https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgx3nn/china-masculinity-sissy-stars
EDIT: Wow, this blew up. Want to take this opportunity to plug my bandcamp
not if it's a way for the West to use identity politics as a wedge issue against AES states.
I don't think we should pretend something isn't true just because we're afraid of other people using it for bad aims.
there is only so much bandwidth that people have, so we are always making choices on what injustice to focus on. this is not one i would waste my time on. it's on the other side of the planet from me, and it happens to align with western imperialist interests. i'll worry about things closer to home that western countries are doing, which i can have more of an impact on.
Dismissing legitimate criticism of China weakens our credibility for refuting actual propaganda. Also I don't think there's anybody here who's suddenly going to become ok with sanctions or something because of poor LGBT rights. It's fine if you don't think it's important enough to talk about, but since we are talking about it, I don't see the harm in admitting that it is, in fact, bad to ban men from presenting in an effeminate way on TV.
I understand the tendency to question narratives that paint China in a bad light because many of them are made up or exaggerated, but that doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater and blindly dismissing all criticism like some kind of strawman.
i have no way to know what is and isn't propaganda, living in the belly of the imperialist beast.
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008389/chinas-ongoing-struggle-against-sissy-young-men
it's not about what we pay attention to, it's about how our attention to the issue is used by the west as a wedge.
China is still very socially conservative, and most of the top of the party like literally are boomers. I don't think it's all that bad though, the youth tend to be VERY pro LGBT and have pushed inside the party a lot with queer and feminist ideals
Yeah, China is basically the socialist version of the US in the 60s right now in terms of culture. I don't think they're gonna suddenly get more reactionary anytime soon. Especially because like 60% of the population lives in cities now and that number is only growing.
I think the really agressive actions of the party against the domestic bourgeoisie has been geared at preventing that. It seems that the party still holds a huge amount of sway and a lot of more progressive/revolutionary youths are seeing it as a tool that they can wield rather than a thing to rebel against.
They also are aware of what happened in the US and aren't keen to do a repeat of history.
version of the US in the 60s right now in terms of culture. I don’t think they’re gonna suddenly get more reactionary anytime soon
LoL
Difference is that China isn't full of settlers and still has a principled party in power.
There's a vocal part of the media class that's bitching about the "feminization" of Chinese men, how they're so weak, and even Conspiracies about it being part of a foreign plot make the country vulnerable since a lot of it is associated with K-Pop. The most reactionary element is probably the Xinhua News Agency from what I've seen. Of course there is also a vocal opposition to that conservative current (the Peoples Daily ran a response to one of the XNA Op-Eds), but so far it looks like the Party is leaning more the reactionary side.
Prominent party members like Si Zefu and Zhu Yongxin complain about how Chinese boys are becoming less masculine, and the Ministry of Education made some announcements last year / earlier this year about making Chinese youth more manly by hiring more male teachers and making Phys-Ed tougher.
And now they're talking about how they want the entertainment industry to "boycott sissy idols"? It's strange since they've at least been paying lip service to LGBT rights. But the Party has been promoting Confucianism and traditional culture so I guess it's not that out of character.
I'm assuming this conservative current is also represented in the public considering all the parents putting their kids Boot Camps to combat porn/video game addiction a few years back.
I'm just saying it's surprising for them to go after people breaking out of traditional gender roles considering their seemingly more relaxed on approach sexuality.
like i honestly cant think of a single effeminate or homosexual man in media thats working class other than moonlight
Ozark season 1 featured a "trailer park uncle" who was seduced and turned informant by a male psychopathic FBI agent
Randy and Jim Lahey on Trailer Park Boys too.
I'm sure there are others but I get the sentiment.
LGBT rights also include gender presentation, not just sexuality.
If someone bullies a straight guy because he "looks gay," that's still homophobic, wouldn't you say?
This is just pointless hair-splitting and frankly pretty frustrating. If you wanna argue that "technically it's misogyny and not homophobia" for whatever reason, then fine, whatever, it is, without any question, queerphobic and I'd say transphobic as well, and even if it wasn't and it was "just" misogynistic that's still fucking bad.
Again, LGBT rights are not just about sexuality but also include presentation. I'm not interested in splitting hairs about who's being discriminated against, because these issues are interconnected, and an affront to one part of the group is an affront to the whole group. I'm not gonna drop the T from LGBT, nor the implied Q. And I'm don't really give a fuck if you think that saying men should be able to present how they want is Western chauvinism or whatever.
Thanks. The difference in quality between this and the Vice article is like night and day lol
This. I'm all for criticizing the Chinese government where criticism is due, but I've seen so many blatant lies about China in western media that it's difficult to trust articles like this without good sources to back their claims up.
I asked my Chinese language partner about this and she confirmed that it's a thing and that many people in China are upset about it
In that case, very disappointing reaction on the part of those officials involved. I hope there's significant push-back against it within the party.
In this case I don't doubt the facts being reported on cause it seems inline with what I've heard about before, it's just that the information presented here feels very surface level/incomplete. Like the article talks about "a commentary published by a Communist Party mouthpiece called the popularity of 'sissy pants' a social problem that would distort the taste of the Chinese youth". Surely there's more to the quoted article than just that right?
