncing what it called ‘rampant feminist extremism’.;
The Weibo account of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, closely aligned with conservative rhetoric, asserted in early 2019 that ‘demanding men and women to adhere to the same high standards in every aspect of society, without regard to facts and logic, is not advocating for women’s rights but creating another form of absurdity and inequality’. In 2022, it;further stirred controversy;by declaring that ‘extreme feminism has become a malignant presence on the internet’.
The Chinese state, at least nominally, aims for gender equality, but its policies haven’t addressed underlying gender tensions. As these tensions escalate, institutions caught between policymakers and the public struggle to take a consistent stance. When they lean towards gender equality, they face backlash from anti-feminist forces. And even when these institutions promote gender equality, they often navigate between state rhetoric and patriarchal views, rather than supporting marginalised feminists labelled ‘unpatriotic’.
While there’s currently little indication of Chinese policymakers changing their stance on gender issues or reforming gender policies, feminists are increasingly utilising patriotic rhetoric to compete with anti-feminist forces. This strategy may enable them to garner greater support from those institutions caught in the middle.
