Abstract
This article looks at the mechanism of counter-discourse production as a form of feminist digital activism in China. Taking the case of a Weibo post as an illustrative example, it explores how the counter-discourses against gender asymmetry are created, what accounts for the maintenance and dissemination of the counter-discourses, how the counter-discourses become part of the online discursive activism with online and offline effects, and what inspirations the ecology of such counter-discourse formation has for future feminist digital activism. Applying feminist critical discourse analysis (CDA) with linguistic and textual analysis, it seeks to reveal that, with linguistic device of satire, a Weibo post generated a counterpublic that challenges the dominant patriarchal discourse by exposing the hidden nature of its rhetoric and making visible what used to be taken for granted. It further demonstrates that, by utilizing the digital tool of screenshot and media mechanism of hashtag, the counterpublic produced and disseminated counter-discourses that generated, on top of conscious-raising, the will and agency to spread feminist thinking to compete with the dominant gender discourse and promote activism aimed at changing the status quo.
Introduction
Social media is seen as a site of struggle where the dominant discourse is being perpetuated and challenged. The micro-politics in social media mirror the social structure that maintains and reinforces the dominant discourse, and the dominant discourse exercises its power by ‘ruling in’ certain ways of talking and ‘ruling out’ other ways of talking (Foucault in Hall, 2001: 72–73). On the other hand, the nature of the internet encourages online dynamism of different voices, and it is possible for the peripheral or subaltern groups to speak and assert their rights, or creating counter-discourses (Moussa and Scapp, 1996) in social media.
The past decade has seen a prominent increase of women’s voices in social media to address gender issues in China. The Twitter-like Sina microblog (Xinlang Weibo, hereinafter referred to as Weibo), one of the biggest social media platforms, has attracted women users accounting for over 45% of the total user number, 1 and the articulation of women has been given greater attention to. Feminists and feminist scholars explored the use of social media to engage in feminist conscious-raising and online activism (Hou, 2020; Li and Li, 2017; Wang and Driscoll, 2018). While these social media applications disturb and challenge the hegemonic discourse by sharing information, providing different perspectives, criticizing the implicit ideology, or connecting the widest possible range of constituents (Baer, 2016; Han, 2018; Shaw, 2012), the resistance to the dominant discourse can be fortified by the creation of counter-discourses along the way. Counter-discourse is not just a theory, but a practical engagement in political struggles (Moussa and Scapp, 1996). By creating counter-discourses, the oppressed are more likely to transform or replace the authoritative discourses and clear a space for their own right to define (Moussa and Scapp, 1996).
This article analyses the mechanism of counter-discourse production as a form of feminist digital activism in China by looking at a short-lived Weibo post. In February, 2020, a post in Weibo went viral with one question: Jiangshanjiao, do you have period? It was censored within 12 hours. What makes this post stand out is the swift congregation of followers, intense emotions expressed under this thread, and the lasting impact it makes after the original post disappeared. Drawing on the notion of ‘counter-discourse’ developed by Foucault, we explore with this case how the counter-discourses against gender asymmetry are created, what accounts for the maintenance and dissemination of the counter-discourses, how the counter-discourses become part of the online discursive activism with online and offline effects, and what inspirations the ecology of such counter-discourse formation has for future feminist digital activism. Applying feminist critical discourse analysis (CDA) with linguistic and textual analysis, we argue that, with the linguistic device of satire, the Jiangshanjiao post creates a counterpublic that challenges the dominant patriarchal discourse by exposing the hidden nature of its rhetoric and making visible what used to be taken for granted. We further demonstrate that, by utilizing the digital tool of screenshot and media mechanism of hashtag, the counterpublic produces and disseminates counter-discourses that generate, on top of conscious-raising, the will and agency to spread feminist thinking to compete with the dominant gender discourse and promote activism aimed at changing the status quo.
Feminist digital activism
Digital technology is viewed as an important tool for social movement and activism. It has the potential to facilitate information sharing, organize the fragmented crowd under specific causes, and amplify social agenda at little or no cost (Haunss, 2015). Feminist scholars noted how the internet has innovated the traditional feminist activism in disseminating feminist ideas by making participation easier, more accessible and more efficient (Baer, 2016; Clark, 2016; Dobrin, 2020). The versatility of the digital affordances, especially in social media, are used as toolkit for feminists and scholars to explore nuanced perspectives in feminist activism. Shaw (2012) pointed at the inadequacy of traditional social movement theories that separate political action from discourse, and saw the significant role digital platforms play in discursive activism. Barker-Plummer and Barker-Plummer (2017) analyzed the twitter event #YesAllWomen which illustrated how digital platforms can be strategically used to by feminist social movements to engage discursive politics of knowledge building, critique, reflection, reframing, ‘consciousness raising’ and general ‘meaning-making’.
