Trapped in My Roles as a Woman With No Help: Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence Against Chinese Women

Chinese Women's Silence About Their IPV Experiences

Chinese women tend to stay silent about their experiences of IPV, creating one of the largest challenges to learning about their IPV experiences. A cross-cultural review of factors influencing women's disclosure about IPV has identified concerns for family and children, social expectations, and the normalization of violence as common contributing factors to women's silence (Pokharel et al., 2020). Besides those shared factors, a myriad of unique cultural and social factors further exacerbate silence about IPV for Chinese women, including “face” culture, the value of “harmony,” and a high level of IPV tolerance enabled by rigid gender roles.

It is vital to understand how “face” (mianzi) culture and the cherished value of “harmony” (hexie) play out in the concealment of IPV within the collective cultural context of China. “Face” culture is a cultural environment where other people's perceptions of someone strongly and directly matter to an individual's dignity. A previous qualitative study found that the belief that disclosure of IPV would make them lose “face” in their social networks, from family members to friends and neighbors, prevented Chinese women from revealing IPV (Yuen-Tsang & Sung, 2005).

The importance of harmony adds another barrier for women to disclose IPV, as Chinese women tend to avoid conflicts whenever possible. The desire to avoid conflicts is reflected in the responses to IPV among Chinese people, who prefer informal social control of IPV rather than public or legal responses (Li et al., 2013). The Chinese people prefer police to mediate (Hayes et al., 2022), recommending women to reconcile with their partners in order to return the relationship or family to a state of harmony. The collective nature of Chinese culture and society also comes into play; the good of an individual is closely tied to the benefits for the group, such as family, and always gives way to the group whenever there is a conflict. Thus, the social capital owned by Chinese women, the close connections with family members, can further silence women and trap them in the abusive relationship. In the context of IPV, disclosure not only affects the “face” of the women, but more importantly impacts the “face” of the family and would be a severe threat to the “harmony” of the family. Though the access to resources resulting from IPV disclosure might outweigh the loss of “face” of the woman herself, women are expected, and have internalized the expectation, to prioritize the family and to make necessary sacrifices, that is, stay silent and keep IPV within the family, to preserve the “face” of their partners (Chan, 2006), and to avoid further family conflicts that may be associated with IPV disclosure.

In addition to these internal struggles, Chinese women are further silenced by a social environment with a high level of IPV tolerance enabled by rigid gender roles. Though an anti-domestic violence law was enacted in 2016 in China (Anti-Domestic Violence Law of the People’s Republic of China, 2015), IPV is still viewed less as a crime (Li et al., 2020; Wu et al., 2013) and more as a private or domestic issue consistent with the patriarchal tradition within Chinese society. The previous studies of Chinese college students indicated a higher level of tolerance of IPV (Li et al., 2020) and a lower level of sympathy for women who experienced IPV compared to their US counterparts (Pugh et al., 2021). Victim-blaming attitudes that ask women to take responsibility for being abused by their partners are still prevalent in Chinese society (Leung, 2019; Nguyen et al., 2013). The fear of being criticized was listed as one contributor to women's silence about IPV (Yuen-Tsang & Sung, 2005). Rooted in gender inequality reinforced by rigid gender roles, the potential punishment or harm associated with IPV disclosure further isolates women, keeps women captive in abusive relationships, and keeps them from asking for help (Tam et al., 2016). As a result, Chinese women internalize a high tolerance of IPV as one of their coping strategies, further strengthening the multiple barriers to IPV disclosure in this population.

What Do We Know About IPV Experiences Among Chinese Women?

