Pink power unites women in fight against cyberbullying in China
- The death of a young woman who was bullied over the colour of her hair sparks online protest ahead of International Women’s Day
- Some experts believe the rise in online abuse may be linked to social pressures caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
The first thing Beijing office worker Jane Zhang did after quitting her job of six years was dye her hair pink.
The abuse began in July, when Zheng celebrated her admission to graduate school with a post which included a picture of herself and her bedridden grandfather. Her pink hair was linked by some commenters to prostitution and she was relentlessly called “nightclub girl” and other slurs.
Zheng tried to sue the online bullies and some issued public apologies, but she was diagnosed with depression and in February a friend revealed that she had died a month earlier.
“She was rather brave. She didn’t walk away from it. Instead, she took screenshots of each attack and vowed to take legal measures against those bullies. Her death struck me, and her bravery touched me,” Zhang said.
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Millions showed their grief and support for Zheng, but Zhang wanted to make a bolder statement.
She put out a call on social media, inviting her friends to join her in dyeing their hair pink to support cyberattack victims and make their voices heard in the fight against cyberbullying of women.
People Zhang had not spoken to in years responded, including male friends. They sent her their photos after also dyeing their hair pink. The spontaneous “pink up” campaign spread like wildfire on social media platform Weibo, catching the attention of film star Zhang Jingchu.
“Tonight we are all the girl with pink hair,” the celebrity wrote on Weibo last month, while wearing a pink wig.
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Research by UN Women suggests that online gender-based violence is a pervasive threat across the world, which is forcing women out of digital spaces. The United Nations body also noted the lack of sufficient legal resources to fight the abuse.
Experts say women, especially the young and disadvantaged, are the most common victims of online violence because they do not have the power or privilege to fight back. They also agree that the problem can get worse at times of radical social change or challenges.
Sociology and gender scholar Yige Dong, from the State University of New York in Buffalo, said the phenomenon was universal, occurring across cultures in tough times or periods of radical change.
“The masses may project their moral panic onto individuals, especially women, and vent the collective hysteria by purging those vulnerable individuals,” she said.
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The cyberbullying of women like Zheng could be related to China’s strict zero-Covid policy of the past three years, Dong suggested.
Strict lockdowns, quarantine and frequent testing not only took a mental toll on people, but also severely dragged on the economy, adding pressure to the jobs market.
“The draconian zero-Covid policy that was in place for a long time may be complicit in boiling the collective mood to this toxic level,” Dong said.
When someone is picked at random by the cyber mob, they will be brutally surveilled and hypersexualised to an extent that something as trivial as hair colour can be an issue, she said.
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Dong’s point was echoed by Zhou Xiaoxuan, also known as Xianzi, a leading advocate in China’s #MeToo movement. “The hysteria towards women boiled to the extreme when everyone was most confined during Covid,” she said.
“Venting out on women is the easiest thing they can do, and people can easily get away with it without paying any price.”
China’s far-reaching censorship system, that discourages or mutes discussion on social and political issues, could also be having an indirect impact on women, who become targets for people looking for ways to vent their discontent, Zhou said.
Zheng was just one of the women attacked at random on China’s social media in recent months. During Lunar New Year, a woman from a village in the eastern province of Jiangsu was vilified and called a “prostitute” by an online mob, simply for posting short videos of herself eating fruit on her balcony.
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And in November, when most schools moved their classes online during strict zero-Covid controls, a female teacher in Henan province, central China, reportedly had a heart attack and died after seeing brutally insulting comments in her live-stream classroom.
In response to the growing concerns over cyberviolence, leading social media platforms including Xiaohongshu and Douyin – the Chinese version of TikTok – issued regulations this week to combat the problem.
And Li Dongsheng, chairman and CEO of TCL Technology Group as well as a deputy of the National People’s Congress, proposed to legislate against online bullying during the “two sessions” parliamentary meetings which opened on Sunday.
Sound legislation can help in dealing with the problem, but enforcement can be the biggest hurdle in holding the online mob responsible for many countries, experts have said.
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In China, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate issued a legal interpretation on handling defamation online as early as 2013 and other laws are also in place to tackle the issue.
“The reality is always complicated and nuanced, making it difficult for the law to enact in practice,” said lawyer Wang Keke, a partner with Beijing Weiheng Law Firm.
Wang said that China’s criminal law stipulates punishment for insulting or defaming others by fabricating facts, but a causal relationship needs to be established to secure a conviction.
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In Zheng’s case, the challenge would have been to pinpoint a specific cause and prove that a particular person’s actions led to harm, he said.
“In cyberbullying cases, several factors usually lead to a single consequence. For instance, it is challenging to attribute someone’s suicide solely to the actions of bullies. Therefore, it is difficult for the court to establish the cause-and-effect relationship, which is necessary for holding someone in conviction according to the law.”