Feminist digital activism in China can be dated back to the early 2000s, featuring various websites set up by mainstream women’s NGOs or virtual communities built by grassroots women’s organizations or marginalized LGBT groups to advocate gender equality or share information on gender and sexuality issues. The real beginning of digital feminism, however, was marked by the emergence and popularity of Weibo and WeChat (the Chinese version of Facebook) after 2010 (Hou, 2020). The foundation of feminist movements at the new millenium was the academic Women’s Studies in the form of research centers and teaching programs, and project-based women’s organizations developed in the 1990s when the political climate was relatively relaxed (Wang, 2018). With ‘harshening political climate and tightened government control over social organizations’ after 2000 (Wang, 2018), feminists had to shift from ‘organization-based modes of action’ to ‘network-based civil society’ (Yuen, 2015: 56). This was also a tendency in tandem with the so-called ‘Fourth Wave of Feminism’ that is technology-mobilized, highlighting self-determining individuality, empowerment and intersectional sisterhood (Silvestre et al., 2021). The user-based social media attracted fast evolving female communities from different backgrounds. Those with feminist knowledge and experience carried out politics of ‘hypervisibility and confrontation both online and offline’ (Hou, 2020) and opened heated debates on gender issues that reached mainstream media and the public. The momentum of digital feminism was halted by the internet censoring system that shut down the majority of the social media accounts for feminist activism near the end of the decade, with the online activism of #MituInChina (the indigenous campaign that echoed the global #MeToo campaign) in 2018 among the last of the influential online movements (Mao, 2020). The Jiangshanjiao post appeared in this context, when NGO-based feminist activism and online feminist campaigns organized by influential feminist social media accounts confront oblivion. It demonstrates how discursive activism can be practiced with a random ignition of the topic in the absence of organizing powers, and how counter-discourses can be produced with linguistic and media affordances.
Counter-discourse and feminist CDA
We draw on the works of Foucault and feminist theorists to discuss the formation of counter-discourses in the Jiangshanjiao post. With his framework revolving around the discourse of the powerful, Foucault sees the possibility and necessity of counter -discourse formation. He points at the ‘indignity of speaking for others’ and proposes that when those usually spoken for and about begin to speak for themselves, they produce a ‘counter-discourse’ (Moussa and Scapp, 1996: 89). It is a form of resistance to the authority of the hegemonic discourse, and it harbors the prospect to compete with or even transform the dominance of the mainstream discourse. Fraser accordingly proposes feminist counterpublics, which invent and promote the circulation of counter-discourses that help ‘formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs’ (Fraser, 1990: 67). By initiating arguments on assumptions that were previously exempt from contestation, counter-discourses are disseminated into wider areas or moving toward the center of the public.
This study employs the feminist CDA. CDA has been a powerful research tool to dig into the complexities of social structure and practice. Van Dijk (2003) explains CDA as a research method that studies ‘the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context’ (354). It involves not only language but the social context where language is used. Therefore it ‘oscillates’ between linguistic analysis of particular texts and the focus on the ‘relatively durable social structuring of language which is itself one element of the relatively durable structuring and networking of social practices’ (Fairclough, 2003: 3). In line with the aims of CDA that is committed to exposing, challenging and transforming the dominance of discourse and the social ‘wrongs’ (Fairclough, 2009; Van Dijk, 1993; Wodak and Meyer, 2015), feminist scholars propose the feminist CDA dedicated to the study of language and discourses that produce gender asymmetries (Baxter, 2002; Lazar, 2005; Litosseliti and Sunderland, 2002). Parring with linguistic analysis, Lazar suggests that textual analysis should be incorporated in feminist CDA in that it can extend the scope and possibility of this division of research and invite more participation from various disciplines. At a content level, the object of the research can also extend to beyond the dominant discourses that produce gender inequality. The counter-discourse and the linguistic and textual strategies used to produce it make proper and worthy object to be studied.
The data was collected from the Weibo sample of Jiangshanjiao post and comments, the follow-up reposts and hashtag #JiangshanjiaoDoYouHavePeriod after the original post was censored, from February 18 to March 10, including about 500 representative posts, comments and reposts extracted under 15 categories of feminist concerns. It was coded using a manual, inductive approach. The post experienced initiation, explosion, censorship and reproduction, and there was focus-shifting in each stage. The shifting frames involve linguistic tactics that are aimed at exposing the sexist nature of the dominant narrative, finding alternatives to express social reality from women’s perspective, and amending the language system and narrative toward social change (Pauwels, 2003). The aim of this study to examine linguistic and textual strategies used to produce, circulate and maintain counter-discourses will be achieved by analyzing the mechanism of the linguistic device of satire, the digital tool of screenshots and the media affordance of hashtag to engage in online discursive activism.