Gender roles, the socially prescribed division in behaviors and attitudes relevant to sex (Lindsey, 2020), are a main driving force shaping IPV experiences among Chinese women. Traditional gender roles are not uncommon within the Chinese context in which men are expected to be the breadwinners of the family while women are responsible for housework. This rigid gender divide in responsibilities is rooted in the long-preserved gender inequality where women are subordinate to men and are expected to sacrifice for the family. This can be best exemplified by the Confucian moral principle of Three Obediences (san cong): to obey her father as a daughter before marriage; obey her husband as a wife during marriage; obey her son as a mother when widowed. As gender roles slowly shift from more rigid toward more flexible and egalitarian, education and employment opportunities open and make it possible for women to also provide for the family. However, an overall decrease in women's employment was observed from 69.6% in 1990 to 61.5% in 2013 (Pande et al., 2016), further exacerbating the employment and economic gap between men and women. Additionally, Chinese women remain the ones in charge of most household responsibilities though contributing financially (Luo & Chui, 2018); on average, they spend 2.8 times more time on housework and 3.1 times more time on childcare compared to men (National Bureau of Statistics of China [NBS], 2019). For those who are married, the responsibilities can become even more overwhelming as they are expected to behave in line with the value of Filial Piety (xiao shun), a value that places emphasis on women's obligation to take care of their in-laws in fulfilling the role of daughter-in-law (Wang et al., 2022; Whyte, 2004).

Though it is hard for Chinese women to disclose IPV experiences, initial attempts have been made to understand IPV experiences in this group. To the best of our knowledge, there are only five studies exploring Chinese women's experiences of IPV (Hsieh et al., 2009; Loke et al., 2012; Thurston et al., 2016; Tiwari et al., 2001; Tiwari & Yuen, 2010) with only one study focused on women in Mainland China, which was carried out before the establishment of the anti-domestic violence law (Thurston et al., 2016). These studies indicated that Chinese women tended to endure violence and suffer from depression; some also revealed their fear of being judged (losing “face”). Though the Chinese societies in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan share similar cultures including patriarchal traditions and collective culture, they differ in their trajectories of social development, economic status, and ideologies. These differences can shape women's IPV experiences in a variety of ways. Additionally, all women included in these studies were actively utilizing services such as hospitals (Loke et al., 2012), centers for domestic violence and sexual assault prevention (Hsieh et al., 2009) or shelters (Tiwari et al., 2001; Tiwari & Yuen, 2010), and social services/social workers (Thurston et al., 2016). However, the majority of Chinese women who experience IPV never engage with any services in Mainland China. In fact, it has been noted in a national survey that more than two-thirds of Chinese women experiencing IPV never sought any form of help, and the majority of those who did were not seeking help from professional services (Hu et al., 2021). Women who never seek help from healthcare and legal systems may have distinctively different characteristics compared to those who do (Lelaurain et al., 2017) and may be unheard through the approaches used in previous studies.

Several factors may contribute to the unwillingness of Chinese women to seek help. First, Chinese women are reluctant to seek help from services; for example, most Chinese women did not call the police until being abused by their partners an average of 35 times (Xiao, 2019). Second, even after attempting to seek help from different service systems, Chinese women reported negative experiences and failed to get the support they needed (Loke et al., 2012). Lastly, IPV resources are generally scarce in Mainland China where accessibility and availability can be further limited for migrants without local residential registrations, close to 20% of the whole population (NBS, 2020). Thus, previous work does not reflect the totality of Chinese women's experiences of IPV, and studies exploring the IPV experiences of Chinese women who are not engaged with services are warranted.

Online Spaces as a Promising Resource to Learn About Chinese Women's IPV Experiences

Online spaces, such as internet forums, provide a unique opportunity to gain a holistic understanding of the experiences of Chinese women. Online forums have successfully transcended multiple layers of difficulties in IPV disclosures and several of their characteristics can ease Chinese women's concerns about sharing their IPV experiences. First of all, the lack of physical presence when posting stories online creates a sense of security and makes it less difficult to share intimate information or discuss sensitive topics (Seale et al., 2010). In addition, maintaining anonymity within the online space can minimize the risk of being identified by people in everyday life, addressing women's concerns about losing “face” and breaking the “harmony” of family. In the online space, especially online forums, women are surrounded by people going through and sharing similar experiences (Bogen et al., 2021). The sense of community creates an environment that encourages women to break the silence. The supportive environment within the online realm for women who experienced IPV (Chu et al., 2021) has also been found to reduce their anxiety about being blamed for disclosure and further motivates them to share their experiences.

