cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/59370594
[…]
China’s gender conflict has moved well beyond dinner-table arguments. Male content creators who openly criticise feminist ideas have built audiences on major Chinese platforms, while researchers say misogynistic online communities have continued to find space despite periods of censorship.
A CNA Insight documentary, published on 17 September 2026, put a face to the trend through David Wang, a content creator who has built a following by targeting what he calls ‘extreme feminism’.
One broadcast summed up his position: ‘Only unattractive women support extreme feminism.’ Wang is part of China’s growing ‘manosphere’, where male grievances and hostility towards women find an audience on platforms including Bilibili, Zhihu and Hupu.
[…]
Academic research published in Feminist Studies in 2025 found that ‘misogyny in China has grown increasingly radicalised’ but is ‘rarely curtailed by state censorship and is often amplified by platform algorithms’.
The study examined misogynistic communities across Chinese digital platforms and argued that such misogyny can channel rising class discontent into hostility towards women.
[…]
The demographic figures highlighting the pressures facing Beijing are stark. China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that births fell to 7.92 million in 2025, down from 9.54 million in 2024. The country’s population contracted for a fourth consecutive year, shrinking by 3.39 million to 1.40489 billion.
Marriage figures show a similar decline. China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs recorded 6.106 million marriage registrations in 2024, down from 13.47 million in 2013, less than half the number recorded 11 years earlier.
The 2024 total was down 20.5 per cent from the previous year, according to official data. Demographer Yi Fuxian of the University of Wisconsin-Madison has warned of the implications of China’s demographic decline for the country’s future.
[…]
The United Nations Population Division estimates that China’s total fertility rate is below 1.0 births per woman, compared with the roughly 2.1 children per woman generally associated with long-term population replacement in the absence of migration.
Beijing’s efforts to regulate online gender discourse therefore sit alongside a much broader demographic challenge involving marriage, fertility, economic conditions and changing attitudes towards family life.
Against the backdrop of a widening gender divide and low marriage rates, the demographic shift could have consequences beyond China’s borders.
A contracting and ageing population in the world’s second-largest economy could affect labour supply, domestic demand and the country’s economic outlook, with potential implications for businesses and economies that depend heavily on China.
[…]
A related report says that last Friday (18 Sep 2026), Sophia Huang Xueqin the imprisoned journalist who helped to ignite China’s MeToo movement, was released from Chinese prison, five years after her arrest. She will return to see a feminist movement that has dramatically changed in the years she has been detained.
Experts question, however, that Ms. Huang will be able to move freely as the Chinese internet has changed a lot since her arrest in 2021.
At the time of her conviction, Huang was also sentenced to four years “deprivation of political rights”. Human right groups say it could prevent her from continuing to work as a journalist or travelling abroad.
In a statement released on Saturday, activists pushing for Huang’s release said “though she is released from prison, none of us [her friends] were able to reach her or receive any information from her.
[…] Li Sipan, a Chinese investigative journalist and feminist scholar, says: “The Chinese Communist party regards all mobilisation of the public and movements demanding changes from the government as threats. The feminist movement clearly has these characteristics” {…]
Jasmine [a member of China’s MeToo movement - says: “If you want to organise a public event, anything explicitly related to feminism or LGBT issues is basically not possible, at least in Beijing. If you advertise it that way, there’s a risk the event will be shut down […]
[…]
and they already are devestated by the 1-child policy, they want to make that worst, for thier population crises.
Why is a story about China using a photo of a protest in a different country?
Ai probably
Nations will try everything but improving the lives of their citizens to increase birth rates. I’m suspecting the US 2030 census will have the first one to show a population decline. (past census counted every person in America regardless of citizenship. With the mass deportations and drastic drop in relationships) Expect the neoliberals and conservatives are going to lose their fucking minds. Be ready. Don’t give them the opportunity to see women separately under the law. Roe v wade was overturn on the bases that Americans have no right to privacy when seeing the doctor. And currently men don’t go see the doctor for anything seen as illegal. They will come for women’s rights to increase birth rates.
I highly recommend those not wanting children to get sterilized sooner rather than later. I think there’s a list on Reddit of doctors who won’t demand a man’s permission to do it for you.
conservatives and neolibs have lost thier minds for at least a decade, all they can talk is about women are suppose to give birth. most recently state uni in our region have enrollment shortages, and some of the faculty believe its “baby births”
Nations will try everything but improving the lives of their citizens to increase birth rates.
laugh-cries Japanesely
I’m not Japanese, but have been here over a decade and… yep.
Nations will try everything but improving the lives of their citizens to increase birth rates.
Oof. Statistically, the worse life you have, the more you will “fuck around”. Every country pre-development saw higher birth rates.
No nation has broken through the other side. Poor nations have higher birth rates because they have more children in the labor force. People don’t have kids if they aren’t happy and have no financial reasons to have kids. Fix the happiness issues and the quality of life issues and the population will stabilize.
Many people make kids to be happy. You have to be unhappy in the first place to make you want that.
Financial reasons is actually another reason. I shit you not, in poorer countries families make kids and try to make them successful to bring money to the family.
For for them… Not everyone will have kids if they can’t give them a quality life. Actually be able to spend time with them. Give them a life better than you had. That vast majority of people are abstaining.
Not everyone will have kids if they can’t give them a quality life. Actually be able to spend time with them. Give them a life better than you had.
That sounds quite intelligent. Guess what poorer countries are lacking in?
No poor countries have higher birth rates due to high child mortality rate and children being a financial benefit to the household. (child labor.)
and children being a financial benefit to the household. (child labor.)
That was literally my counter-argument lol.
About child mortality - US really isn’t doing that great. Feels like China surpassed them long ago
Governments worldwide just can’t leave their citizen’s bedrooms alone…
uteruses specifically
China has a giant gender imbalance in their population. Because of cultural norms and the one child policy they have way more men than they have women. Large numbers of angry single men are trouble for any society. I feel that this is just the beginning of their troubles and there isn’t really a solution since you’re not just gonna conjure more women out of thin air (even though I heard there is a huge market for kidnapping women from neighboring countries to force them into marriage in China).
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