peizhuliu Feminism, Freedom of Speech, Gender, Language, Weibo

田园女权 (Countryside Feminism ) on Weibo: a citizen sociolinguistics perspective

Editor’s Note:  This is a guest post by Peizhu Liu, an Educational Linguistics PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania.  

A year ago,  a newly-coined expression – 田园女权(Countryside Feminism ) –attracted my attention on Weibo, which is one of the biggest social media platforms in China, with over 445 million monthly active users as of 2018 (“Sina Weibo”, 2019). Even though I had already sensed the negative connotation of the expression by reading the online discourse surrounding it, for example,  我不是反对女权，我是反对田园女权 (What I am against is not feminism but countryside feminism), there were still questions that puzzled me: what’s the origin of this expression? What does it mean exactly? Who coined it, and for what purpose?

A thorough search online led me to many possible explanations. For example, according to Feng (2018) and Zhifu (the Chinese equivalent of Quora), the term “countryside feminism” (tián yuán nǚ quán) has a reference to the Chinese “rural dog” (tián yuán quǎn), a breed that is indigenous to China, but viewed as lowly and without a pure lineage. By linking Chinese indigenous dogs with Chinese feminism, the term disparages the Chinese feminist movement as outside the mainstream women’s liberation movement in the West, and attaches to it a connotation as something coarse and unsophisticated.

In addition, Jikipedia (Figure 1), the Chinese equivalent of Urban Dictionary, defines 田园女权 (countryside feminism) as follows: These women fight for gender equality on the surface; however, they in fact only desire the same rights that men have, but refuse to take on the responsibility (“中华田园女权”, 2017).

Figure 1.

Screenshot 2020-01-01 13.56.43

Despite the definitions that I found online, I was interested in learning how this term – countryside feminism – is utilized by internet users on social media. Since Weibo is one of the most popular social media platforms in China, and since it allows people to publicly express themselves in real time and interact with other users they might not know (Programmer, 2018), I chose it as the site where I collected the data.

Research Questions

I formulated three research questions as follows:

  • What’s the connotation of the term 女权 (feminism) on Weibo?
  • What is the definition of 田园女权 (countryside feminism) to Weibo Users?
  • What might these discussions of the terms 女权(feminism) and 田园女权 (countryside feminism) teach us about the status quo of feminism in China?

Method

I posted a survey on Weibo using my own account (Figure 2). The questions in my survey include, but are not limited to:

  • What do you think of the connotation of “feminism” on Weibo? Is it positive, negative, or neutral?
  • Do you know the meaning of “countryside feminism”? What’s the difference between “feminism” and “countryside feminism”?

Figure 2.

Screenshot 2020-01-01 14.02.12

My goal was to collected 30-50 responses, but what happened greatly exceeded my expectations. Since this questionnaire was re-posted by quite a few influencers, most of whom are feminists, I received 392 comments within the next 24 hours. Due to time constraints, I randomly selected 100 comments to analyze.

Analysis & Findings

For the first research question (what do you think the connotation of “feminism” on Weibo?), I counted the numbers of respondents who hold different opinions and calculated the percentage. The result shows that 52% of the respondents believe that the term “女权(feminism)” has a negative connotation on Weibo; 6% of the people think that the term is positive; 16% of the respondents think it is neutral (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Screenshot 2020-01-01 14.05.04

For the second question (Do you know the meaning of “countryside feminism”? What’s the difference between “feminism” and “countryside feminism”?), I categorized answers according to the main idea expressed by the users and listed the popular definitions of “田园女权 (countryside feminism)”. The top three definitions are as follows:

  • It was coined by Chinese men as a way to stigmatize Chinese feminism because they feel that Chinese feminism is coarse and vulgar (48%).
  • Country feminists only support women’s privilege, rather than gender equality, and they only want rights but not responsibility (18%).
  • Countryside feminists hate Chinese males, but love European and American males (6%).

In addition, as I visited the home pages of 15 well-known feminist accounts (each has at least 100,000 followers) and pages of 30 respondents who claim to be feminists, another interesting finding emerged: none of their account names include the term “feminism/feminist”. Even in the section of the profile description, the term “feminism/feminist” is rarely found (see figure 4 and 5, for example – they are two of the most famous feminist Weibo accounts).

Figure 4.

Screenshot 2020-01-01 14.09.25

Figure 5.

Screenshot 2020-01-01 14.10.24

Conclusion & Discussions

First, the overall connotation of feminism on Weibo is negative.

Second, the most popular definition of countryside feminism given by Weibo users is that “it was coined by Chinese men as a way to stigmatize Chinese feminism because they feel that Chinese feminism is coarse and vulgar”. This definition aligns with the perspective offered offered by Feng (2018) and Zhihu: “By linking Chinese indigenous dogs with Chinese feminism, the term disparages the Chinese feminist movement as outside the mainstream women’s liberation movement in the West”. In my opinion, an “inferiority complex” (Cohen, 2015) which is deeply engrained in Chinese people’s collective memory is reflected in the term of “countryside feminism”. Also, let’s look at the third-most popular definition, which was shocking to me. It says that “countryside feminists hate Chinese males, but love European and American males”. In this definition, not only the “inferiority complex” and “ever-intensifying gender antagonism” (Wu & Dong, 2019) but also the antagonism towards the West are manifested.