Researchers have successfully used different online platforms, including forums and other social media, to study sensitive topics or stigmatized experiences including IPV and sexual abuse (Bogen et al., 2021; Chu et al., 2021; Storer et al., 2021). Enabled by an internet coverage rate of 55.8% (China Internet Network Information Center, 2018), the secure and open platform offered by online forums (Holtz et al., 2012) creates a unique space for Chinese women to share their stories of IPV and thus becomes an appropriate source of information about their experiences.

This study aims to describe experiences of IPV against Chinese women using the conventional qualitative content analysis of posts shared on a public online forum on domestic violence from October 2017 to October 2018.

Design and Data Source

A qualitative descriptive study design was used (Colorafi & Evans, 2016). Data for this study were collected from the Chinese online forum on domestic violence from Baidu Tieba Platform (referred to as “DV forum” hereafter) (家庭暴力吧, accessed here: https://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=家暴&fr=index&fp=0&ie=utf-8). DV forum is an online community with a focus on information and discussion relevant to domestic violence, one out of the over 20 million forums covering a huge variety of themes and interests on the platform. DV forum was selected as the data source given its large number of users, active community interactions, specific themes on domestic violence including IPV, and a supportive environment. This environment revealed that people replied mostly with supportive messages, with only a few messages blaming the victims when sharing IPV experiences (Chu et al., 2021), which can potentially encourage disclosure. At the time of data extraction, there were 25,075 followers and 223,864 posts in the DV forum (accessed on September 13, 2020). After registering an account, community members of the DV forum can create and share their experiences by starting a thread of posts and also replying to other members’ posts. In addition, members can decide whether their posts are made visible to the public or only to selected users when submitting the posts. They can also choose to allow only certain users to reply to their posts instead of all registered users. An account is not needed to access the publicly accessible posts and comments.

Data Extraction

Contents posted within a 1-year time interval, from October 1, 2017, to October 1, 2018, reflecting women's IPV experiences after the anti-domestic violence law was effective, in the DV forum were examined according to the following inclusion criteria: (a) original posts from women who self-identified as having experienced IPV themselves; (b) the contents of the post is the personal experiences of women who have experienced IPV; and (c) the posts in the forum are made accessible to the general public without an account. A total of 675 posts were examined for their eligibility, and 70 posts (10.37%) met the inclusion criteria. Among the 70 posts meeting the inclusion criteria, only 51 were available at the time of data extraction (see Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

A flow chart to depict the process of post screening and selection.

The unit of analysis in this study is based on the individual woman rather than the individual post to allow a holistic understanding of Chinese women's IPV experiences. Thus, two decisions on data extraction were made. First, all posts posted under the same username were combined into one narrative in chronological order whenever applicable. Second, women's replies to other members’ comments on the initial posts were also included if women further described their IPV experiences in detail when responding.

Ethical Considerations

Following the ethical guidelines for internet research issued by the Association of Internet Researchers (Franzke et al., 2020), informed consent was not required by the University Institutional Review Board (IRB). In the privacy statement of the platform, Baidu Tieba also warns users that informed consent will not be sought from individual users if personal information is de-identified and used for statistical or research purposes where the results would be made available. Consequently, an exempt IRB approval was obtained for this study.

Several measures were taken to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of women who shared the posts used in the study. Although pseudonyms were predominantly used as the usernames when posting in the DV forum, new pseudonyms rather than the usernames in the original posts were created by the study team to protect the identity of the women. Besides pseudonyms, new dates and times were also assigned to reduce the risk of identifying the participants. Any identifying information in the posts was also deleted when reporting results to protect confidentiality, including the real name, identifiable photos, home address, and telephone number.

