Gender-equal sexism: a covert and subtle form of gender discrimination

ABSTRACT

As waves of feminist movements and LGBTQIA+ campaigns continuously question both sexist mindsets and the patriarchal society, the traditional, overt sexism has also transformed into many newer and more subtle forms. Through an eight-month digital ethnography, this study identified a new form of covert and subtle sexism—gender-equal sexism—in a Chinese online sports forum Hupu. Individuals with gender-equal sexism support gender equality principle, conduct plausible gender-neutral comparisons, and portray men with alternative masculinity to refute potential criticism of sexism, forming an obstacle to gender equality that is more difficult to identify and surmount. This study examined the major framework of gender-equal sexism and discussed how the technological and cultural dimensions of social media jointly shaped how Hupu users justified gender-equal sexism. The researcher called for more academic attention to the kinder and gentler forms of gender discrimination.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender-equal sexism
• gender equality
• anti-feminism
• masculinity
• digital ethnography

Introduction

In the wake of #MeToo and other feminist activism, Feminism is unprecedentedly visible and popular in the digital space (Sarah Banet-Weiser 2018). Even in nations where the spread of MeToo movements were slowed by government censorship such as China, feminism has become highly visible and popular, as can be seen in a variety of female-led talent shows and stand-up comedies (Cyril Ip 2022, Sara Liao 2024). Meanwhile, the rise of feminism is accompanied by a large-scale and intensive backlash from anti-feminism that aims to counterbalance the influence of feminism. Digital campaigns like Gamergate and #HimToo contributed to a boom of diversified misogynistic and sexist discourses and toxic harassment against women and other gender minorities. A networked anti-feminism has formed to compete with digital feminism for visibility (Alice E. Marwick and Robyn Caplan, 2018). In China, online anti-feminists utilized slurs and jokes to attack women and bring back traditional gender norms (Jason Ng and Eileen Le Han 2018), just like the way female comedians made fun of misogynists. The thriving anti-feminist backlash and the tension between feminists and anti-feminists has become a major focus of academic research and public discussion.

As waves of feminist movements and LGBTQIA+ campaigns continuously question the sexist mindsets and patriarchal society, traditional overt sexism has also transformed into various newer and more subtle forms of sexism such as benevolent sexism (Glick Peter and T Fiske Susan 1997), new sexism (Rosalind Gill 1993), and gender-blind sexism (Laurie Cooper Stoll 2013) that has been identified in offline context. Unlike the misogynists who overtly resisted feminist movements, people with kinder and gentler forms of sexism acknowledged the necessity of gender equality but still support men’s privileges and are wary of feminist movements. The covert sexism in fact put a key danger to achieving gender equality (Michael A Messner 2016). Therefore, understanding how the newer and more subtle forms of sexism respond to feminism is important and necessary.

In China, there is a sports forum Hupu with a dominating male user that serves as a suitable place to study subtle forms of sexism, as anti-trans sentiments and male gaze that sexualizes sportswomen are identified and analyzed by recent studies (Altman Yuzhu Peng and Yu Sun 2022, Altman Yuzhu Peng, Chunyan Wu, and Meng Chen 2024). Hupu has more than 70 million registered users, 90% of which are men (36Kr 2020), and has earned a reputation as “the harbor for straight men” in China (Ziyi Huang 2021) where the dominating male users talk not only about sports but also social issues from house pricing to gender relations. Although Hupu is criticized by commentators and feminist netizens for spreading patriarchal values, the platform and its users strongly oppose such accusations, arguing that being a typical heterosexual man is not being a misogynist (Qianqian Xu 2021). With the aim to explore how the cis gender heterosexual men perceive gender relations, the researcher conducted an eight-month digital ethnography, and identified a new form of subtle sexisms—gender-equal sexism—that is different from existing findings. This paper presents the major frameworks of gender-equal sexism and elaborates how this sexism is shaped by the affordances of social media.