The case
On February 18, 2020, a post by @Why it never ends (@为什么它永无止境) went viral in Weibo with a simple question: ‘Jiangshanjiao, do you have period?’ (江山娇，你来月经吗？). It was posted at midnight, but gained more than 800,000 likes, 80,000 relays and 14,000 comments within a couple of hours. The first few of the comments came from the same blogger, with the same sentence pattern, such as ‘Jiangshanjiao, do you have to get married before 30?’ The bulk of the rest of the comments from other bloggers followed the pattern and produced a great variety of contents related to the theme of the post focusing on the plights of women.
The post derived from two topics: Jiangshanjiao and period. Jiangshanjiao (meaning ‘lovely land’) was the name given to an animated female idol launched by the Communist Youth League, teamed with her male counterpart, Hongqiman (meaning ‘abundant red flags’), in their effort to attract young people to the party. Soon after the official League Weibo account released these two figures, it was hit with backlash from the majority of the viewers. The public criticized the League for their attempt to turn the relationship between the nation and its citizens into one between entertainment idols and their fans. One of the comments decried this means of state publicity as ‘juvenile’ at a time when the people needed material support more than hollow idol influence. The League deleted the post in a few hours.
The other topic, ‘period’, was picked from two gender-related cases. In an interview of a woman doctor during the covid-19 pandemic, the word ‘menstrual cycle’ (生理期，shengliqi) was used to describe part of the difficulties she had to endure at work. The state TV station channel CCTV13 broadcast this interview twice in a day in its major news program with an editorial change. The morning version kept the doctor’s sentence ‘I was on my menstrual cycle’, but the afternoon version erased it. Another case came from a Weibo blogger @Liangjue stacey who launched the Sister Support Fight Virus campaign that provided ‘sanitary panties’ for female frontline doctors and nurses in the center of the pandemic. She reported that many hospitals were not aware of the special needs of their female staff, and one male director of a hospital declined their donation because sanitary products for women ‘were not essential materials’. The hardship female medical staff experienced when they had period in protective clothing was downplayed and ignored, and period shame was manifest on state media. The two cases inflamed female netizens, who expressed their complaints online. A few minutes after ‘Jiangshanjiao, do you have period?’ was posted, a snowballing of questions was asked, all beginning with ‘Jiangshanjiao’ and revolving around the predicaments of women. The post was censored in less than 12 hours. After that, reposts appeared in a mounting pile with screenshots saved of the original post and hashtag ‘#JiangshanjiaoDoYouHavePeriod’ was created and circulated. The comment section of the reposts also contains negative reception of the post, mostly from men who deem that women were making a fuss because they enjoyed the greatest freedom and rights compared to women in other parts of the world. The follow-up debates also involve attempts to foreground and elucidate key feminist concepts.
Formation of a counterpublic
The counter-discourse is produced on the basis of the formation of a counterpublic. The idea of counterpublic was developed as a strong modification of Habermas’ ‘public’ which may be monolithic and exclude participants who are not part of the dominant group (Fraser, 1990; Warner, 2002). Fraser saw the significance of counterpublic in critical analysis of gender and sexuality and proposed that it is an alternative to the dominant public where members of subordinate social groups can find representation. The blogger created this temporary counterpublic through linguistic and emotive strategies. The post is composed of one interrogative sentence, ‘Jiangshanjiao, do you have period?’ (Extract 1; the rest of the extracts will be labeled by numbers only) The blogger continued in the comment section with a few more questions in the same syntactic form:
Jiangshanjiao, did people call you a slut seeing you so close to Hongqiman? (2) (江山娇，你跟红旗漫走得那么近有人骂你婊子吗？） Jiangshanjiao, do you have to earn money to buy your brother a home to marry? (3) (江山娇，你挣的钱要给弟弟结婚盖房么？） Jiangshanjiao, were you rejected by an employer because you are unmarried and childless? (4) (江山娇，你因为未婚未育找不到工作么？）
The array of these questions suggests ideological overtones that surpass the expectation of answers. If we look back at the post at the lexical level, we find that the word ‘period’ stands out. This word is associated with either the pathological reference in specific contexts or the embarrassment or shame derived from the historical stigmatization of women’s menstruation. People tend to use euphemism when they have to mention it, such as ‘that thing has come (来事儿了, lai shi’er le)’, ‘the elder aunt (大姨妈，dayima)’, or ‘bad luck (倒霉, daomei)’. In public areas like CCTV or an office in a hospital this word is deleted or avoided. The blatant use of ‘period’ in the post, therefore, is deliberated to refer to something else, not with informative purpose but with emotive and expressive value. The speech act entailed in the post is to express discontent and anger, with syntactic constructions to provoke discussion rather than simple answers. The first few comments of sentence-making modeled after the post suggest an intention to provide stylistic guidance for understanding and participation, and the follow-up imitation of the sentence pattern proves the success of this strategy with the solidarity of a community in the making.