Data Analysis and Rigor

Data were analyzed by conventional qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Two coders, both native speakers of Chinese and trained in qualitative data analysis, analyzed each post separately. Given the lack of guiding theory or available literature about the experiences of IPV among Chinese women after the anti-domestic violence law was enacted, no prior codes or coding schemes were applied to the coding process. Instead, a codebook was developed by the team throughout the coding process. In the first cycle of coding, two coders coded all the posts and developed codebooks independently while constantly comparing their codes to make changes to the working codebook as appropriate. Revisions to the codebook were based on the shared decisions made during multiple discussions to resolve any disagreements. The codebook was continually evolving to reflect emerging codes in this process. When no new codes emerged from the coding process, the coders coded another eight posts to ensure an informational saturation with 46 posts analyzed, representing the stories of 42 Chinese women in total. Thirty-two pictures shared by 14 women were also analyzed by their content. In the second cycle of coding, the team summarized the code categories and aggregated them into themes after no new categories emerged through the coding process. The entire team discussed and agreed upon the emerging themes. Afterwards, the team discussed and interpreted the relationships between these themes. NVivo 12 and Excel were used for data management and analysis.

We applied multiple strategies to ensure the trustworthiness of this study in terms of its confirmability, dependability, credibility, and transferability (Miles et al., 2018). To ensure confirmability, we have presented methods and procedures (e.g., data sources and extraction) in detail, and we support our findings with multiple quotations representing the experiences shared by majority of the women. We used an audit trail to document the decisions made throughout the data analysis process to increase dependability. To increase credibility, the team with expertise on IPV discussed and agreed on the findings and their interpretation to ensure clarity and consistency. We also acknowledge and specify the limitations of our sample to help readers assess its transferability to their settings.

Trapped in Fulfilling Responsibilities as a Mother, Daughter, and Daughter-in-Law

The theme “Trapped in fulfilling responsibilities as a mother, daughter, and daughter-in-law” presents the multiple roles and corresponding responsibilities Chinese women are taking. Women always considered these roles and responsibilities as they shared posts, especially as it related to decision-making around whether to stay or leave the relationship, and tended to prioritize the needs of others in the family over their own. Most women who had a child(ren) expressed the great importance of taking care of the safety and education of their children. Though they were worried about the safety of their children, they also felt guilty about not providing the best environment or an intact family for their children once they left their partners. As an example, Han shared:

I would have left much earlier if I don’t have any children. I can’t leave him alone (with my partner). I am very worried that he would be poorly treated if I leave without taking him. I am also afraid he would suffer if I take him with me since I don’t have money and a place to go (after leaving) …

On the other hand, Shi shared:

… I am a very traditional Chinese woman. I can’t imagine the life for me and my baby if I leave (my partner). That is why I choose to tolerate and stay.

Chinese women were concerned that they would be disqualified as responsible daughters if they drew their parents into the violent intimate relationship and got them into trouble. Specifically, women were afraid that their partners would harm their parents once they left the relationship. They also kept IPV to themselves so their parents would not worry about them. Chinese women were further concerned that they would not retain property or money given by their parents as gifts or borrowed for marriage if they left the relationships. Getting the property back was considered “the last thing I can do for my parents as a daughter.” As Han expressed, “If I get divorced, I am not able to get the money (borrowed from my parents) back. ... It really hurts that I am the one causing the losses of my parents. ... I am regretful.”

Some Chinese women had difficulty with their parents-in-law. Chinese women shared that they were responsible for taking care of their in-law families, especially since it is not uncommon for them to live together in one household. For example, Chen mentioned, “I cook every single day for his whole family and wait for them to eat. His dad was yelling at me every day that the meals tasted terrible.” Moreover, parents-in-law tended to have the most power in the household with the women's voices unheard, as described by Yuan: “They were the emperors and the gods. I got slapped right in my face (by my partner) once I dared to say no to them.” Furthermore, parents-in-law facilitated IPV and deepened women's struggles in various ways, such as controlling their social interactions and asking women to keep IPV within the family. Instead of stopping women's partners from perpetrating IPV, parents-in-law prevented women from fighting against their partners and even helped to perpetrate the violence themselves. Hu shared:

I want to leave. My mother-in-law doesn’t allow that to happen at all. She thought everything happened (IPV) should be kept within the family and didn’t want anyone to know that her son beat me and thus kept me in the house, saying, “If you are to be beaten to death, you will have to die at home.” I don’t know what to do.