Gender equality: a key issue of anti-feminism in the post-feminist era

In addition to the thriving misogyny that directly denounces activism and social movements that promote rights of women and other gender minorities, many people resist feminism in a benign and seemingly non-harmful manner. Scholars have been trying to identify such responses since the 1990s. For instance, “new sexism” was used to justify the hiring inequality experienced by female workers (Gill 1993). Managers and bosses in the cultural industry expressed their admiration of women but used preferences of the audience and women’s personal choices to justify their discriminating hiring practices. Many held “benevolent sexism,” which encompasses subjectively positive attitudes towards women including idealization of females in traditional roles (Glick Peter and Fiske, 1997). Individuals with benevolent sexism argue that they are not sexism because only overt and hostile gender discrimination is sexism. Nowadays, people who follow new sexism and benevolent sexism are recognized and heavily criticized (e.g., Jemimah Steinfeld 2015). The seemingly respect of individual choice in fact contends that negative outcomes of structural inequality are individual women’s personal problems, and the self-claimed admiration and praise of women is objectifying them in a seemingly kind manner (Kristin J Anderson 2014). Although they do not promote women hatred like misogynists, their support for patriarchy and male privilege still makes them anti-feminists and sexists.

Recently, some scholars incorporated “color-blind racism” (Eduardo Bonilla-Silva 2003) into gender studies and use the term “gender-blind sexism” to refer to a form of subtle sexism that is primarily based on neoliberalism and individualism (Stoll 2013). Gender-blind sexism can raise awareness of how neoliberalism and individualism are utilized to justify sexist arguments, but gender is never blind to most anti-feminists and men. The contrast between men and women is an essential part of sexist ideology.

Instead of arguing that they are blind to gender, anti-feminists tend to focus on gender equality to justify their sexist ideology. For overt anti-feminists like misogynists, they define feminist pursuit of gender equality as something evil, such as conducting political correctness that causes reverse discrimination and producing gender antagonism that causes social conflicts (Stefanie C Boulila and Christiane Carri 2017, Marwick and Caplan 2018, Huang 2022). People who follow benign forms of anti-feminism claim that gender equality has already been achieved through legislation changes, therefore people who still argue for political change are wrong (Anderson 2014). This is what Angela McRobbie (2009) called the undoing of feminism in post-feminist culture, a process in which feminism is ostensibly embraced and then dismissed and undermined. Some used the term “gender equalism” to conceptualize how anti-feminist perceive gender equality and produce their anti-feminist discourse accordingly (Jinsook Kim 2022). Following existing literature, this study also paid attention to how anti-feminist perceived gender equality and identified a slightly different position regarding gender equality in anti-feminist discourse. It neither redefines gender equality as nonsense like overt anti-feminism, nor neglects the importance of gender equality by acknowledging an already established but ostensible equality like post-feminism. Instead, it expresses a strong support to a superficial and ostensible gender equality to refute potential criticisms. “Gender-equal sexism” is then coined to articulate the more concealed form of online sexism that was identified in this study.

Chinese anti-feminism and crisis of masculinity

A key feature of Chinese anti-feminism is its incorporation of nationalist discourse to attack feminists (Renyi He 2023a, 2023b). Feminism is widely deemed by anti-feminists as an ideological product that is imported from foreign countries (Yalan Huang 2016) and denounced as “a western kind of ‘feminist Orientalism’” that otherizes Chinese culture and people (Zhaohui Liu and Robin Dahling 2016, 3), resulting in increasing calls to banish such foreign culture. A popular discursive strategy utilized by anti-feminists is to regard feminists as traitor of the nation, which makes them the target of shaming and exclusion (Huang 2023) and legitimizes their attack on feminism as a patriotic defense of motherland (Huang 2022). The incorporation of nationalism reflects the interconnection of nationalism and sexism since the birth of the idea of nation-state, as the modern nation is based on the ideal image of men with courage, moral restraint, and a strong will and a symbolic role of women as what men are defending and fighting for (Cynthia Enloe, 2014).

The nationalist discourse that is adopted by the Chinese anti-feminists also shows anti-feminists’ intentions to restore masculinity and patriarchy from the growing female power to “save” men from a fictional crisis of men and masculinity (Anderson 2014). When feminists in China promote the idea of economic independence and encourage women to dismiss marriage as necessity of life, they are blamed by anti-feminists for parroting what “western evil forces” have said and transgressing against the conventional Chinese culture that upholds harmony, unity, and morality of Confucianism (Xiao Han 2018, Jia Tan 2023). The increasing income level of women as well as their pursuit of independence pose a threat to hegemonic masculinity that primarily relies on male dominance over women, and therefore brings anxiety to men (Angela Xiao Wu and Yige Dong 2019, Susanne Yuk-ping Choi and Yinni Peng 2016)). The perceived crisis of men and masculinity leads to a self-victimization that men have been injured by women (Debbie Ging 2019). Therefore, the anti-feminist discourse combines the perceived rising power of women and feminism and a fictional crisis of men and masculinity. This study also finds that victimhood consists of an important part of gender-equal sexism.

