Online Image and Self-Presentation: A Study on Chinese Rural Female Vloggers

2.1 Gender Theory

Gender is an important concept in feminist research. West and Zimmerman (1987) believed that gender was an acquired status, constructed by psychological, cultural, and social devices. In the 1970s, sociological concepts such as gender roles promoted feminist research on gender theory.

Gender theory asserts that men and women are given diametrically opposite and simplified expectations by society: while men are expected to pursue material success, women are expected to play the role of good caregivers (Xu & Qi 2016). Qing (2017) believed that the perception of gender roles reflected the cognition of the social norms and behavioral patterns of both sexes. Meanwhile, gender theory points out that gender is influenced by socio-cultural factors and is thus shaped and prone to change. Therefore, Yang and Zhou (2010) found it necessary to examine how members of society learn and acquire their social roles and status in this process and became a person with gender.

Drawing on gender theories, the Chinese scholars went on to take family roles into consideration, exploring whether the gender roles have changed over time and how Chinese women position themselves in the transforming era. Xu (2010) warned that gender identification in post-socialist China has become surprisingly more traditional and fixed rather than being fluid and diverse. This reveals the prevalence of male dominance in Chinese society and culture, as the traditional perception that sees men as breadwinners and women as caregivers still looms large.

Wei (2000) pointed out that female subjectivity was the consciousness of women about their status, role, and value in the objective world. Specifically, it allows women to be able to realize and fulfill their historical missions, social responsibilities, and obligations as well as to know themselves and participate in social life in their own way to affirm and realize their social values and pursuits (Yang & Zhou 2010). In this regard, the enhancement of female subjectivity in order to truly give play to women in society building lies in three premises: (1) an increase in women’s social engagement; (2) equal education assistance to help women establish an appropriate perception of gender; and (3) a good social atmosphere for the recognition of female subjectivity (Mei 2004).

Ning Wang (2017) argues that when theory travels to other places, its function and significance would change more or less, and sometimes, a different phenomenon would appear, which manifests itself in the continuous popularity and flourishing of theory in China in the past decades. Even in such a post-theoretical era, various theoretical and cultural trends still function in a limited sphere. But Western theory could function effectively in China only when it is contextualized. That is, it should be relocated in the Chinese context. This has been particularly proved by the popularity of gender theory, especially that of Judith Butler, and gender studies in present day China.

2.2 Sexual Politics

Kate Millett brought new insights to feminist studies with her book Sexual Politics (2000 by putting sex in the larger context of political economy. Millett combined sex with power and pointed out that power dominated sex in the socio-political context. She expanded the connotation and denotation of “politics,” pointing out that politics shall refer to power-structured relationships in which one group is controlled by another (Millett 2000).

Millett (2000) deemed the family as an epitome of the patriarchal society, an institution in which power relations between sexes produced leadership and obedience. In terms of economy, a woman may have economic rights in a modernized society; the fact, however, is that around two-thirds of women in developed countries are doing the “women’s work,” i.e. housework, for no pay, especially when working as a full-time housewife. Such work is widely regarded as unpaid, obligatory, and designed for women. In patriarchy, the status of women is determined by the degree to which they can achieve economic independence and is acquired indirectly through men. In this sense, the relation between women and the economy is indirect and incidental.

Drawing on theoretical analysis, Millett applied sexual politics theory to literary criticism. She deconstructed the male dominated literary paradigm by reading and analyzing the works from the feminist aesthetics and criticism. Millett’s practice of feminist criticism determined the importance of rereading the text and re-recognizing gender identity in reproducing female images, laying a solid theoretical foundation for feminist criticism from “female image” criticism to gynocriticism (Gu 1998).

Feminist Criticism focuses on revealing the “ideology, prejudices revealed through female characters in literary works, neglect and misunderstandings of women in literary criticism, and female gender codes in the linguistic symbol system” hidden behind the patriarchal criticism (Collier & Ryan 1990). It wants to “decode and demystify all the disguised questions and answers that have always shadowed the connections between textuality and sexuality, genre and gender, psychosexual identity and cultural authority” (Gilbert 1985). Gynocriticism, on the other hand, turned its attention to female writers and constructed a critical thinking about female literature from a feminist perspective. It focuses on women as text producers and explores the unique aesthetics of female writers (Collier & Greyer-Ryan 1990).

