The sluttified sex: Verbal misogyny reflects and reinforces gender order in wireless China

Abstract

This article describes emerging misogynistic labels involving the morpheme biăo ‘slut’ as a gendered personal suffix in the Chinese cyber lexicon. We analyze the morphological, semantic, and cognitive processes behind their coinage, and the way they are used across gender lines in Chinese social media as a community of discourse practice. Our findings show that women participate in female pejoration as much as men do, and that men are more inclined than women to use pejorative labels that specifically attack female empowerment. Additionally, men construct masculinity and power by using certain misogynistic labels as generics. We argue that verbal misogyny is part and parcel of a larger gender ideology by illuminating the mutual constitution of the linguistic pejoration of women and the gender order in postreform China. This study has implications for research on women's conditions in contemporary China, raises awareness of gender inequality, and lays the groundwork for social actions toward gender equality. (Gender, sexism, neologism, social media, Chinese)*

Job seekers' attitudes toward cybervetting in China: Platform comparisons and relationships with social media posting habits and individual differences

“…Gender differences were mostly visible for the privacy invasion component of ATC (and to a lesser extent justice perceptions). Because gender discrimination (Woodhams et al, 2009) and sexism on social media (Jing‐Schmidt & Peng, 2018) are still prevalent in China, our findings suggest that female job seekers might rightfully be concerned with prospective employers accessing their profile. The positive relationship between extraversion and ATC is consistent with the conceptual definition of that personality trait (e.g., social self‐esteem and boldness; Lee & Ashton, 2018) and the fact that extroverts have more positive views toward social media in general (Bowden‐Green et al, 2020).…”

“…Chinese women are less likely to be assertive, confident, and to take control of their careers (Yi et al, 2015). Women are often the targets of verbal misogyny on Chinese social media (e.g., the term “biăo” or “slut” is used regularly on Weibo; Jing‐Schmidt & Peng, 2018). And, they are the target of employment discrimination (e.g., nearly 40% of job ads directly excluding women; Woodhams et al, 2009).…”

Linguistic Studies on Social Media: A Bibliometric Analysis

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The Discursive Construction of Populist and Misogynist Nationalism: Digital Vigilantism Against Unpatriotic Intellectual Women in China

“…Another common discourse in all four cases demonstrates misogyny in Chinese online public discussion (Jing-Schmidt & Peng, 2018). Shaming and exclusion are made based on the targets’ gender—female, which is supposed to be irrelevant to the original discussion on patriotism.…”