The spreading discourse regarding the crisis of men and masculinity also facilitates the popularity of Hupu among cisgender heterosexual men. With the ongoing feminist activism that criticizes men who hold traditional Chinese patriarchal values, many men suddenly find themselves have to deal with a rising amount of criticism in their everyday social media life. Expressions that have been taken for granted by many men are suddenly subject to a lot of criticisms. Overtime, the sports forum Hupu became a place where these men can freely express their sexualized praises to sportswomen, trivialize their accomplishment with the superiority of men in sports (Peng, Wu, and Chen 2024), and hide their anti-trans people sentiment with “humorous” jokes and comments (Peng and Sun 2022).

Anti-feminism in social media: intersection of technological and culture

Social media has played an essential role in facilitating the thriving anti-feminism and misogyny. Existing studies suggest that the technological and cultural aspect of social media jointly shape the formation of online misogyny and anti-feminism. The anonymity and registration-free design of 4chan promotes a fundamentalist and extremist belief of free speech while that belief in turn encourages extreme speech and women hatred which also nurtures the misogynist culture of the forum (Thomas Colley and Martin Moore 2022). The design of hashtag and the default setting of Twitter suggests that the platform is an open space for public debate and the perceived openness of the platform contributes to the popularity of hashtag-based anti-feminist backlash (Michael Salter 2018). The analysis of how social media shapes online misogyny should address both the materiality of technology and the human perceptions of the technology that direct its application and utilization.

With an emphasis on human-technology interactions in analysis of technology effect, the concept of affordance can help to examine online misogyny in social media. Affordance was first defined by James J Gibson (1979) to explain the complementary relationship between an animal and its environment. The concept is widely used in communication and media studies in analyzing the influence of social media (e.g., danah Boyd 2014) by describing the properties of social media and how they could be perceived and used by users. As a relational concept, the affordance of social media is shaped by the materiality of technology, user’s perception, and the context of using technology (Sandra K Evans et al. 2017). The platform design of Hupu, Hupu users’ perceptions of these designs, and the context in which users use the platform should all be included in the analysis.

Existing studies have explored technological affordance of social media in facilitating online misogyny (Debbie Ging and Eugenia Siapera 2018, Adrienne Massanari 2017). To address the users’ perceptions and experiences embedded in the features of social media, this study uses the concept “imagined affordance” (Peter Nagy and Gina Neff 2015) to give a particular emphasis on the user expectations of social media that are not encoded in the design and function but shape how users approach the platform. Through digital ethnography and interviews, imagined openness was identified as an imagined affordance of Hupu that facilitated gender-equal sexism. It refers to an imagined high degree of openness of Hupu—which does not bring open discussions and debates among people with different gender ideas but serves to justify Hupu users’ gender-equal sexism.

Materials and method

This paper is based on an eight-month digital ethnography to understand the gender ideology and culture of Hupu. Digital ethnography is a type of ethnography that is mediated by digital technologies, which has been used in recent analysis of online misogyny in various social media platforms (Eleonora Esposito 2022, Scott Wright, Verity Trott and Callum Jones 2020). The research on Hupu started in July 2021. The participation consisted largely of reading, liking, commenting, and chatting with other users through private messages on Hupu. The researcher posted a thread displaying his identity as a researcher and informing others when sending private messages for more discussions or interviews. Based on previous research, sports and video games are likely to ferment heated discussions on gender (Yuan Gong 2016, Massanari 2017, Salter 2018), therefore the sports and video game sub-forums of Hupu were given particular attention. Besides, the fieldwork also focused on Hupu Pedestrian Street (buxingjie), one of the most famous sub-forums of Hupu dedicated to casual discussions, where many well-known posts of breakup stories began to circulate. The researcher approached one user in each sub-forum and asked them to be an informant to help the researcher learn the social norms on Hupu and its culture. Users on Hupu call each other JR (an abbreviation of jiaren, literally means family member) and argue that “all JRs are a family.” The researcher naturally became one of the family members and experienced the online intimacy among JRs.

