This thesis examines how ordinary women in China participate in feminist discussions on social media under conditions of censorship, platform governance, and social hostility. Unlike prominent activists or influencers, these women are everyday users with modest visibility, yet their experiences illuminate the fragmented and contested nature of digital feminism.
Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews and walkthrough analyses of major social media platforms, I show how women articulate gender concerns, negotiate risks, and develop tactics of participation. Findings reveal that while pervasive, censorship is only one dimension of limitation of social media usage. Women also face stigma, emotional and digital labour, community exclusion, and technological constraints. Yet findings indicate that they respond through creative practices such as ‘self-testing’ censorship boundaries, using coded language and images, and migrating across platforms. Their participation is shaped not only by control and resistance but also by emotions, connections, and pleasures that sustain engagement despite fatigue and risk.
This thesis argues that Chinese digital feminism is generated through paradox: restriction and empowerment, silence and creativity, frustration and pleasure co-exist in women’s everyday participation, offering a nuanced account of how feminist practices are generated through everyday negotiations of risk, emotion, and agency, and how ordinary women sustain small but significant forms of participation in authoritarian contexts.