2.3 Social Media and Gender

Scholars from different countries explored the impact of using social media on women. G. Chen (2013) analyses of survey results from a random sample of women bloggers (N = 298) show three motivations that drive women to use social media – information, engagement, and recreation. Guta & Karolak (2015) believe without gatekeepers, the Internet brings new ways of self-expression and identification among Saudi females, thus creating a safe space where the female body, predominant in daily life, is non-existent and only thoughts count.

With the application and popularization of social media in China, Chinese women also get more opportunities for self-expression. Li (2017) researched the characteristics and social impact of the use of social media by the Chinese Dama. Dama represents a particular group of middle-aged Chinese women who reflect a distinctive social phenomenon in China. This article believes that the use of social media by Dama exerts a far-reaching positive and negative influence on society, pushing for the modernization transformation of the Chinese society.

Wang & Driscoll (2019) consider the importance of social media to contemporary Chinese feminism. Chang, Ren & Yang (2016) argue that Chinese women’s self-empowerment through using social media is derived not from a straightforward struggle against the patriarchy or for woman power, but from a gentle, rational yet resolute stance that incorporates a new female identity into the ‘harmonious society’ enshrined in Confucian ideals, thus creating new digital feminism with Chinese characteristics.

Besides, based on social capital theory, differences are predicted between rural and urban users, and strong evidence supports its hypotheses—namely, rural people articulate far fewer friends online, and those friends live much closer to home. Results indicate that the groups have substantially different gender distributions and use privacy features differently (Eric et al. 2010).

Yini Wang and Judith Sandner (2019) contextualized this sample of rural women’s platformized interests within the socio-political framework of Chinese government Internet Plus strategies, the discussion considers how the women used (and were likely to continue to use) WeChat to engage in online activities related to their offline experiences, thus aligning them with entrenched Chinese socio-cultural values. An ethnographic fieldwork methodology and a social constructionist theoretical framework were used to investigate these rural Chinese women’s daily experiences in using WeChat. The findings provide evidence of their knowledge-building, business acumen, emotive communication, and new levels of self-awareness through using WeChat.

3.1 Content Analysis

For this research, the authors selected rural female vloggers’ accounts from Xi Gua Video, a popular video platform of ByteDance.

We used “rural women, rural girls” as keywords to search videos and creators respectively. After excluding the vloggers who are based in a city and whose videos are unoriginal, we collected 71 vloggers according to the numbers of followers, their traffic, and geographical background. We organized the geographical information of 71 vloggers following the regional division principles of the seven natural-geographical divisions of the Chinese mainland, and sampled 30 rural female vloggers at last (Table 1).

The research was conducted from December 30, 2019, to July 26, 2020, including 30 weeks of observation. Three videos were be selected from each vlogger per week, totaling 2580 video samples for further analysis.

We used a content analysis method, coding the basic information of the samples, including the usernames, avatar, video themes, shooting techniques, etc. Then, we estimated through the quantified data the quality of the videos and how the rural female vloggers portrayed their images in their videos.

3.2 Case Studies

Based on the data from the content analysis, we used feminist theories in cultural communication to classify and interpret the images of rural female vloggers. We tried to unveil the gendered framing behind the videos and how the self-presentation of rural Chinese female vloggers has been affected by chauvinistic discourse and commercialization. Through case analysis and discourse analysis, we explored the deep motivations of rural women’s self-presentation.

4.1 Username: Personalized Subject-Oriented

Typically, vloggers whose usernames have certain connotations have a strong desire for self-expression on online platforms. Unique username settings can not only highlight personal information and distinguish from others but also help vloggers establish their personal brand on the Internet (Table 2).

Of all the 30 samples we have collected, 56.7% used their real names, willing to show their identity as special individuals, strengthen their characteristics, and highlight their identity.