The researcher first collected 10 top-commented threads with each of the following keywords: “female basketball player”(nvlan), “female soccer player”(nvzu), “female gamer”(nvwanjia), and “betrayal” (beilv). The keywords were selected to reflect discussions that were related to gender in the five major sub-forums of Hupu—NBA, CBA, Soccer, Video game, and Pedestrian Street. It should be explained that “Pedestrian Street” is a sub-forum designed for chit-chat and stories of women’s betrayal, which is famously known as green literature, originated on the “Pedestrian Street” and became a symbol of Hupu which was covered by mainstream media (Ziyi Huang 2021). The term “betrayal” was used to reflect this type of content on Hupu. In addition, the researcher also collected threads discussing gender-related news during the fieldwork. In each month during the fieldwork, one thread with the most comments was selected to reflect the heated discussions that is related to gender. Finally, the 10 most liked comments of each thread were also collected. A manual clearing was then conducted and excluded 4 threads that were commercials promoted by the platform, and 40 comments that did not convey meaningful messages. In total, 42 threads and 380 comments were included in the analysis.

To further understand JRs’ gender ideology and perceptions of the platform, 31 semi-structured interviews with 11 of whom are video game fans, 11 soccer fans and 9 who have posted their romance stories on the Pedestrian Street were also conducted through phone calls from November 2021 to February 2022. Each interview lasted 50–80 minutes. All of them are heterosexual and cisgender men. Interview questions mainly focused on JRs’ opinions of feminism and gender-related news, their perception of the forum, and their daily experience on Hupu.

According to the guideline of Association of Internet Research (Franzke, 2020), users often perceive the content they published in public accessible places as private, and they may be unaware of their content being used for research purposes. Further, the content of the posts that were analyzed in this study are controversial, which may trigger backlash against their producers. To reduce the potential for re-identification of any Hupu user, all JRs were anonymized in this paper, quotes from interviews and threads were translated into English, and the public post from the researcher that revealed his identity with other JRs’ comments were deleted after the fieldwork.

A thematic analysis was then conducted on the threads and transcripts of interviews to generalize the central frames of gender-equal sexism. The thematic analysis followed Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke’s (2006) six-step process, including familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for themes, reviewing themes, defining and naming themes, and finally producing the report. The researcher first read the data while taking notes on ideas for open codes. Through initial coding, the researcher found that JRs incorporated various existing forms of sexism, so the “searching for themes” was made a two-step process: first a deductive coding to generalize the themes from existing sexism and then an inductive coding to identify new themes that consists of the gender-equal sexism. Reviewing themes involved making sure the final themes can fit all relevant data. And then, the researcher defined the themes as “abstract gender equality,” “plausible gender-neutral comparison,” and “alternative masculinity.”

Central frames of gender-equal sexism

Gender-equal sexism is defined as a concealed form of sexism that clearly supports an abstract gender equality, conducts plausible gender-neutral comparison, and constructs an alternative masculinity that strategically contradicts the perceived ideal manhood to refute criticism of sexism.

Abstract gender equality

Abstract gender equality refers to the paradoxical coexistence of overt endorsement of abstract gender equality principles and gender stereotypes on specific matters. Abstract gender equality is different from online misogyny that defines pursuit of gender equality as something bad (Boulila and Carri 2017) and post-feminism that makes gender equality obsolete and unnecessary (Anderson 2014, McRobbie 2009), because it acknowledges the importance to achieving gender equality, but this support only stays in principle and allows people to maintain their gendered statement and male privileges on specific issues, such as calling female gamers bad gamers and insisting that sports women are inferior than the male counterparts. Notably, the support to gender equality is genuine but only stays at an abstract level and is used to refute the accusation of sexism when people express their gendered statement on specific matters.

This self-claimed support to gender equality is widely shared among JRs. The most liked thread that contains the keyword “female player” claimed a strong support to gender equality and acknowledged that we still had a long way to achieve gender equality, but the author of the thread also maintained that “female gamers are just bad” was not gender discrimination as denounced by his girlfriend in their quarrel, but at best bad wording. He then collected data from 40 games to prove that male players performed better than female players to his JRs but still chose to apologize to his girlfriend even though he “was telling the truth.” The thread is widely praised by JRs for its support to gender equality, the author’s down-to-earth attitude to prove his argument, and his strategy to not argue with a woman, which is a traditional sexist view that essentializes all women as irrational. Another popular thread compared male and female soccer players through the results of various men versus women matches and contended that the overwhelming dominance of men reflects the genetic privileges of men and acknowledging this genetic difference should not be denounced as sexism. “Acknowledging the power of men has nothing to do with gender equality,” said the author of the post. He did not just “acknowledge” the power of men, but celebrated the powerful men who are stronger than women and tried to separate his support to gender equality principles from the sexist statement that downplays women’s agency. The prevalence of abstract gender equality is also supported by the interviews, as 27 out of the 31 interviewees said they support gender equality and agree with the idea expressed in these threads.

