Abstract
ABSTRACT In recent years, TuoMeiYi (escaping beauty duty) has emerged in the Chinese digital space as a distinct feminist proposition. Advocating for women to break free from the constraints of beauty, TuoMeiYi feminists strive to redefine what a woman should look like, and actively practice their anti-beauty stance by shaving their hair into buzz cuts. This everyday feminist politics attempts to reclaim women’s autonomy over their bodies by transforming their feminist body into a rebellious project. Diverging from the prevalent media discursive approach in Chinese digital feminism studies, this article examines TuoMeiYi feminists’ explorative body project through the lens of affect grounded in corporeal and phenomenological feminist theories. Using digital ethnography to explore an online TuoMeiYi forum, this article recognizes that pride and shame have been discursively mobilized as pivotal tools to sustain the anti-beauty feminist ideal. Yet, the construction of the proud feminist subject also involves a highly self-autonomous logic that tries to eliminate feminist embodied feelings. In the end, this article argues that it is not ‘feeling good’ but the ‘strange feelings’ that demonstrate the feminist body is neither a docile nor consciously autonomous entity, but a rebellious affective being capable of feeling in unplanned alternative ways.
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