Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
Home> Volumes> Volume CHR Vol.91> Article
Research Article

From Body Discipline to Online Movement: Forming the Chinese Female Digital Self-expression

Wanshan LiuGuangzhou Ulink International School*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Along with the development of online feminism, social media provides a platform for females to protest the unfair treatment, which includes the abnormal aesthetic canon, and develop females’ subjectivity. Through collecting comments from the Douyin platform, this article analyzes on the impact of digital societal female discipline, consumerism, and neo-feminism to discover how are the standards for female bodies constructed and reproduced in the online space. Multi-model content analysis and thematic analysis are used in the article. The purpose of this study is to addresses the core issues of "how society regulates the body" and "how women assert their subjectivity through digital media". This article discovers that people begin to use online platform to create some beauty standard to females as regulations. Because of all the abnormal beauty standards, the neo-feminism, represent by some female bloggers and inflencers, rise sharply, they use social media platform to begin their protest and use their influence to developing females’ subjectivity. This article indicates how neo-feminism use the internet to make greater impact, and use the impact to move further for changing females’ deep-rooted beauty thoughts.

Keywords: Digital feminism; beauty standard; body discipline; female subjectivity; online activism
Published: November 5, 2025
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2025.NS29131
Volume: CHR Vol.91
pp. 27-35
Download PDF

References

  1. Foucoult, M. (1975). Discipline and punish. A. Sheridan, Tr., Paris, FR, Gallimard.
  2. King, Angela (2004). The Prisoner of Gender: Foucault and the Disciplining of the Female Body. Journal of International Women's Studies, 5(2), 29-39.
  3. Manokha, I. (2018). Surveillance, panopticism, and self-discipline in the digital age. Surveillance and Society, 16(2).
  4. Foucault, M. (2008). panopticism from discipline & punish: The birth of the prison. Race/Ethnicity: multidisciplinary global contexts, 2(1), 1-12.
  5. Foreman, A. (2015). Why footbinding persisted in China for a millennium. Smithsonian Magazine.
  6. Hinsch, B. (2011). Male honor and female chastity in early China. Nan nü, 13(2), 169-204.
  7. Yi, B., & Huang, J. (2024). Exploration of the Reasons for Contemporary Young Women's Body Anxiety under the Background of New Consumerism. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences, 7(6), 219-225.
  8. Ritzer G. (2015) Hospitality and prosumption. Research in Hospitality Management, 5(1): 9–17.
  9. Yamamoto, M., Nah, S., & Bae, S. Y. (2020). Social media prosumption and online political participation: An examination of online communication processes. New media & society, 22(10), 1885-1902.
  10. Barta, K., Pyle, C., & Andalibi, N. (2023). Toward a feminist social media vulnerability taxonomy. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 7(CSCW1), 1-37.
  11. Schoenebeck, S., & Blackwell, L. (2020). Reimagining social media governance: Harm, accountability, and repair. Yale JL & Tech., 23, 113.
  12. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977, (Ed.) Colin Gordon, trans. Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper, Brighton: Harvester Press.
  13. Dolezal, L. (2010). The (in)visible body: Feminism, phenomenology, and the case of cosmetic surgery. Hypatia 25(2), 357-375.
  14. Ponterotto, D. (2016). Resisting the male gaze: feminist responses to the "normatization" of the female body in Western culture. Journal of international women's studies, 17(1), 133-151.
  15. Goffman, E. (2023). The presentation of self in everyday life. In Social theory re-wired. Routledge, pp. 450-459.
  16. Roberti, G. (2022). Female influencers: Analyzing the social media representation of female subjectivity in Italy. Frontiers in sociology, 7, 1024043.
  17. Wilkes, K. (2015). Colluding with neo-liberalism: Postfeminist subjectivities, whiteness and expressions of entitlement. Feminist review, 110(1), 18-33.
  18. Lee, M. S., Fernandez, K. V., & Hyman, M. R. (2009). Anti-consumption: An overview and research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 62(2), 145-147.
  19. Horton, K., & Street, P. (2021). This hashtag is just my style: Popular feminism & digital fashion activism. Continuum, 35(6), 883-896.
  20. Cavalcante, A. (2018). Struggling for Ordinary: Media and Transgender Belonging in Everyday Life. New York, USA: New York University Press.
  21. He, Y. (2024) Body Narratives Video: Exploring a New Discourse on Gender Power in Mainland China-A Case Study of the# FreeTheChokingGirl Hashtag Action on TikTok.
  22. Micheletti, Michelle, and Dietlind Stolle. (2008) Fashioning Social Justice Through Political Consumerism, Capitalism, and the Internet. Cultural Studies 22 (5): 749-769.
  23. Harju, A. A., & Huovinen, A. (2015). Fashionably voluptuous: Normative femininity and resistant performative tactics in fatshion blogs. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(15-16), 1602-1625.
  24. Butler, J. (2011). Bodies in alliance and the politics of the street. Lecture held in Venice. 7 September 2011. The State of Things, organized by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA). Retrieved from http: //eipcp.net/transversal/ 1011/butler/en/#_ftnref2
  25. Green, M. S. (2007). Self-expression. Oxford University Press.
  26. Johnston, H. (2014). What is a social movement? John Wiley & Sons.