Resisting Patriarchy: How Daughters in Chinese Families Respond to Gender-based Violence During Covid Lockdown


Baiyu Su, University of Alberta

During China’s three years of Covid lockdowns, a trend emerged in online forums advocating for Chinese young women to act out (fafeng), defined as adopting a tough, aggressive approach, to cope with parental abuse of daughters and gender double standards imposed by their parents. This research investigates the narratives of fafeng and identifies the conditions for an efficacious fafeng that can result in improved treatments. Furthermore, I position the advocacy of fafeng and explore its implications within the context of contemporary “decentralized” feminism in China, where (1) women engage in online feminist activities without central leaders or formal feminist organizations, and (2) discussions about gender issues are more commonly led by laypersons rather than explicit feminists. By shifting the focus from feminist activists to the ways laypersons cope with gender oppression, this research expands the scholarly understanding of female rebels, both in China and beyond. Based on 10 months of observation and analysis of 15 posts in which women describe their fafeng scenes on a female-dominated online forum, Douban Group, I first explored fafeng as a specific kind of strategic performance. I found that an efficacious fafeng demands that abused women not only manage their emotions but also carefully choose the right moments and places for creating a publicly observable display to get sympathy and potential help from third parties. This approach contrasts with merely engaging in verbal and physical confrontations with their abusive parents, as it incorporates what Arlie Hochschild refers to as “emotional labor”. Second, I discovered that fafeng, as a coping strategy, is a shared knowledge within the online community, often taught by individuals who have experienced domestic violence. During the experience-sharing and knowledge-learning, women naturally connect and empower each other by attaching their personal experiences to wider inequalities. This process may not directly bring about structural and institutional changes, but it is essential for building community feelings of collectivity and feminist affective solidarity. Third, I linked the advocacy of fafeng to the context of contemporary Chinese feminism, emphasizing its role as a feminist endeavor to redefine femininity. The Chinese word fafeng carries the meaning of “madness” and is often utilized to stigmatize female anger. Women embracing this pejorative term is a symbolic act of transforming the old bad into a new normal. I further connected it to another feminist attempt at reshaping the old good into a new bad: repudiating the image of the “good daughter” as assessed within Chinese filial piety culture. These endeavors of redefining femininity offer women an alternative perspective to examine the ideals ingrained in patriarchal society and establish the moral legitimacy of female rebels in China. China’s special surveillance monitoring environment generates a prevalent suppressed attitude toward identifying oneself as a feminist and participating in protests in the real world. Therefore, focusing solely on feminist groups or activists is insufficient if we aim to grasp the complete picture of today’s Chinese feminism, as well as similar situations in other places. By revealing the rebellious thoughts underlying “girl talk” in female groups, my research redirects attention to the ways in which laypersons resist gender oppression.

This paper will be presented at the following session: