The phenomenon of misogyny in Chinese network literature

and the awakening of female consciousness

Today, the topic I want to explore in depth is the phenomenon of misogyny in Chinese online
novels and the corresponding awakening of women's consciousness. In the fictional world of
stories, we often see some disturbing phenomena, one of which is the prejudice and
discrimination against women. To some extent, this phenomenon reflects the lagging of some
social concepts, which seriously affects readers' cognition of gender equality. However, through
online novels, we can also witness the powerful awakening of Chinese women in the face of this
phenomenon.

First, we should know what is misogyny? It refers to the distortion and demeaning of the image
of women, which is manifested in the aversion to femininity, and affairs related to women.
Sociology scholar Chikako Ueno believes that misogyny confirms the subjectivity of men and
objectifies women. Misogyny has nothing to do with gender. Such as "I'm a woman, but I hate
women or I want to be a man." "And" I'm a man, luckily I'm not a woman." Such comments and
thinking are not uncommon in China.
What kind of creative content is misogynistic? Today, I will briefly list some typical cases.
1. Women trapped in love
This genre of fiction often exaggerates women's vulnerability and dependence, portraying them
as dependent on men to survive. The female lead is often portrayed as weak and in need of the
protection of the male lead, which undoubtedly weakens the independence and autonomy of
women and further strengthens the traditional gender role division. Shaping this kind of female
image actually hides the possibility of women's success directly by themselves. In other words, it
sets the goal of women's life as "to get a man's love" rather than money, status, knowledge such
as the most mundane and most useful things. Secondly, the exaggerated abuse in some novels
has also become a major manifestation of misogyny. Women go through many hardships in these
stories and finally the good reward is to get the love of men, and even many of the misfortunes
of women in novels are related to men. This setting makes it easy for readers to mistake male
control as a kind of romance and passion, while female bondage is a kind of happiness. Women
become emotional victims in these stories, rather than individuals of individual value, and many
readers are unaware of the problem. There are also some stories that were originally very good
female characters will eventually give up their careers and dreams to choose men to care for
their children, which is also to reinforce the stereotype that women will eventually marry.
2. Women who are "sexualized”
One of the remarkable manifestations of women being "objectified" is that their identity as
"sexual objects" is infinitely enlarged, and even becomes their only "label". A typical example in
the field of Chinese net writing is "virginity complex". Not only in male frequency novels, even
some female frequency novels will also have, many female readers are very concerned about
whether the female protagonist is a virgin, and the male protagonist is very tolerant. More
frightening than the "virgin complex" is the double standard attitude towards male and female
chastity. In many novels, the female protagonist often works for four or five years and must not
have been in love, and even if she is in love, she absolutely has not had a relationship, at least
before the male protagonist appears, she must be clean. Even in many novels, the punishment
for a woman is to make her lose her virginity, and once she loses her virginity, she must die of
shame, and women who do not keep their virginity for men will most likely not get a good
ending. In the same novel, the man can have relations with multiple women, as long as he loves
the woman in the end, then everything can be forgiven. This is a moral constraint only for
women, because if a morality is legitimate and universal, then it should be followed by all people,
not become the exclusive morality of a single gender.

And we should realize that network novels, as a mass cultural product, can not be ignored in
guiding social concepts. In the process of creation, the author's choice directly affects the
reader's cognition of social and gender issues. Therefore, as the creators of online novels, they
should create more responsibly, by showing more three-dimensional and real female images, so
that they have the right to think independently and make their own choices in the story.
Fortunately, more and more female authors are beginning to realize this.

In March this year, Ai LAN, a Chinese female online writer, published a long post on Weibo about
reflecting on her own creation, which caused wide discussion. In the long article, she reviewed
her own writing process, and made a sincere analysis and deep reflection on the misogynistic
thoughts in her creation.
In it, she mentions:
"And then I realized that the novels I wrote seemed to sing about love, to be beautiful, to be
tender, to make men love and to keep virginity for men, I began to wonder what the meaning of
such words converged on women, I asked myself, if some words are widely used in women, but
are not sought after in men, it is still worth our pursuing?"
Ai Lan used "misogyny" and "male coagulation" to describe her own creation. For a woman to
write a novel, such a declaration is certainly ground-breaking. It takes a great deal of courage and
determination for a popular author to be able to criticize old works so soberly, and to counter the
doubts with the existing readership.

In the end, each of us is a part of society and a source of change. In real life, we need to guide the
people around us to view gender equality correctly through words and deeds, and encourage
women to pursue their dreams and develop their careers. Only through the joint efforts of the
whole society can we gradually change the phenomenon of misogyny in online novels, so that
the works can better reflect an inclusive, equal and diverse social landscape.