With the rise of popular feminism, young women are increasingly building solidarity among the female community as a response to the rising popular misogynism and resurging patriarchy. As a result, an intimate same-sex relationship among female members is formed within some all-female communities to enable them to empower and voice for themselves from sisterhood (e.g., the female Korean pop fandom). Such communities are considered as “queer” even though the members do not necessarily identify themselves as homosexuals. Insufficient attention has been given to the queerness manifested by all-women communities made up of non-homosexual women. Thus, I conduct a case study on Chinese female-oriented game players to investigate how this “queer” community articulates feminism that includes women and fictional men while excluding other men. Two questions will be explored: 1) How do the players perceive their relationship with other women within the fan community, such as fans, and cosplayers who dress up as fictional male characters and provide dating appointment services for them? 2) How do the players perceive and make sense of men within the fan community, such as the fictional male characters, and male cosplayers who provide audio performances? I hope to provide fresh ideas about how queerness among heterosexual women is arranged as a form of women empowerment, how exclusivism against men is articulated and practiced, and how the production and negotiation of the female gaze advance players’ understanding and articulation of feminism in China.

Authors:
Wenxiang Zeng, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

About the Presenter(s)
Ms Wenxiang Zeng is a Independent Scholar at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong

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