The addressee, ‘Jiangshanjiao’ and ‘you’, combined the two images of women, whom the readers of the post immediately identify with. The short-lived Jiangshanjiao that was inappropriately molded for a failed online publicity project by state organizations was re-introduced to evoke empathy and sympathy among viewers. The second person reduces the distance between the viewers and the theme of the post with a focus on ordinary women. By addressing Jiangshanjiao as ‘you’, the blogger created a dialogical space where the imitation of the post and the attempt to respond to the question form certain cohesion around a central theme and identification. The construction of a counterpublic depends on its subordinate status as against a dominant one. Warner further points out, based on his understanding of Foucault and Fraser’s concept of counterpublic, that the subalterns set up the counterpublic with an awareness of their subordination. The formation of a counterpublic starts with the address to indefinite strangers. It filtrates gradually those who do not identify as the subalterns against the dominant. The conflict extends from ideas and policy problems to speech genres and modes of address, and the discourse of the counterpublic may involve alternative idioms that are deemed ‘hostile, aggressive, offensive or indecorous’ (Warner, 2002: 119). In this post, when the first of the comments started to follow the sentence pattern and produce contents within the frame of the topic set by the blogger, the snowballing of participation began, with participants rushing in with a wild collection of issues on gender asymmetry. The repetition of the rhetoric of the patriarchal discourse proceeded quickly and intensely, amid which were occasional exclamations like ‘I want to cry’ or ‘Look at the blood and tears of my sisters’. The commenters’ following the sentence pattern or expressing their empathy indicate that they identified as the sister of Jiangshanjiao who has been unfairly treated or oppressed. This acknowledgment of being the subalterns forms the basis of the counterpublic. From the indecorous mentioning of ‘period’, the comments tended to be aggressive and accusatory, and the production and circulation of the counter-discourse expanded with the enlarged participation.
The making of the counter-discourses
The mechanism of the counter-discourse production will be analyzed with the three stages of the Jiangshanjiao post– the initiation, reproduction and dissemination. In the section that follows, we will reveal how this random post by an ordinary young woman attracted overwhelming responses with the linguistic device of satire, and how the reproduction of the post through reposts with screenshots rejuvenated the original post, and how the hashtag disseminated and recreated counter-discourses and maintained the counterpublic to further practice discursive activism for feminists and non-feminists alike.
Linguistic device of satire
The linguistic strategy employed in the Jiangshanjiao post involves satire. Satirical texts are utterances that arise out of certain contexts with participants in the discourse (Simpson, 2003). Satire can be approached as a discursive practice through which the politics of social relations can be analyzed. Simpson employed the use-mention distinction developed by Sperber & Wilson, one in which ‘use of an expression involves reference to what the expression refers to’, and ‘mention of an expression involves reference to the expression itself’ (Sperber and Wilson, 1991: 303). While the device of ‘use’ aims at getting information through, the ‘mention’ is an echoing of the pre-text with which the speaker may suggest that ‘he finds it untrue, inappropriate or irrelevant’ (p. 307). Simpson elaborated on the model and proposed two types of satire: the echoic satire that is close to mention and the oppositional satire that engenders a discursive twist through implicature or other incongruity-generating strategy (p. 94). Borrowing from Simpson’s model, I argue that with the Jiangshanjiao post counter-discourses are built on satire as a discursive practice and means of resistance. The satirical device employed by the blogger and her followers has two functions: to problematize the patriarchal discourse by exposing the oddness of its rhetoric and to foreground feminist concerns with alternative idioms.