I Always Give or Sacrifice the Most but Still Have No Power in Making Decisions

This theme describes Chinese women's sacrifices for their relationships and families within and beyond what is expected by traditional gender roles, while still ending up with no trust, respect, or decision-making power. As some of the women shared, “I am the one who takes most of the responsibilities,” “I am the one contributing financially,” yet “(I get) No trust and respect from my partner,” and “No power in decision-making.”

As expected by traditional gender roles, Chinese women shared that they were taking on most of the responsibilities in the intimate relationshis, ranging from full responsibility for housework, caring for the child(ren), even caring for in-law families as described by Xiong, “I take care of the two children all by myself, also the laundry and cooking. I am doing the housework all by myself.” Some Chinese women were also contributing financially to the household and even acting as sole breadwinners, transcending traditional gender role expectations. On the other hand, their partners refused to provide for the family and sometimes took advantage of women financially. As an example, Zheng shared:

He didn’t give me a single penny in the past three years. ... He told my mom that he would never give me any money since I was not having sex with him. I have been doing part-time jobs for a living for the past couple years to provide for my two children. … Also, I have never received the subsidy for land sale belonged to me (from him) …

As shared on the posts, some Chinese women lacked trust and respect in violent intimate relationships. Their partners did not care about them and refused to communicate with them, as shared by Cui: “His response was silence, silence … (after my multiple attempts to communicate). He intentionally neglected what I said and never mentioned it again.” Though they had given or sacrificed a lot, their partners were never grateful, as Xiong expressed: “I gave all my heart sincerely and got beaten and blamed in return. In his mind, I am the fault itself and I am the root causing all the problems.” When it came to decision-making, Chinese women were likely to have little power. Their partners alone decided how money should be spent while the women were rarely informed or had little say in making decisions. As an example, Sun posted:

My eyes and face are swollen now. He was not willing to support our son to take the college entrance exam for the second time. I suggested we could get a loan from the bank to cover the costs and thus he beat me.

The Struggle Is Real, but I Need to “Ren” (Tolerate)

This theme depicts the struggles of Chinese women in the painful journey they endure while the IPV continues to escalate, and ultimately, they lose faith in the intimate relationship. According to what was shared in the posts, the agony of experiencing IPV operated in multiple layers of Chinese women's lives, leading them to feel like Han described: “Every single minute, every single second I am breathing is nothing but a torture for me.” Chinese women had difficulty making sense of why IPV happened and were “at a loss” with regard to how to cope as they were traumatized by the violent behaviors. Women were beaten in front of their children, parents-in-law, colleagues, and strangers. They also experienced isolation from the outside world with connections to their parents and friends cut off, as described by Fan in her post: “He leaves no personal room for me. I am all alone by myself with all of my friends leaving me.” Chinese women had developed fear and hatred toward their partners during this process, in which their partners never found themselves responsible for IPV and instead blamed IPV on the women. For example, Du was asked by her partner, “Why haven’t you reflected on the reasons that you got beaten up (by me)?” Some women further suffered from self-blame and developed suicidal thoughts. Cui illustrated the agony and pain she experienced in the violent intimate relationship:

It seems to me that death will only free me (from the miserable life I am living in). … I am nothing to them (my partner and in-law family). … I have to put on a smile to the customers even if I just got beaten (by my partner) one minute ago. … My heart was chopped into pieces. … All I feel now is that living is all about tolerating.