30% chose to use nicknames, such as “Nong Cun Yao Mei” (Rural Youngest Sister), that hide some personal information but highlight their role in the family. It narrows down the distance between the followers and vloggers as if they were the family members of the followers.

In contrast, 6.7% chose names that do not display personal information, such as “Xiang Jian Xiao Lu” (Country Road), etc. Such female vloggers hide as an observer behind the camera rather than an actress in their videos.

Another 6.7% of female vloggers’ usernames emphasized their characteristics as a group, such as “Peng Jia Nv Jiang” (Women of the Peng Family), etc. They always show all the members and relationships in their videos.

In terms of specific content, the usernames of rural vloggers are usually catchy with obvious local characteristics, such as “Juanzi’s Rural Affairs”, “Countryside Xiaojing”, “Farmer Lingling”, and “Scallion Show”, which also reflect the simple and innocent part of rural vloggers. Meanwhile, rural vloggers are willing to appear on the Internet as farmers, take rural life as their unique video highlights, and advertise that their videos have rural characteristics.

4.2 Marital Status: Married Women as the Mainstay

Their marital status, such as single mother, married, daughter-in-law, etc., can be found from the keywords of the video title or personal profile. Besides, it can be confirmed by what they tell in the videos and the interaction with fans in the comment area.

With the continuous progress of society, both the modernization of the rural areas and the ideological emancipation of farmers have greatly improved. An increasing number of rural female vloggers admit that they are single or divorced on the Internet, revealing their open minds toward marriage. Nonetheless, getting married and having children is still the choice of most rural women.

Table 3 shows that most of the rural women vloggers in the sample are married (66.67%). Married women live relatively stable lives, as they can devote leisure time to shooting short videos and running we-media accounts apart from working and children raising.

Divorced (16.67%) and unmarried (10%) rural female vloggers take up more than a quarter, reflecting an open attitude towards displaying the real marital status, even if they were born and brought up in the conservative areas were being a divorced or unmarried woman is supposed to be a disgrace. It cannot be denied, though, that they also exploited the “single” status to expand the influence of their media channels. They gaze at and judge themselves as “the other” and identify themselves from a patriarchal perspective.

Despite the relative ease to identify the marital status of the vlogger in the video, there is still 6.67% of the sample did not reveal their marital status.

4.3 Avatar: Confident Smile as the Mainstream

As the most vivid and visually striking element on the profile page, the vloggers’ avatars reflect their personality and willingness to present themselves on the Internet.

Table 4 demonstrates that 80% of the rural women chose to use real-life pictures as the avatar, showing a high willingness for self-presentation online. 10% chose to use an icon plus text as their avatar, two of whom embedded their avatars in the opening animation of the videos, showing a strong awareness of personal brand and a clear strategy for channel operation.

We subdivided the real-life-picture avatars into three types according to facial expressions: facing the camera and grinning, facing the camera and smiling, and not facing the camera.

Looking directly at the camera is a reflection of the vlogger’s willingness to make eye contact and interact with the audience. Table 5 illustrates that 19 female vloggers chose to look directly at the camera. Among them, eight rural women grinned, showing their confident and cheerful dispositions. The remaining five vloggers who did not face the camera show some of the rural vloggers’ relatively implicit and restrained personality.

4.4 Theme of the Videos: Stories About Rural Family Life

We divided the themes of the videos into eight categories according to the proximity of rural women to society and family: (1) the “daily life”, which represents the close relationship between rural women and their families; (2) the “social news”, which reflects rural women’s willingness to connect with the society; (3) the “agricultural production”, which reflects women’s engagement in agricultural activities; (4) the “working or starting up a business”, which embodies rural women’s de-agriculturalization; (5) “entertainment”, a leisure and relaxation activity for rural women in their spare time; (6) the “cooking”; (7) “raising children”; and (8) “interaction with fans”. The last three categories are the most prominent themes and will be further analyzed in Discussion.