Many of the sentence-making comments employed the echoic satire, as the extracts show:
Jiangshanjiao, aren’t you second-hand goods after divorce? (5) (江山娇，你离婚以后是二手货吗？) Jiangshanjiao, is it ok for you to be so strong? (6) (江山娇，你这么强可以吗？） Jiangshanjiao, isn’t it strange that you don’t do housework? (7) (江山娇，你不做家务是不是有点奇怪？) Jiangshanjiao, aren’t you asking for a creep shot wearing such a short skirt? (8) (江山娇，你穿这么短的裙子不就是想让人偷拍吗？）
The sentence-making combines the linguistic style of a rhetorical question and contents that mimic the patriarchal rhetoric used to discipline women. The echoed texts here are some sort of ‘other’ discourse events that are part of the readers’ main context (p. 89). The comments evoked the familiar reference to the dominance of the patriarchal discourse in the form of admonitions, suggestions, care, or love. What is implied underneath is that the regulation of women for their various values to the society comes not from their perspective but from men’s. Extracts 5 to 8 illustrate the gendered norms that women shouldn’t divorce as they will be devalued on the marriage market, women shouldn’t be strong as they are supposed to be weak and protected by strong men, women are born housewives and their refusal to do housework means a negligence of their duty, and women are to be punished for most probably men’s misconduct as their body is the inducement of men’s criminal attempts. Simpson takes the CDA perspective and refers to patterns of discourse as symbolizing not neutrally ‘natural’ but ‘naturalized’ order of things in the prevailing power relations (Simpson, 2003: 84). Bourdieu argues that the gendered norms have evolved from an arbitrary system of classifications which through socially constructed division have been justified and legitimized as the self-evident and objective order of society (Bourdieu, 2001: 9). The ‘natural’ was in effect derived from reason in circle, and its legitimacy should be questioned and challenged. One objective of the feminist CDA is, according to Lazar (1993), to de-naturalize and de-mythologize the deep-seated androcentric assumptions. By exposing the rhetoric of the male-dominant discourse through repetition, the naturalized ideology is challenged. This resulted in angry rebuttal from (mainly) male readers who had been offended. They were met with immediate ridicule: ‘Why are these men so angry? — Because we repeated what they had said’. The unmarked, invisible and taken-for-granted remarks were made visible through echoic satire with a display of the male-dominant rhetoric. The absurdity of its logic that had exerted its power over the underrepresented was made more detectable.
The oppositional satire comes from incongruity, the contra-expectation of the readers of the satirical text (Simpson, 2003). The post is logically incongruent. Jiangshanjiao as a virtual image should not have physiological characteristics like menstruation. Even if she represents the women’s group, the blatant question violates the relevance principle as well as the code of politeness. The incongruence exhibited in this rhetorical question manifests a salient feature of the oppositional satire: the oddness against the previously known context. The speaker or writer of the text assumes that the reader is able to detect the implicature embedded in the utterance based on the common knowledge or background information shared in the community. Similar device is used in the comment section, where the topic of period shame is elaborated:
Does our motherland have period? No wonder they now call our country Brother Azhong instead of motherland. We should blame the period (tagged with a raised fist). (9) 那祖国母亲来月经吗？难怪现在不说祖国母亲改说阿中哥哥了。原来都是月经的祸 Female figures in animations and games are usually curvaceous with breasts that challenge Newton’s law, with ant-slender waist and long legs. With these “perfect” signs of femininity, of course they wouldn’t want the imperfect period (tagged with three dog head memes). (10) 动漫里，游戏里，女性角色很多都是挺着不符合牛顿定律额的胸部，有着蚂蚁腰， 和大长腿。这么多所谓“完美”的女性特征，当然不需要不完美的月经
。
In extract 9, the three sentences formed a chain of cause-effect relation based on invalid deduction in very layer. The premise is ridiculous, as in the case of the post, that attached physiological characteristics to a symbolic image. Brother Azhong was a previous virtual idol promoted by the Youth League, the major role in its successful attempt to enhance young people’s patriotic enthusiasm. The promotion of this figure was meant to take a trendier strategy aligned with the digital age rather than to replace the traditional image of motherland. The conclusion that we should blame period brought this fallacy to its peak in that the premise as well as the deduction was groundless. The absurdity of the statement is easily detected. Extract 10 establishes a contrastive figure-period and perfect-imperfect comparison which seem quite arbitrary, and the oddness is justified with three dog head memes which indicate that ‘this message should be understood by its opposite meaning’, or ‘don’t get me wrong; I’m on your side; this is just satire’. The ostentatious distortion of period shame as mentioned in the echoic satire happens in this next phase. Simpson develops along his modes of satire two phases that satirical texts could proceed, the prime phase and the dialectic phase. The prime phase mainly involves the echoic satire with reference to familiar frames of knowledge, while the dialectic phase is when certain manipulation of the discursive material produces frame shifting through transformation, distortion or opposition (p. 96). After the first wave of rhetorical question bombardment, the discussion blends the echoic satire that mirrors the androcentric narrative and the oppositional satire with deliberate distortion of it, leading to a satirical resolution that more explicitly points at the absurdity and oddness of the dominant discourse. Through exaggeration and a recourse to logical fallacy, the issue of period shame is reiterated in an indecorous way, which highlighted part of the feminist agenda within a feminist counter-discourse.