Chinese women chose to tolerate IPV for various reasons. Some were still hopeful that IPV would disappear after they “gave our relationship another opportunity,” considering that their partners “used to be really nice (before IPV occurred).” Another reason for staying in abusive relationships was self-blame when women found themselves responsible for the occurrences of IPV as some women shared, “It takes two to tango.” Women also chose to endure IPV to better provide for their children, as a way to fulfill their responsibilities as mothers. It is common for Chinese women to encounter repeated or often escalated IPV. Once the IPV occurred the first time, women continued to experience IPV, as shared by Jin: “IPV is the same as illicit drug use. They are all addictive. Never believe that he will change one day.” Some shared that they were beaten “for nickel and dime/trivial things” or even “no reasons at all.” For other women, IPV escalated to cause lethal danger to them when they were strangled, seriously injured in the head and neck, or almost killed. Ye shared her near-lethal experience of almost being strangled to death:

Only two months into our marriage, I was beaten and choked. He threatened to choke me to death, and I passed out twice. I am seriously worrying that I will be killed the next time. At that time, he was seriously planning to choke me to death first and then kill himself. I had asphyxia. He slapped me to wake me up and then continued to choke me.

Chinese women expressed how frustrated they felt in the violent intimate relationship and had thus lost faith in trusting any intimate relationships in the future, as illustrated by Hong: “I will never get married again. It is a nightmare. You feel like you are sentenced and living in the prison if you meet someone (perpetrating IPV), much worse than being single.”

I Want to Leave but I Have No Help

This theme presents the challenges Chinese women encounter when they consider leaving violent intimate relationships. When women were planning to leave, their partners usually asked for another chance and encouraged them to stay. Chinese women also noted in their posts that they often disclosed IPV to individuals in their social networks, both informal and formal, and considered how they would leave, though unfortunately they were unlikely to get enough support.

Partners wanted women to stay in the relationship and used different control tactics. For example, some women shared that their partners promised that IPV would never happen again and demonstrated regret by begging women or their families to stay. Some of the women shared that their partner threatened to harm them and their loved ones (e.g., children and parents) if they ever left. As Tang described, “I always want to leave. He told me that an amicable break-up will never be possible and he will gather people to create trouble for my family. I am freaked out.”

Chinese women often disclosed their experience of IPV to individuals in their informal and formal social networks. Informal sources included parents and other family members, friends, and parents-in-law. As Zhao shared, “He asked me not to disclose it (IPV) to my family and to complete the marriage registration with him. … My mom and the matchmaker both came to my house and asked me to leave with them (after knowing I experienced IPV). … I called my elder brother (disclosing IPV) and asked him to come over.” Formal sources were mostly limited to police officers. As an example, Hong called the police for help, “I called the police yesterday and police officers accompanied me home.” Jiang also shared, “I was mentally breaking down (after being beaten). … I got onto my car … crying … and called the police.”

Chinese women had different preferences and perspectives on how they should leave their violent partners. Some women preferred to directly cut off communication with their partners without “any further contact with him” and leave silently without notifying anyone. Others indicated that they would like to leave in any way possible as they were strongly determined to leave even if “he comes to kill me” or “worst comes to worst.”

It was not uncommon for Chinese women to report experiencing multiple levels of barriers to leaving abusive relationships where they lack sufficient support. Partners often asked women to “leave with nothing (no possessions or property).” In addition, parents and other family members were not always supportive of women's decisions to leave for diverse reasons, such as “your divorce will be very shameful for the family,” “your kids will be miserable if you leave,” and “you should give him another chance.” When seeking help from service providers in the legal or criminal justice system (e.g., police officers and judges), Chinese women also experienced frustration and disappointment about the help they were offered. As an example, Pan shared her disappointment with the court's decision that hers was not an IPV case:

I was frequently beaten by my husband. I sued him and filed for a divorce. I have photos of my injuries (caused by IPV), audio record (of his confession), his promise letter (for not perpetrating IPV again), and the police record. However, the case was not deemed as an IPV case by the court. The court said an IPV case cannot be determined unless it has led to either death or disability. … My heart is filled with disappointment. I really want to ask who the anti-domestic violence law is actually protecting. … While the court was not ruling my case as an IPV case and not discussing the issues relevant to compensation, how about the justice for me and the physical and mental harm I have experienced? Why is the anti-domestic violence law even enacted? For a publicity stunt?

