Gender Equality and "Independent Men": Digital Feminism and Online Misogyny

This study investigates the emergence of the 'she culture' (她经济) phenomenon within the contemporary Chinese sociocultural landscape, with particular attention to the proliferating online discourse surrounding the trope of the 'independent woman'. Drawing on thematic analysis of 231 original posts sampled from Chinese Weibo, the study critically examines the gender inequalities that are discursively reproduced and naturalised beneath the celebratory rhetoric of female independence. Furthermore, it interrogates the ways in which women strategically mobilise social media as a site of negotiation over gender rights within the domestic and private sphere, whilst simultaneously navigating resistance and contestation from male counterparts.