A key strategy to justify abstract gender equality is using numerical data to make an argument, which is called by JRs as shishi qiushi (means seeking truth from facts), a historically established expression describing the down-to-earth attitude in study and research in China. A typical expression from JRs with abstract gender equality is claiming a strong support to abstract gender equality principles while using numerical data to justify sexist arguments on specific matters. In the above-mentioned posts, JRs used KDA (the number of kill, death, and assist) in video games and the score of soccer matches to justify their sexist statement of female video gamers and soccer players and insisted that these statements did violate their support to gender equality. Interestingly, one JR who had not read these threads even proposed the same method–- counting number of kills in games–- to prove that men are better gamers in the interview.

The absolute trust in data is because numerical data never failed JRs to justify their sexist arguments without violating their support to the abstract gender equality principles.

The seemingly reliable numbers are easily maneuvered. The process of collecting, counting, and analyzing the numbers can be easily biased by gender stereotypes and are often ignored by JRs. With the biased data, JRs can always find their preferred truth from biased facts. Further, numerical data can help to qualify the sexist arguments within certain groups of women, such as video game players or soccer players, and avoid rhetorically applying the gender essentialist arguments to all women which may contradict their support to abstract gender equality principles. With the numerical data qualifying the “truth” JRs have sought from the biased fact, they can always argue that their “truth” is about certain groups of women, making their sexist arguments not even touching on the gender equality principles they support. Lastly, the data and the process of argumentation gives men a fictional confidence that the truth is in their hands. Seeking truth from fact is another kind of mansplaining: explaining something to a woman in a condescending, overconfident, and often inaccurate manner. The difference is that this type of mansplaining takes place without women, which reinforces men’s overconfidence.

Gender relation is both abstract and specific. It is abstract because it involves principles to treat other people. It is also specific because inequality is experienced from day to day basis and can be internalized and normalized to the degree that people don’t even feel. Projects like everyday sexism have shown that improving gender inequality cannot simply rely on promoting some principles but must start from exposing the small and minor sexist behaviors or speeches in everyday life (Laura Bates 2016). However, JRs’ “gender equality” is only about an abstract principle that everyone should have equal rights but without a specific definition of “equal” and “right” which allows them to maintain their sexist views on the specific but equally important issues. Abstract gender equality shows JRs’ inclination to combine principles and specific arguments in their sexist discourse and utilize their support to the abstract principles to refute criticism of their sexist arguments on specific matters.

Plausible gender-neutral comparison

Plausible gender-neutral comparison is setting up seemingly gender-neutral criteria to compare different genders, but always leads to sexist conclusions that justify existing male privilege. Plausible gender-neutral comparison is different from “gender-blind sexism” because the gender is not strategically ignored, and the conclusion drawn from the comparisons is always gendered: men outperform women. The seemingly gender-neutral comparisons are utilized to prove that the sexist conclusions are not drawn from sexism, which help JRs to refute accusations of sexism. Existing justifications of sexist arguments have already used gender-neutral comparisons, such as meritocracy that uses individual failure to explain the systematic gender discrimination that deprives the opportunities of women and other minorities. Personal ability can be regarded as a seemingly gender-neutral criteria.

A large amount of plausible gender-neutral comparisons were triggered by the loss of the men’s national team in the World Cup qualification campaign and the dramatic winning of the women’s team in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup in February 2022. Discussions about the enormous payment gap between male and female soccer players exploded on Chinese social media with criticism of male athletes and calling for better treatment of female athletes (Greg James 2022). JRs called netizens to calm down and have rational and open-minded discussions to explore the fundamental questions of why there was such a difference and explored and established neutral standards to explain the difference. The self-claimed rational and open-minded discussion is what JRs called lixing taolun, a popular slang phrase in Hupu.