Table 6 shows that the highest proportion of video themes is “daily life” (31.01%), followed by food production (15.81%). The scene of both categories is usually set at home for a family cause. Besides, rural females are often involved in agricultural production (12.95%) and raising children (7.75%).

The fact that many rural women have married to migrant workers implies that they are burdened with heavier family responsibilities that they have to raise the next generation, support the elderly, properly handle the relationship with other family members, and engage in agricultural production on behalf of their husband.

Therefore, it is no wonder that the theme “entrepreneurship” (2.02%) ranks last. And the second-to-last, “interaction with the followers” (4.02%) reflects the fact that rural female vloggers always focus on family life instead of sharing their privacy with the audience.

4.5 Shooting Techniques: A Strong Willingness for Self-Expression

Either self-shooting with a selfie stick or a tripod, or being shot by someone else, reflects a high willingness of self-expression. There’s a slight difference between the shooting techniques.

“Shot by an anonymous” (11.05%) reflects the intimate relationship between the photographer and the subject, because the photographer participates in the shooting process, leaving their voice or profile in the scene and commenting on what is taking place in the video. The male photographer (usually the vlogger’s husband) always has dominance and control over video production, which, on the one hand, reflects the common phenomenon of rural couples operating video accounts together, and, on the other, implies the male dominance in rural families and the patriarchy in rural society.

18.57% of female vloggers chose to take others as a model instead of themselves. It doesn’t mean that the rural female vloggers are unwilling to express themselves in front of the camera; instead, they chose to stand behind the camera and observe, ask, and think about the world in their way.

40.50% of the photographers chose to hide their identities, while 24.07% of female vloggers became the photographer themselves. Based on the analysis of the video themes, we speculated that whatever techniques rural women take for video shooting, their image formation is still subject to the gaze of men and the patriarchal social order. In general, they are still disciplined, though their self-awareness has already begun to awaken.

4.6 The Confrontation with the Patriarchal Discourse

The Internet has opened up a space for rural women to express themselves. For those rural women living in their stem families with limited social contact and communication, browsing the short videos of other female vloggers has become their spiritual support. Some even become vloggers themselves, empowered by video platforms to talk about family conflicts and fight with the patriarchal discourse.

For example, in the videos of vlogger “Rural Wife”, her husband is described as not answering the phone, leaving home for a long time, and belittling his wife. This echoed by the titles of her videos:

Wife’s 5 yuan Beach Skirt Mocked by Brother Shan. It Unpretty?;

Rural Wife Doing Facial for the First Time. Brother Shan Called It ‘Old Cucumber Painted Green’. LOL;

Brother Shan Denied Chatting with Other Women while Drunk;

Brother Shan Lent out all the Salary. Angry Wife Turned to Smile by Shan’s Words.

These video titles often combine words that the husband belittles his wife and the wife is fine with that. Such description might be exaggerated, but the situation where rural women living in the stem family have nowhere to express their troubles is manifested.

“Rural Wife” usually responds to her husband’s behavior with bile to attract attention, as is revealed in the following tiles:

Wife Stewed Big Bones for a Drink with Brother Shan but End up Drinking Half a Bottle alone;

Rural Wife Lost Sleep at Midnight. Had Wine with Peanuts. Yummy;

Wife Burst into Tears when Preventing Brother Shan from Drinking out at Night.

The real life of the “Rural Wife” is often related to wine. While her husband’s binge drinking troubled her, she tried to attract the attention of fans or other audiences by way of drinking.