In addition, according to her work on online space for feminism in China, Han (2018) pointed out that “feminism” is one of the most sensitive subjects to the Chinese government’s censorship policy, and feminist Weibo accounts which are thought to be too “radical” are very likely to be suspended. A few years ago, a feminist Weibo account: Feminists’ Voice, was silenced because of a post calling for women’s strike on the International Women’s Day (Figure 6).

Figure 6

Screenshot 2020-01-01 14.14.33

A few days after the post went viral on Weibo, Feminists’ Voice was suspended. Figure 7 shows the message that was sent to Feminists’ Voice by Weibo.

Figure 7

Screenshot 2020-01-01 14.15.36

Under such strict control, it is no wonder that feminists on Weibo seem to avoid using the term “feminism/feminist”. I argue that the strict censorship on “feminism” also contributes to the anti-feminist environment on Weibo.

To sum up, feminism might be stigmatized in various ways all over the world, but according to this analysis, feminism is stigmatized with specific Chinese characteristics within the societal context of China. Furthermore, these online discussions about the terms “feminism” and “countryside feminism” enable us to see a glimpse of the status quo of Chinese feminism. It faces a conflated backlash from the patriarchy, a national inferiority complex, the antagonism toward the West, and the government’s censorship.

Do you have any insights about or experiences with the term countryside feminism?  Please comment below!

References

Sina Weibo. (2019, December 2). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sina_Weibo.

中华田园女权. (2017, July 23). Retrieved from https://jikipedia.com/definition/290746060.

Cohen, A. (2015, August 3). China Still Fighting Its Own Inferiority Complex. Retrieved from https://www.worldcrunch.com/culture-society/china-still-fighting-its-own-inferiority-complex.

Feng, J. (2018, January 20). Hard times for feminists in China. Retrieved from https://supchina.com/2017/03/08/hard-times-feminists-china/.

Programmer, W. C. M. (2018, June 25). What is the difference between WeChat and Weibo nowadays? Retrieved from https://medium.com/@wechatminiprogrammer/what-is-the-difference-between-wechat-and-weibo-nowadays-33db40a73e76.

Wu, A. X., & Dong, Y. (2019). What is made-in-China feminism(s)? Gender discontent and class friction in post-socialist China. Critical Asian Studies, 51(4), 471–492. doi: 10.1080/14672715.2019.1656538

Xiao Han (2018), Searching for an online space for feminism? The Chinese feminist group Gender Watch Women’s Voice and its changing approaches to online misogyny, Feminist Media Studies, 18:4, 734-749.

 

 

Betsy Rymes Freedom of Speech, Language, Language education, MartinLutherKing, multilingualism

How Do People Use Language to Get Taken Seriously?

Is speaking-like-others-expect-you-to-speak the best way to get them to take you seriously?

In response to my last post (Freedom of Speech: What you Say and How you Say it) one thoughtful reader, I’ll call him Mr. MiddleOfTheRoad, took issue my rhetorical question: Why should we let others define the way we speak?

I had asserted that we shouldn’t let others define the way we speak, because when we do, we can’t express ourselves fully, and our unique perspectives may not be heard. The more we police how we say things, the more we circumscribe what gets said.

Mr. MiddleOfTheRoad asserted to the contrary, that

“…it’s in our own interest to learn how to speak as others do. We may WANT them to teach us.”

Two questions came up for me:

  1. Which “others” are you talking about? Teachers? Police? Parents? Bosses?
  2. Why wouldn’t they also want US to teach THEM? (Don’t Teachers, Police, Parents, Bosses learn new ways of speaking from Pupils, Citizens, Children, Employees?)

Mr. MiddleOfTheRoad continued…

“If you wish to be taken seriously as, say, a lawyer then you had best learn how to speak as lawyers do, etc., etc.”

Yes, perhaps you must speak “as lawyers do” to be taken seriously as a lawyer. As another wise reader (I’ll call him City Kid) put it, a defense lawyer shouldn’t go before the judge and jury saying things like “Bobo here ain’t got no problems with the law.”

But aside from basic protocols for speaking in court or other professional settings, two problems immediately come to this mind:

  1. How do generic “lawyers” speak?(I suspect there are multiple nuanced versions Lawyer-Speak, just as there are multiple nuanced ways of speaking as a politician, a poet, or a preacher.)
  2. Is just speaking as some approximation of a generic lawyer really enough? (If you have something to say, something unique, that your addressees have not understood before, if you wish that unique perspective–your own–to be taken seriously, don’t you need to add something more than what “they” taught you? Might you not need to pull out some new expressive chops?)

There are more alternatives than speaking “like a lawyer” or “not like a lawyer.”

Yet, Mr. MiddleOfTheRoad went on to make a restaurant analogy:

“What would be the sociolinguistic equivalent of going into a restaurant and eating your meal with your fingers? That’s terrific if you want to offend people but if you don’t then you’ve got to learn and practice certain things.”

