Date of Award

Spring 6-17-2016

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Department

Global Honors

First Advisor

Alexandra Smith

Abstract

Developed from Western feminism(s), Chinese feminism is based on a belief in gender equality. This paper unwraps a brief history of the development of Chinese feminism through the aspects of Confucianism and communism, which reinforced patriarchy as the dominant ideology in the society. Under the influence of Confucianism, the traditional culture in China considers women as reproductive tools, and believes that men are superior to women. The patriarchy essentially undermines the development of Chinese feminism that has influenced not only the imbalanced gender distribution in modern society, but also people’s perspectives on Chinese feminism. However, compared to their predecessors, who passively accepted the patriarchy taught them by society, modern Chinese are more critical of patriarchy, and eager to challenge the traditional culture. Chinese feminism has made great progress toward gender equality, which can be shown through people’s perspectives on social media. This paper will select Weibo, one of the most popular social media platforms in China, and two case studies, focused on “leftover women” and rape culture, to further analyze how people’s views have changed in terms of Chinese feminism on Weibo.

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