Ewww. I’d like a better source than Vice but goddamnit this sucks.
The pushes for macho men have triggered backlash from an expanding feminist community. Many women feel offended by the term “sissy pants” and the sexist implication that traits associated with women are inferior.
Some internet users expressed worry that the official rejection of “sissy men” will encourage the kind of toxic masculinity that leads to violence against women, sexual minorities as well as men who do not fit into the traditional macho image.
“So men should be masculine, as in being dirty and having big bellies,” said one of the top-voted comments on the microblogging site Weibo.
“‘Sissy’ is the highest compliment for a man,” another person wrote. “It means the person is probably very handsome. He would pay attention to personal hygiene, have good manners, and respect women.”
Great to see people protest this decision.
Explicitly homosexual characters are not allowed on Chinese TV, and no prominent mainland Chinese celebrity has come out as gay. Platforms have previously blurred male stars’ earrings and ponytails because of their ostensible association with rebellion and counterculture.
Do better, Xi.
Explicitly homosexual characters are not allowed on Chinese TV, and no prominent mainland Chinese celebrity has come out as gay. Platforms have previously blurred male stars’ earrings and ponytails because of their ostensible association with rebellion and counterculture.
this isnt even true. i can name at least a dozen. heres one trans actress that once was in the PLA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiv9p8qdPMk
there are uphill struggles but dont just let them lie outright, it makes it look hopeless. everyone in china i know feels positive about the future, including the trans women i know there
better source/article
https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1008389/chinas-ongoing-struggle-against-sissy-young-men
a lot of the party are geriatric and are prone to boomer takes. i remember reading a book by an LGBT activist in china who was pro-communist and she seems adamant that the party is about to do a generation swap in 10 years, so things will be much better socially then
also a lot of these korean boy band dudes do get surgeries to achieve unrealistic beauty standards, so maybe not the best thing to allow to run unimpeded
do a generation swap in 10 years, so things will be much better socially then
can the entire west do this very soon plz?
This is why I resolve to not go boomer by bolting myself to my centrally planned T-34 and wondering when we can start pushing the Otherkin agenda. (the answer is last week)
I'm optimistic, it's not surprising since all queer soft power is bougie af and is massively chauvinistic.
It's only the Pete Buttigieges of the world that wield cultural power. I'm not allowed to exist in the lib villages without existing in whiteface.
Xi, you should know that communism allows for twinks, hunks, himbos, dilfs, bears, sigma, beta, alpha, omega and zoomer males.
Oh thank god. I thought it was an attempt to make a joke about oral sex.
Ligma ice cream cone that I've been saving in the freezer just for you!
Idk how sissy translates into Chinese culture but when I read about this is said the biggest concern was against displays of opulence and wealth, like in Kpop. Pretty boomer approach though if the translations correct.
I was told by a Chinese-speaking socialist who read the actual document that the word literally used by the chinese government translate to "sissy" lol
We had a chat about this in some of the UK socialist discords and came to the conclusion we could think of literally zero people that would fit this description in British media. The closest we could think of that might fit this kind of thing would be Jedward.
It's not that unusual for this to be hiring policy. What I do find unusual is for it to ever leak that it is the hiring policy of anyone in entertainment/media.
I personally think this is very uniquely targeted at idol culture which is something we don't really have in the west. We did have a lot more effeminate men in pop music back when early boy bands were a popular music trend but that seems to have dropped off too.
Yeah this is good thinking. Huge quantities of western people are consuming k-pop, anime and other japanese content because it defies common gender roles and behaviours. This content is finding a market that is not being served by western entertainment and media for a reason -- they've intentionally avoided serving it.
It WAS being served, back when the pop industry had a huge boom of boybands. Then it dropped off a cliff. Why? Not because it wasn't making money, it definitely was.
There are a few that pop up now and then (One Direction/Jedward) but none of them cross the line to step outside of societally defined roles, and if they do walk on that line like Jedward then they do so while simultaneously putting on a dramatic act that makes it clear there is an act going on.
Heard thirdhand that this is yet again Anglosphere sources badly distorting a mistranslation of the original Mandarin and that it is referring to grooming relationships abusing underage social media influencers.
EDIT: Wow, this blew up. Want to take this opportunity to plug my bandcamp
:data-laughing:
I won't read the comments but this is the best edit anyone could have made
As it turns out, the majority of the world still hates lgbt people. Might as well accept it, because it ain't going away in any of our lifetimes
This is a thing that I think a lot of leftists living in developed countries don't realize. While it's true that the left is stronger in the developing world, it's also true that a lot of them are more socially conservative in many ways and that helps them gain popular support. The leftist militants I know are pretty anti-lgbt and would be considered stupidpol types if they lived in the US, yet they managed to fight a fifty year war with the government and had strong support in the rural areas.
China is still a developing country--one that's rapidly developing--and that comes with the growing pains of cultural issues like this. They'll most likely have more favorable legislation towards lgbt people, but it's not happening overnight.
We shouldn't accept it, intolerance should be confronted at all costs.
At the cost of a socialist state? I'm content with knowing that I'll always be an un-person to many Chinese folks. Then again, I'm an un-person to many american folks too. Sometimes you just gotta learn when you're hated.
