“Unpopular Feminism: PopularMedia, Technoculture, and GenderPolitics in China”

Situating #MeToo and post-MeToo feminist activism and gender politics in the increasingly digitalized, commercialized, and controlled media environment, this talk offers a media-centered analysis of the rising discourses and practices about feminism and anti-feminism in the pull and push of marketization, platform capitalism, and techno- nationalism. Focusing on postsocialist China, I explore gender politics amid the technological transformations of the state-market complex, examining contemporary feminist activism alongside the commodification of feminism and anti-feminism in the digital economy. I argue that feminism in China today is both a popular genre to be consumed and a minority political pursuit clinging to survival in the face of surveillance capitalism and nationalist sentiments. Unpopular Feminism highlights the broad spectrum of feminist thought and practices amid a platform-based and technology-aided sexist and patriarchal system, showing the convergence and divergence of feminism and misogyny that are both neoliberal and postsocialist.

Sara Liao is an assistant professor of media studies, Asian studies, and women's, gender and sexuality studies.