Again, the same two problems rankle:

  1. What is generic restaurant behavior? (Just as there are different ways of being a lawyer, politician, poet or preacher, there are many different ways of restaurant eating. Do you eat with your fingers at McDonalds? Lorenzo’s Pizza? Dunkin’ Donuts? Ben & Jerry’s? Might you grab an endive with your fingers at a Fancy French Restaurant if you had already asked the waiter for cutlery and wanted to make a point?)
  2. Is just knowing some generic approximation of restaurant behavior enough? Don’t we acquire new ways of eating when we go to new places? For example, I use spongy bread to eat my food when I’m in one of Philadelphia’s countless delicious Ethiopian restaurants. I use chopsticks when I’m in Chinatown, but, I may ask, diplomatically, for forks for my children.

How does this apply to using language to speak our minds, to command respect, to get people to take us seriously? Speaking on the bus, or as a lawyer, a mother, a politician, teacher or poet—speaking as an individual—takes awareness and finesse. As does eating with your fingers at a Fancy French Restaurant, asking for a fork in Chinatown, or learning to use spongy bread at an Ethiopian place.

Using language flexibly and to make points, but in ways that might be unfamiliar, that may require some extra reflection, or even require our addressees to ask questions, is not the same as being ignorant or uncivilized.

Not speaking exactly like others is not “the sociolinguistic equivalent of going into a restaurant and eating your meal with your fingers.” Not speaking exactly like others can be infinitely many other things, including being

  • poetic
  • creative
  • multilingual
  • flexible
  • intelligent.

Speaking differently can also be, even when a little off-putting, a way of getting people to take you and what you have to say, seriously.

Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we are celebrating today, spoke in such a way that millions of people took him seriously, though he was also off-putting for many. He did not let others define either what he said or how he spoke. Yet, he was serious. And, he was taken seriously (in one sense, very sadly so).

How do you use language to get people to take you seriously? Are the only alternatives Offending or Not Offending? Proper or Not Proper? Correct or Incorrect? English or Not English? What other resources do you draw on? Post your responses here!

 

 

 

Betsy Rymes Freedom of Speech, Konglish, Language, Language education, multilingualism

Freedom of Speech: What you say and How you say it

Freedom of speech has been in the news quite a bit lately. In the context of the recent Charlie Hebdo attack in France, such freedom relates primarily to the content of the message. Freedom to say what you want to say—about religious figures, politicians, the State, demographic groups…

But does this sentiment also apply to How people speak? Which language they are using? How they use that language? If they choose to say “ain’t” or “y’all,” or varieties like “Konglish” (see previous post on The Konglish Accent Tag)?

Figuring this out is an important task for the Citizen Sociolinguist. So, to explore, I sourced my Twitter friends:

 Is “Freedom of Speech” only about WHAT we say? or does it include HOW we say it?

A super-smart, zesty response came back from @nelsonlflores:

 @brymes Language policing should be reframed as an assault on freedom of speech!

What does this mean? What are examples of Language Policing as an assault on Freedom of Speech?

Here are some types of open, unconstrained, language policing mentioned by twitter friends or in stories told to me over the years:

Policing Language Code, as in, “English Only”:

  • Saying “Speak English!” to someone speaking another language when, for example, riding on public transportation.
  • Calling out to school-children speaking Spanish in the halls between classes: “Hey—English here!”

 

Policing Language Expertise, as in, “That isn’t even English”- or – “That is not Standard English”:

  • Describing “double-negatives” as “illogical” and thus “ignorant.” (Ain’t nobody got time for that!)
  • “Correcting” grammar in a way that impedes communication: Useful example provided from @joannaluz:

@nelsonlflores @brymes unlikely source: an ep of Masters of Sex depicts housewife correcting nanny–“ask” vs “aks”–as deeply violating — later the nanny deliberately uses “aks” in moment of defiance

Policing Language Boundaries, implying, “That is not Appropriate,” often done by authority figures:

  • Ignoring requests from someone younger until they follow with “sir” or “ma’am”
  • Ignoring what someone says, appearing not to understand, repeatedly saying “what?” when they sound “non-native” or simply different

 

These examples are about immediate acts of face-to-face language policing—hurtful to an individual, but momentary. However, the consequences of these acts of language policing, gradually, may significantly chip away at Freedom of Speech.

What? How? How do perhaps repeated slaps on our communicative freedoms like “speak English!”, “That’s not proper!”, or even simply passively waiting for an address term like “sir” or “ma’am” affect more substantive issues of Freedom of Speech?

This is how: The more we police how we say things, the more we circumscribe what gets said.

When we are worried about how someone is mixing English and Korean and Spanish, or sounding “ignorant” or “uneducated” or “disrespectful” in their diction, we might be missing out on what these people—who speak in a different way—have to say. I suspect we may also be missing out on an unfamiliar point of view.

The how and the what of Freedom of Speech are inseparable.

What do you think counts as Freedom of Speech? Is this freedom only about content? Is it also about how we say things? Have you experienced Language Policing that threatened your own freedom of speech? Leave your comments here!