No Matters What Obstacles Lie Ahead, I Will Move Forward

This theme presents that Chinese women stay positive and hopeful about their future throughout all the challenges they encounter in abusive relationships. Some, though not all, Chinese women were actively looking for opportunities to get back on their feet and were seeking purpose in their lives while they received support from multiple sources. Chinese women were carefully planning for their future by proactively looking for opportunities for personal growth and self-development to gain independence after leaving their partners. For example, Xie shared that “I am starting to search for jobs now and I want to increase my self-esteem.”

Some Chinese women gradually realized that they wanted to live for themselves for once in their lives. They recognized that they needed to be responsible for themselves and to practice self-care, hoping that “the fate will be merciful” to them and other women with similar experiences. They were staying strong and “making every effort to move forward” with the belief that “there is always a rainbow after the rain falls.”

Support was critical for the women wanting to move forward. Chinese women shared in the posts multiple sources of support in their formal (e.g., police officers and neighborhood committees) and informal social networks (e.g., family members and friends) as they navigated the difficulty in the violent relationships. For example, Tao shared the support from her friend, “He kept calling me. … my friend suggested me not to answer the phone and to text him about the breakup …” Another example was shared by Hong:

A lot of people came: neighborhood committee staffs and police officers. … Having these strangers in my house made me feel relieved and have a sense of security.

Limitations

This study has several limitations. First, the pre-existing and participant-oriented nature of the posts made it impossible for researchers to ask follow-up questions to participants to elaborate on their thoughts, and thus, the richness of description for each participant varied greatly. Also, we acknowledge that the demographics and socioeconomic status could potentially shape women's experiences differently but information about these were not available for all participants. Additionally, women in our study had access to the internet and were able to share their experiences via text and photos; their IPV experiences may be distinct from those in a lower socioeconomic status who had no access to the internet or were illiterate. Similarly, we acknowledge that women who chose to share their experiences via posts online may be different from other women who did not. Furthermore, we need to be cautious that the findings of the current study should not be generalized to Chinese women who experienced other types of IPV without the co-occurrence of physical IPV. Finally, our study is also limited by the relatively small sample size of posts and participants; for example, we might have missed valuable information due to the posts that were eligible but deleted at the time of data extraction.

Implications

Gender roles are identified as the driving forces of Chinese women's struggles and lack of help when encountering IPV in the current study. Future research should continue to validate the meaning of gender roles within Chinese contexts and their impact on women's experiences, which will serve as the groundwork for interventions such as mass media campaigns to challenge rigid gender roles. Mass media campaigns are powerful in producing positive change across a variety of health behaviors in large populations (Wakefield et al., 2010), in which public education campaigns through social media channels hold great potential in changing public attitudes toward IPV (Campbell & Manganello, 2006). Chinese women were bearing the negative consequences of close extended family networks in which they were tied to their family and parents-in-law in a relatively closed system with limited access to resources or social capital outside the network. Ensuring women who are experiencing IPV are connected to resources outside family networks is critical to them obtaining support, especially among women with socioeconomic disadvantages (Villalonga-Olives & Kawachi, 2017). The online platform Baidu Tieba can be used as a promising venue to provide support and connect resources including formal services to women and further promote their health as suggested by the use of online platforms in previous studies (Carlyle et al., 2019; Chu et al., 2021). Online platforms can reach a diverse audience that is not possible through traditional formal service venues. They hold the potential to act as vehicles to raise awareness of IPV, its health consequences, and women's rights when experiencing IPV.

The negative experiences women shared when seeking help from police officers and judges as well as the missingness of health professionals indicated a missed opportunity for first responders to appropriately handle IPV cases such as providing accessible and effective help in urgent need. Future research should explore the perspectives and challenges of service providers in dealing with IPV cases, including health professionals (e.g., doctors and nurses) and legal workers (e.g., police officers and judges), to further validate the barriers Chinese women have in obtaining support. This will further help to identify and develop the essential education and training programs to improve attitudes, knowledge, and skills on IPV among service providers and to inform the effective delivery of trauma-informed care to women.