Watchability is one of the seemingly gender-neutral criteria that was established by JRs to compare men’s and women’s sport games. It is a plausible gender-neutral criterion because women can offer watchable games in certain sports where men cannot, such as volleyball. JRs argued that female volleyball games are more enjoyable because the audience can see more switches between offense and defense, while the high success rate of first attack makes men’s volleyball games less watchable. One thread wrote that “For volleyball, the men’s game has less watchability than the women’s game. Male players are so strong that a round of attack ends so quickly, unlike female games where there are many rounds of attack and counterattack.” The gender-neutrality of watchability is that the biologically stronger men do not necessarily play sports more appealing to the audience than women. Following this logic, when JRs compared men and women’s soccer matches, they were not based on gender hierarchy but the gender-neutral watchability. Women can offer enjoyable matches in some sports, but not in soccer.

The seemingly gender-neutral watchability conceals the gendered dividend of sports and an essentialist account of gender difference which is based on genetic difference. In the discussions of Chinese national soccer teams, one top-liked comment wrote that “These matches look very different. Men can display the sense of power while women can display a better sense of beauty and that’s why no one watches women’s soccer games, but women can offer watchable artistic gymnastics and figure skating.” The sexist nature of gender-neutral criteria appears when the JR used essentialist biological difference to explain the difference of watchability between men’s and women’s games. The essentialist account of gender difference assumes that women lack the necessary human capital, such as physical strength, to compete with men. This assumption has long been criticized to limit women’ sport participation opportunity and promote male superiority (Mary Jo Kane 1995, Jacqueline McDowell and Spencer Schaffner 2011). When JRs used essentialist biological difference to explain the difference of watchability between men’s and women’s games, watchability is not gender-neutral at all but essentially sexist.

Watchability is also used to justify the gender gap in payment, a manifestation of structural gender inequality. According to JRs, watchability determines the size of audiences, which further decides the commercial value of the sports and finally the athlete income. Female soccer athletes make less money than their male counterparts because the lower watchability of female soccer decreases the size of audiences and fans, leading to a lower commercial value. When talked about the new measures to lower the salary of male soccer players in the Chinese Super League, one JR said that “Emotionally, I support this, and raising female players’ salaries as well. But rationally speaking, it does not make sense because more people watch male players’ matches. More people spend money on them. It has a larger market.” Following the logic of watchability, female volleyball players should earn more than their male counterparts, however, the researcher did not find any threads comparing incomes of volleyball players, which suggests that watchability is only utilized to justify male privileges.

In addition to watchability, plausible gender-neutral comparison is also prevalent in discussing what makes one a true sports lover, a true gamer and other true XXXers. JRs tend to set up some seemingly gender-neutral criteria to evaluate people from different genders equally but these criteria are based on existing structures in these industries that were historically established by and for men. Therefore the comparisons always draw conclusions that prefer men. It ignores the fact that the seemingly gender-neutral criteria are the outcomes of the systematic and structural gender inequality that has been internalized into existing social norms. Since the comparisons adopt these taken-for-granted inequality, they also contribute to maintaining the existing social system that suppresses women and other gender minorities.

Alternative masculinity

Alternative masculinity is a type of masculinity that describes men as vulnerable and emotional beings who fail to fulfill the expectations of traditional ideal manhood that is maintained through patriarchal ideology. It aims to refute criticism of sexism through depicting men as opposite to the traditional sexist male image. The traditional ideal manhood in China is “wen-wu,” a combination of knowledgeable scholar and hyper masculine soldier (Kim 2022) and has transformed into “able-responsible” men that is closely associated with one’s material wealth in recent decades (Magdalena Wong 2020). Both models of masculinity require men to take control of their marital and romantic relationships, while alternative masculinity depicts men as vulnerable, emotional, and in a passive position in their relationships. By constructing this alternative masculinity, Hupu JRs tried to build a victimhood discourse that portray themselves as the opposite of sexists. The self-deprecation and victimhood are similar to beta masculinity which is widely used by incels (involuntary celibate) and men’s rights activists to mock themselves for not being sexually attracted to women (Ging 2019), but alternative masculinity does not develop into a hatred towards women (Michael Kimmel 2017). Instead, alternative masculinity tends to build a soft and non-aggressive manhood that sexualizes women by portraying men as victims.

A key way to construct this alternative masculinity on Hupu Is the production and dissemination of personal experiences of women’s betrayal. These stories assume heteronormativity and have been widely shared and discussed by JRs, forming a trendy narrative style called green literature (See Figure 1). A typical piece of green literature on Hupu usually starts with a detailed account of how the JR spotted the cheater. Then follows a brief recount of their relationship with vivid memories of their past happy moments and some unnoticed signs that suggested things were going bad. In the end, the author described his broken heart with touching words, some of which later became classic literature on Hupu. In the comments, other JRs always comforted their heartbreaking fellows, gave advice to divorce proceedings, and warned others to be careful.