The digital tool of reposts with screenshots
The Jiangshanjiao post was censored within 12 hours. The reasons to silence this post can be twofold. The coupling of feminist agenda to the state publicity icon proved not just a bizarre combination but a taboo. The state icon cannot be deployed as a weapon targeted at the patriarchal authority which in a traditional context has been inseparable from the state power (Meng and Huang, 2017; Yin, 2022). On the other hand, censorship on social media has been harsher to organized feminist voices in recent years (Hou, 2020; Li and Li, 2017; Wang, 2018).
The tremendous reposts before and after the censoring, however, sustained the counterpublic the Jiangshanjiao post constructed and further elucidated key feminist topics and concepts. Many celebrity bloggers (including male influencers) reposted and commented with sympathy. Screenshots were taken and shared. After the initial stage of satire, a renewal and expansion of the counterpublic occurred that featured more serious discussion and clarification on gender issues and feminist ideas.
She is not Jiangshanjiao, she is every woman. (11) 她不是江山娇，她是每个女人。 Jiangshanjiao has become a symbol upon which are culminated women’s sufferings and predicaments. She is also a symbol of defiance and rebellion. (12) 江山娇已经是个符号，上面聚集的是女性的苦难和困境。她也是反抗和叛逆的符号。 Don’t you think these comments are instinctive queries we had when the feminist “us” hadn’t been awakened? For instance, double standard on sexuality between men and women, or period shame? (13) 评论难道不是女性主义的“我们”还没觉醒时发自本能的质问吗? 像男女双标和月经羞耻？ It’s not to interrogate Jiangshanjiao, but to heckle those who did harm to women and mock the status quo of ubiquitous sexual discrimination. (14) 其实不是质问江山娇，更多的是借江山娇来质问那些实施伤害的人和讽刺无处不在的性别歧视现状。
Extract 11–12 define the image of Jiangshanjiao as representing every woman in the context of Jiangshanjiao post, granting legitimacy to the addressee as a symbol unifying the community with a similar agenda. Extracts 13 uplifts the ordinary women to the ‘feminist us’, and puts forward feminist ideas. Fraser in her account of a counterpublic cited the example of early feminist movements on how feminists described social reality with new terms such as ‘sexism’, ‘the double shift’, ‘sexual harassment’, and ‘marital, date, and acquaintance rape’ (Fraser, 1990: 67). These new terms that differ from the dominant male discourse are strong tools to transform the androcentric discourse and reduce women’s disadvantage in the official public sphere (Fraser, 1990: 67). The comments of the Jiangshanjiao reposts perform the task to distil from the deleted post feminist idioms such as ‘the double standard between men and women’, ‘period shame’, and ‘sexual discrimination’, which constitute part of the counter-discourse that seeks to recast women’s needs.
The feminist idiom and terminology were continuously discovered in the debates between male and female readers in the comment section of different reposts. Large-scale debates over the post appeared in this stage as the followers of bloggers who reposted were from more complicated backgrounds than the followers of the original blogger. A few male voices contested the feminist contextualization of the social reality and complained about men’s predicaments.
It’s just disgusting to flare all this feminist nonsense! Who is choking you? Is there any right that you don’t have? Who owes you what? If you don’t want to use a black plastic bag to cover your sanitary pads, use a white one! Nobody is trying to stop you from doing anything! (15) 真烦这些女权胡说八道！谁让你窒息了？什么权利你没有啊？谁欠你什么了？你不想用黑色袋子装卫生巾，用白色的呀！没人挡着你做任何事！ Hongqiman, were you always forced to do stuff for girls? (16) 红旗漫，你经常被迫帮女的做事情吗？ Hongqiman, did you dare to tell people that you were harassed by women? (17) 红旗漫，你被女的骚扰了敢跟人说吗？ Hongqiman, how much do you have to pay for bride price? (18) 红旗漫，你得付多少彩礼？
By employing the same sentence pattern or using a series of rhetorical questions of rebuttal, these comments deny women’s lack of rights and claim that men are also unfairly treated. A counter-discourse is bound to be suppressed, challenged or ignored by the mainstream discourse. Power, as Fairclough put it, is not permanent, and those who hold power have to constantly reassert their power (Fairclough, 1989: 68). The authority reasserted its power by silencing the Jiangshanjiao post, and those from the crowd worked in the same direction by contesting the [re-]production of the counter-discourse. These comments were responded with a further elucidation of the feminist terminology.
