Abstract
ABSTRACT In recent decades, online literature has emerged as a significant component of China’s cultural and creative industries, with women playing an increasingly critical role as writers. Despite their substantial contributions, women’s online literature production has received limited scholarly attention. This study adopts a gendered perspective to analyse the emotional and affective labour involved in women’s online literature production in China. By conceptualizing this creative process as ‘writing on the edge of love and pain’, the research highlights how female writers navigate the complex dynamics of capitalist markets, state censorships, and gendered cultural expectations while fostering spaces for bond building and feminist critique. Through semi-structured interviews with female online writers, this study examines the interplay between women’s self-resilience and structural constraints, revealing how their labour simultaneously reinforces and resists systemic inequalities. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of gendered cultural production in the digital era, shedding light on the transformative potential of women’s creative and affective labour in reshaping gender norms and advocating for social change.
Published Version
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