Issue #10 Chinese Millennials Discussing Anti-Marriage, Not #MeToo
This is issue #10 of the Magpie Digest newsletter, originally sent on 2/1/2018
As the Spring Festival holiday week approaches, unmarried women in their 20s and 30s are steeling themselves against uncomfortable interrogations from family members about their love lives. For a growing number of young Chinese women, however, the question surrounding marriage and childbirth is not just “when,” but also “if.” Their concerns around safety and rights in marriage are being discussed and reinforced on Weibo and other social platforms, as part of a conversation that is growing rapidly but looks very different from the anti-sexual harassment movements that have swept Euroamerica.
Too foreign, too Hollywood, too much of a movement
In the aftermath of the #MeToo anti-harassment movement in the U.S., activists in China tapped into the global momentum to speak up against sexual harassment on college campuses. Stories from harassment victims spread, and then get clamped down on by the government’s censorship apparatus which is quick to silence any topic that might trigger organized outrage or mobilization — especially movements with foreign origins. The movement has gained some traction despite this ebb and flow; a Beihang University professor has been stripped of his titles following a series of accusations, recently the discussion has shifted from campuses to factories with a post from a worker going viral on Weibo.
But the lack of fervency around #MeToo in China cannot be attributed to government censorship entirely. After all, despite a lack of censorship, #MeToo has had a slow start in both Japan nor Korea as well. In China, young people followed the news from Hollywood but largely saw it as a foreign story that does not necessarily connect to their everyday lives because of the vast differences in culture and society. Hollywood’s central role in the conversation around sexual harassment exacerbated this cultural gap, even though American entertainment news is diligently translated into Chinese by fans. For many young people in China, the sordid tales surrounding the lives of Hollywood actors and producers are so far removed from their daily lives, they may as well be the plot of an imported feature film.
Everyday Anti-Marriage allows women to discuss opting out
Despite mounting pressure from their parents and society at large to get married and have at least one child, post-’90s young women are increasingly questioning these decisions out loud.
Often accompanying these conversations is the phrase (and sometimes hashtag) 日常反婚反育 (“Everyday Anti-Marriage/Childbearing”; we’ll use “Everyday Anti-Marriage” for short), a label for stories about domestic abuse and other tragedies and indignities women face. The stories vary in subject and gravity, some gathered from the news and others shared by the posters themselves. A news story about a woman who died in childbirth after her husband’s family chose to prioritize the child’s safety over hers. A screenshot of a WeChat Moments post from a feverish woman whose husband told her he was too busy playing cards to pick up her medicine. Adultery. Financially ruinous divorce. As different as these stories are, the throughline is that women cannot necessarily trust their husbands, the legal system, or perhaps even their own families to treat them well after marriage. Some (though certainly not all) of these posters are serious about being anti-marriage; the only safe option, as they see it, is to personally opt out of the whole system in a Buddha-like way.
The “Everyday” part of this phrase (日常) has the dual meaning of “daily” and “quotidian.” It is a direct reference to the trope of accounts targeted at young women that share intimate yet aspirational snapshots from picture-perfect lives, often of married couples. Everyday Anti-Marriage is a rebellion that does not call for large-scale mobilization, instead focusing on a series of conversations and personal decisions, a sobering antidote to the idyllic image of motherhood and marriage painted by the accounts it parodies. For young Chinese women, this conversation is one that is more pragmatic, salient, and localized than what Euroamerican feminist discourse can offer.
Japanese actress “Queen Amami” becomes a role model for single women
Within the last year, one unlikely patron saint has emerged for young women who want to push back on the traditional expectations of marriage and motherhood — Amami Yuki, a 49 year old Japanese actress who fans refer to lovingly as 天海女王 (“Queen Amami”).
Amami, who is 49 and proudly unmarried herself, went viral on the Chinese internet in 2016 in her role as a CEO and tiger mom in the 2010 Japanese drama “Gold.” Both Amami’s in-show monologues about parenthood and the actress’s own interviews have since circulated the internet as mic-drop-worthy responses to nosy pestering.
Interviewer: “If you could just meet a significant other, wouldn’t that just be perfect?”
Amami Yuki: “Mind your own business.”
Interviewer: “Sorry!”
For post-’90s women — the generation most actively grappling with decisions around marriage and motherhood — Queen Amami breaks the stereotype of a desperate “leftover woman” in a culture that more closely resembles their own, presenting new possibilities of independent womanhood to aspire to.
Further Reading:
- Jing Daily: China’s ‘Leftover Women’ Back in Debate with New Skincare Campaign Video (English)
- China Digital Times: Censored Follow-up to Petition on Campus Sexual Harassment (English)
- SupChina: China Is Promoting Marriage By Giving Newlyweds Cash (English)
- Sixth Tone: For Chinese Women, Foreign Study Doesn’t Bring Gender Equality (English
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