Figure 1. Green literature on the pedestrian street.

The key feature of the alternative masculinity is men’s failure of providing enough material for their family, as eight out of the 10 threads in the gathered data attributed the betrayal of partners as men’s own incompetence to offer enough materials. Public acknowledgement of one’s low economic status of men is opposite to the traditional ideal manhood that requires men to be the breadwinner and decision-maker in their family, which remains an essential part of hegemonic masculinity in contemporary China (Wong 2020) and other nations (Kimmel 2017). JRs describe themselves as unable to provide enough money to fulfill women’s material demands, which is a sexist portrayal of women, to showcase that they are also unable to control women different from traditional hypermasculine and misogynist men.

Alternative masculinity is essentially a male-centered discourse that portrays women as born gold diggers and ignores women’s perspectives on men and relationships. Alternative masculinity believes that it is necessary for men to offer material wealth because that is what women desire, however, existing studies have shown that being caring, romantic, and egalitarian are the ideal attributes of a spouse in the eyes of women (Wong 2020). One JR told the researcher how ashamed he was when he had to borrow money from his girlfriends after being fired. He expressed his sincere thanks to her but still complained that she never understood his anxiety about losing the job. “She just cannot understand. Money sometimes is everything,” said he. It is obvious that his partner had different opinions on wealth and relationship, but the interviewee insisted on his point of view. Green literature works the same way. With their partners’ voices absent in the story, male writers and readers of green literature assume that women are naturally gold diggers. Although alternative masculinity tries to stay away from the traditional patriarchal male image, it in fact reemphasizes the patriarchal ideology that an ideal man should provide abundant material for the family, and strengthens the heteronormativity by ignoring the existence of non-heterosexual forms of marriages.

Notably, three threads in the gathered data emphasized that the JRs earned good salaries and tried their best to accompany their partners but were still betrayed. They portrayed themselves as model husbands who fulfilled the hegemonic masculinity, but still cannot sustain their relationships, and expressed their anger towards the incomprehensible women. Like other green literature, these stories are also male-centered and the voice and perspectives from women were absent. These stories reveal the strategic use of masculinities by JRs, which is observed by Raewyn W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt (2005). In most green literature, JRs distance themselves strategically from hegemonic masculinity to stay away from sexist images of men. However, they can also adopt hegemonic masculinity when it is needed. They may position themselves differently in different contexts, but all these strategies reflect their concerns about male privileges and disregard for women. Masculinities, therefore, become a tool for men to strategically position themselves to refute accusations.

Imagined openness and gender-equal sexism

Hupu is a publicly accessed forum where everyone can view content without registration. However, one must pass an exam on sports and general Hupu culture (including knowledge of famous threads and well-known incidents on Hupu) to get permission to post content. The exam is not strict but to pass it, one either possesses enough knowledge of sports and Hupu or spends time and effort on finding the answer. There is a threshold for users to join in the discussions that construct the gender-equal sexism, while Hupu users perceive the forum as a totally open space where everyone can join in the rational debates. The high degree of openness is not perceived but should better be called imagined by the JRs, which is what Nagy and Neff (2015) call an “imagined affordance,” the expectations about the social media platform Hupu as a totally open space that are not encoded in the materiality and design of the platform. One JR said that “Hupu is an open space. You should also have heard the news that Kris Wu’ fans found people through Taobao and paid them to pass the registration exam. Just to get the chance to debate with us. We are fine. I welcome them to debate with me. Hupu officials also said that they would not ban them.” The fact that this JR had never debated with any female users showed that his perception of Hupu as an open space where debates can hold between different genders was an imagined affordance of the platform.

The imagined openness shapes how JRs approach Hupu and hold the discussions that justify their gender-equal sexism. They believe that their comparisons and justifications have already survived the also imagined open debates. When JRs celebrated down-to-earth attitudes embedded in the strategy seeking truth from fact that justified their abstract gender equality, they assumed that they were seeking truth in an open space where everyone can question their methods. They omitted the fact that it was only men who were seeking the truth. Similarly, JRs justified their plausible gender-neutral comparison by arguing that they held rational and open-minded debates where anyone could raise questions, but such debates only took place within cisgender heterosexual men. Lastly, the alternative masculinity that portrayed men away from traditional hyper masculine men is also shaped by the imagined openness of Hupu. The alternative masculinity that depicted JRs as unable to offer enough materials and women as gold diggers did not get recognition from women but was deemed as real in the imaged open platform.