Yes, the fact that millions of baby girls were murdered at birth just because of their gender is choking me! Women are deprived of equal chance and equal pay in the job market! You owe women when your child takes your surname but it is the mother that has suffered the pain! (19) 是，千万女婴出生就因为性别被杀死让我窒息！女人在就业市场没有同等机会同等薪酬！受苦生孩子的是女人，孩子跟你们姓，就是你们欠女人的！ You owe women when you call them sluts if they are not a virgin before marriage. This is misogyny. Killing baby girls is misogyny, too. (20) 女人婚前不是处女你们叫她荡妇，这就是你们欠她们的！这是厌女。杀女婴也是厌女。 Hongqiman, you know why you couldn’t tell people you had been harassed by women? Because they will laugh at you for being objectified! It’s natural for women to be harassed because women are always objectified! Why you have to pay for a bride? Because women are always objectified! (21) 红旗漫，你知道你为什么不能告诉别人你被女人骚扰了吗？因为他们会嘲笑你被物化了。女人被骚扰就很自然，因为女人一直被物化。你为什么要付彩礼？因为女人一直被物化！
Extracts 11–14 refer to feminist phrasing as distilled from the satirical stage of the post, and the reproduction of the silenced texts enter a phase of illustration and elucidation of these feminist idioms and terminology in the form of debate. Extracts 19–20 label the patriarchal practices like denying women equal chance and equal pay in the job market as deprivation of rights, and men’s virgin complex and the killing of baby girls as misogyny. Extract 21 illustrate the concept of objectification and unveil the male-dominant dilemma that men will also fall victim of the patriarchal discourse if they do not live up to the expectation of the stereotypical role decreed by the mainstream ideology, hence the need to change. The contention furthered the understanding and circulation of these ideas and terminology and popularized the feminist way of thinking.
The reposts and screenshots also informed late comers of the event and united them with questions answered and experiences shared, as one blogger put it, ‘later it became a battling arena to disseminate notions of gender equality’. ‘Period shame’ stood out as a hub of bitter memory sharing. Many recalled how they accepted the notion that period is shameful and should be hidden, hence the symbolic ‘black plastic bag’ that can help them cover the sanitary products. And usually this knowledge or consciousness was passed on to them by their mothers or other female members of the family. Lazar (2005) argues that gender ideology does not always have to appear domination at all. It can be largely consensual and acceptable to most in a community (p. 7). Bourdieu (2001) explained this with ‘symbolic violence’ which is ingrained in a community through education and other social disciplinary devices and so makes women assenter or complicit of the male-dominant discourse. While the male voice that suggests women use a white bag if they complain about a black one was clearly ignoring the symbolic meaning of the color of the bag, female voices are uncovering and deconstructing the connotations attached to period and the female body. The first stage of the making of the counter-discourse ridicules the gender ideology by mimicking the patriarchal rhetoric with satire, the reproduction of the censored post helps awaken those under ‘symbolic violence’ with further elucidation of feminist notions and suggests alternative ways of thinking, which has the potential to transform the social reality.
The media mechanism of hashtag
Moussa and Scapp believe that Foucault’s idea of counter-discourse means practical engagement in a real world, in that ‘the very act of speaking is political’ (pp. 88–89). Around the time the original post was censored, the hashtagging of the Jiangshanjiao topic began. It drew a large audience and continued to attract participants. In this section we will examine the role of hashtag in the production, maintenance and development of counter-discourses, focusing on how this hashtag evolved and processed for the maintenance of the counterpublic, how it is associated with online feminist activism and what online and offline effects the counter-discourses under this hashtag may have.
Hashtags in microblogs are markers of the theme of a post. They facilitate the gathering and dissemination of information, encourage participation of the microblog users, and promote the changing of discourses (Barker-Plummer and Barker-Plummer, 2017; Clark, 2016; Dobrin, 2020; Xiong et al., 2019). Clark analyzed the mechanism of hashtag feminism and examined how, in the absence of traditional feminist organizing, online hashtag activism could still produce sociopolitical change. She followed McFarland’s model of social drama to explore a domestic violence themed hashtag movement, and argued that hashtag can be useful tool for actions of resistance. McFarland proposes that change-oriented resistance follows a certain sequence by intentional actors who cue cultural forms to guide interaction (McFarland, 2004). Clark transformed McFarland’s account of the process into the three-stage model, that is, breach, crisis and reintegration to document the development of the hashtag movement. The breach stage and crisis stage involve the deconstruction of an established social order or the narrative of the mainstream discourse on social issues. The reintegration stage means the restoration of social order after contestation which is open to several possibilities, where the resistant frame of interpretation is rejected, adopted or revised.
