Who is ‘married donkey’? Investigating a neoliberal and dominant feminist discourse on Chinese social media

Abstract

ABSTRACT Marriage has been an important topic in feminist debates, yet recently opposing marriage has become a self-proclaimed feminist trend on Chinese social media. This article explores a prominent strategy of anti-marriage which degrades married women as ‘married donkeys’ as a way of doing feminism online. Netnography of online feminist discourse, including observation of 23 influential feminist accounts on Weibo and 10 semi-structured interviews with feminist Weibo account contributors, was conducted to collect data. By applying critical discourse analysis (CDA), this article identifies the way that the problematic rhetoric of ‘married donkey’ operated, the risks it brings to feminist discussions and how it has quickly gained currency online. Although this rhetoric to some extent reflects women’s anger at enduring inequalities in marriage, this article highlights that, within the circulation of anger, an idealized neoliberal feminist subjectivity is fostered to exclude married women, whilst also generating a dominant feminist discourse. This article argues that the ‘married donkey’ rhetoric limits the discussion of marriage issues, glosses over the plight of unmarried women, and overlooks any structural reasons for individual choices to marry or not. The article thereby enriches the existing debates around marriage, online affect and neoliberal feminism by offering a Chinese perspective.