Further, the imagined openness of Hupu also constructs a fictional open-minded JR identity. In the imagined highly open forum Hupu, heterosexual and cisgender male users welcome everyone to join in their Hupu family to become their family member—a JR. This is significantly different from previous online misogyny, such as the Gamergate that targeted women in the video game industry, and the men’s right movement that focused on the structurally impaired rights of men. However, there is still a criterion of JR, a gendered one that is established by male JRs.

JR:

She should have correct values, and at least likes watching some sports.

Researcher:

Can you give me some examples or signs that can show one who has the correct values?

JR:

It’s hard to say. Well. [paused] Maybe, she should support gender equality, not women’s rights only. She should not be that sensitive. [paused]. And be nice and kind.

For the JR, having “correct values” is to support “gender equality” which apparently refers to the abstract gender equality, and “not be that sensitive” and “nice and kind” requires female JRs to join in the “rational” discussions and “seek truth from fact” in Hupu just like the dominating male JRs. In other words, women must follow the criteria that are set up by and for men to be rational and open-minded. Those who oppose gender-equal sexism are deemed as not having “correct values,” and those who pointedly denounce gender inequality are deemed as not “nice and kind.” The discourse centers around openness and open-mindedness consists of the structural gender discrimination of Hupu, which suppresses, excludes, and stigmatizes the “sensitive” women and feminists. It also shows that JRs are not open-minded and the Hupu community is not as open as they imagined. The openness and open-mindedness is a type of othering that stipulates what women should be and how they should behave.

Discussion: gender discrimination and beyond

This study has constructed the central framework of gender-equal sexism, a gender ideology that is widely shared by users in an online sports forum Hupu and analyzed how the social-technical dimensions of social media jointly shapes how the users justified this subtle form of gender discrimination. The central frameworks of gender-equal sexism not only exist in Hupu, but other online and offline contexts. The International Men and Gender Equality Survey funded by the United Nations found that a majority of men from 32 countries who were inclined to gender equality also expressed ambivalence toward gender equality policies (Kopano Ratele 2014), which suggest a world-wide prevalence of abstract gender equality. Emphasis of meritocracy regardless of the structural gender inequality of studying and working opportunities can also be taken as a form of plausible gender-neutral comparison because meritocracy uses some seemingly neutral criteria like ability and self-motivation to conduct comparisons between different genders that contribute to existing structural inequality. As for alternative masculinity, men in Anglo-Saxon culture are trying to stay away from the typical image of the “straight white male” to display their progressive gender views, but they still complain that the criticism towards males is unfair (Rose Hackman 2016). Further research is needed to examine gender-equal sexism in other online and offline contexts.

In addition, the above analysis also involves another important issue of gender ideology–- the strategies of interpreting information. Legitimizing gender-equal sexism involves dealing information in a sexist-favored way, such as using numerical data and finding seemingly gender-neutral criteria. In fact, to understand any forms of discrimination, researchers must understand how discriminators interpret information (Bonilla-Silva 2003) Analysis of how gender-equal sexist interpret information can also help understand how misogyny communities justify their overt sexism and how racist legitimize racism and other discriminations as well. For example, information interpretation strategies with similar down-to-earth attitudes embodied in seeking truth from facts and rational and open-minded discussion are also encouraged in Reddit’s subreddit/r/ChangeMyView and/r/AskReddit where sexist, racist, and other supremacist ideologies are popular.

Finally, women and other gender minorities may also support gender-equal sexism. This study only focused on how cisgender heterosexual men support gender-equal sexism, while during the fieldwork, a female JR told the researcher that although she disliked the tone of the video game thread but tended to agree with its conclusion. The ambivalent attitude suggests that she may support gender-equal sexism, which also shows the huge challenges that are set by the subtle and veiled form of sexism. It is also worth noting that gender ideology is not isolated but always intertwined with other ideologies about race, class, ethnicity, etc. Future work on gender-equal sexism, especially in offline context, should pay more attention to people’s demographic, educational, cultural background to explore the relationship between gender ideology and others.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Renyi He

Renyi He is currently a PhD candidate in School of Journalism and Communication at Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include digital citizenship, nationalism, sexism, and identity.