The Jiangshanjiao case fits this social drama evolution model, albeit in two rounds. The original post is created to breach the social taboo of both the direct quote of the word ‘period’ in the public sphere and the blatant association of this term with a political icon. The satirical texts further the extent of breaching. The crisis stage involves the swift aggregation of followers of the post with intensive disclosure of the patriarchal rhetoric and the expansion of feminist concerns from a specific incident to a generalized exposure of gender asymmetry. The reintegration happens abruptly with the censoring of the post. The established social order reaffirms its power. The second round, however, leaves open the possibilities of the restoration of the dominance of the social order that the original post attempts to breach. The hashtag of the censored post launches another round of social drama to further the resistance. Hashtag activism aims at not only raising awareness of social issues but encouraging debates in social media (Xiong et al., 2019). The debates under piling reposts after the post was censored signal the crisis stage when competition between different discourses occur to win audience. The reproduction of the silenced (reposts with screenshots) that could have been scattered and decentered is drawn to a more unified and condensed topic. The hashtag repeats the narrative scheme and rhetoric appealing of the original post and expands the participants of this counterpublic by replaying the whole event to both old and new audience with great efficiency. With debates and elucidation of key terms, the feminist linguistic tactic engraves onto the social media topology both a recalling and enhancement of the breaching start of the online counter-discourse, which then exhibits an activist tendency.
What hashtags can accomplish include raising awareness and weaving together an affective public (Papacharissi, 2015) online. Its effect can extend to offline impacts such as policy reform (Aday et al., 2010). The Jiangshanjiao hashtag ranked the third of 2020 top 10 trends in Weibo. Online and offline changes associated with the Jiangshanjiao event were documented in a 2020 annual report of gender issues in China, which regarded it as a preview of the series of gender issues of the year. 2 ‘Period’ as a feminist buzzword partook the online and offline campaigns ‘Making Sanitary Products Poverty Visible’ and ‘Sanitary Products Mutual Aid’ in Universities. Official media such as China Comment (Banyuetan) and China Women’s News (zhongguo funvbao) reported on ‘Sanitary Products Poverty’ and the underrepresented female workers during the pandemic, a topic that was also hashtagged. Law-making and law enforcement on domestic violence and sexual harassment, for example, were given more attention and influenced cases offline. Several news reports or media coverage with gender bias were removed, and more positive results of cases related to women’s rights were reported.
It would be simplistic to attribute to the Jiangshanjiao post the feminist actions taken and social changes caused since February, 2020. However, through hashtag the post elongated its life months after it was censored. The hashtag remained in Weibo, and when there were sensational reports of gender issues, bloggers would cue Jiangshanjiao again. Apart from being powerful and practical for the offline change of social reality, the hashtag further sustained the counterpublic with those interested or concerned identifying themselves as members of a community working for the same cause. In his account of the public and counter-public, Warner (2002) refers to publics as discursive space where identity is formed and transformed. The counter-discourses the Jiangshanjiao post produced were rejuvenated and led to greater conscious-raising and sensitivity to gender asymmetry and symbolic violence. Those who participated in the counterpublic, by ritually consuming and reproducing these discursive symbols and alternative feminist idioms, may have experienced transformation of their political, social and cultural identity. If this is seen as causing social change, the online counter-discourses comprise part of the impact (Marzouki, 2015).
Conclusion
The counterpublics that produce counter-discourse are defined by its difference from and tension with a bigger public (Warner, 2002). The tension is caused by the need to promote alternative interpretation of identity and interests of the subaltern groups. This need can be addressed better and more efficiently with increased access to online platforms and means of expression. As early as 2014, Ip and Lam referred to feminist activism in China as feminist counterpublic ‘circulating counter-discourses and counter-interpretations’. The Jiangshanjiao post illustrated the formation of a counterpublic with its effort to produce counter-discourses in a different context. The lack of organizational initiative, the harsher censorship and the strong digital retaliation from the dominant discourse are major drawbacks of this discursive practice. However, it cannot be denied that the disruption of the patriarchal social order by the satirical devices that violate cultural and linguistic taboo, the contestation of the established rhetoric of the dominant discourse through reproduction of the post, and the elucidation and dissemination of alternative feminist idioms that construct the frame of the counter-discourses have been facilitated by the scale and efficiency of social media. The hashtag further proves to be not just a form of digital affordance, but the combination of mechanism and content. The linguistic device and digital strategies are being used not only to support political action, they are ‘political action in themselves’ (Barker-Plummer and Barker-Plummer, 2017).
The power of the dominant discourse to silence and exclude the counterpublics and the interaction between these two in the digital age also have made the counterpublic more flexible. They can be spaces for ‘withdrawal and regroupment’, as well as ‘training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics’ (Fraser, 1990: 68). Counterpublics are formed under similar social, cultural and political concerns, and they are also bound by emotive interlinkage. The discursive practice and impact of the Jiangshanjiao post outlined in this article have withdrawn from the center of attention, but the counterpublic it creates on the basis of sisterhood has become a training site for the resonant activities online and offline toward wider counterpublics. The counter-discourse production can, therefore, be sustained and reproduced to form larger counterpublic toward gender equality.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The article was supported by a Humanities and Social Sciences Planning Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 20YJA880040).