Searching for an online space for feminism? The Chinese feminist group Gender Watch Women’s Voice and its changing approaches to online misogyny

Based on a case study of a leading Chinese feminist group, the Gender Watch Women’s Voice (GWWV), this paper examines the ways in which this feminist group has perceived misogyny and used its social media platforms to respond in the Chinese context. Drawing on a two-phase ethnographic study of the GWWV’s online communities, this study specifically reveals the GWWV’s changing attitudes towards the hostile messages they often confront online. It also aims to identify the innovative strategies that have been deployed by the GWWV to address the Chinese backlash against feminism. This paper argues that, in the Chinese context, what digital feminist activism has brought about is not social change but the increasing problem of misogyny online.