Influenced by traditional ideas, “Rural Wife” also tried to present her image as a “good wife and mother” (“Alcoholic Husband Not Home, Wife Bought 20 yuan Shrimp the Next Day and the Children Ate Happily”; “Brother Shan Worked Late, Wife Cooked and Wait for Him. What A Good Wife.”) Despite her dissatisfaction with her marriage, “Rural Wife” exaggerated or prettified her husband’s “intimate move” (“Brother Shan Cooked and Fed His Wife. What a Lovely Couple”; “Women’s Day: Brother Shan Help Wash Wife’s Feet, Wife’s Really Moved”; “Valentine’s Day: 11 Years of Marriage. Brother Shan Brought Me a Gift. What A Surprise”). It can be seen that “Rural Wife” has mixed feeling with her husband: on the one hand, she is dissatisfied with her husband’s reckless behavior; on the other, she has some unrealistic expectations for her husband. When the husband’s behavior fits her mind, the title of the video tends to overstate the man’s strengths to comfort and deceive herself and convince herself to maintain the marriage. At the same time, she usually presents herself as a “good wife and mother”, a victim of an unhappy marriage, and a submissive wife who is unable to rebel against her husband.

Although an increasing number of rural women with an unhappy marriage bravely choose to divorce in contemporary China, a considerable proportion of rural women still suffer from a low-quality marriage due to complicated socio-cultural factors. The Internet has served as a window for them to pour out their feelings since they became vloggers. However, such a release of negative emotions can only bring them some psychological comfort; it cannot reverse their difficulties in real life. Making videos is just their weak resistance to the patriarchal discourse.

4.7 Compromise with the Patriarchal Discourse

Being a vlogger has improved the family status of rural women to some extent by increasing the income of rural women, improving their income structure, and providing socialized labor wages for those who had been only engaged in housework. However, studies on the family structure of the female vloggers revealed that currently rural women still stay in stem families after marriage. The relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law is still the focus of rural women.

The harmonious relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law frequently appears in the video posts of female vloggers. It reflects the importance of handling the relationship in real life and the rural women’s attempt to present a “perfect” family on the Internet. Compared with the nuclear families, the elders in the stem families are more traditional. Affected by the family environment and family structure, rural women consciously or unconsciously restrict their family identity to the patriarchal discourse.

Being virtuous and filial is the requirement of traditional culture for women, and also shows the compromise of female vloggers to the patriarchal discourse. Viewers on the Internet also contribute to the rural female vlogger’s compromise. As the object of the gaze, women are usually judged by the criteria from the patriarchal discourse. For example, in the comment section of the vlogger “Guangxi Sister Yun”’s video “She Returned to the Countryside for Two Years, Lived a Dream Life: One Flower, One Bird, One Dog, One Porridge, and One Love”, netizens commented on Sister Yun’s “unorthodox” lifestyle:

• User 1: Sister Yun, I felt that you and Lao Xiao are too young to live this kind of dull life. It’s OK after the age of fifty. What about the pension? How can you do a living after you are sixty?

• User 2: In 10 years, with no children and an old age, I don’t think you couple can still live comfortably. The so-called happy life is an escape and temporary deception, people finally have to return to the cruel reality of life.

• User 3: Having a child would be perfect for you.

All these comments center around the topic of “children” and form a “reproductive coercion” for women. This kind of views believes that a married couple must have children, raise children, and be supported by children in old age and that raising children is the most important thing from beginning to end. There is nothing wrong with holding this view, but imposing it on others and trying to convince others is a “moral kidnapping”, which turns into “reproductive coercion” in the discussion of women’s reproductive rights. In fact, Sister Yun said in a comment that she did not choose to be “Dink”: “I can not have children because of physical surgery, and I am still working hard on this.” Whether to have a child or not should be the choice of women and their partners. Even so, Sister Yun’s “passive” decision about reproduction still attracts the patriarchal remarks of “reproductive coercion”.

With an increase in their willingness for self-expression and the awakening of their subjectivity, rural women try to break away from the shackles of traditional ideas in their daily life, but still get judged on the Internet. This is related to the overall discourse environment online and the stereotypical media image of rural women. Admittedly, “reproductive coercion” from the feminist perspective can be understood as farmers’ concerns about pension, a problem caused by the incomplete rural pension system. Even so, the concerns raised by social issues should not be transferred to women in the form of verbal violence and moral kidnapping.

Rural women’s self-expression will be greatly hindered if they compromise with the patriarchal discourse. In this case, the familial image of rural female vloggers is often presented, sometimes in an exaggerated way, to meet the patriarchal expectation. The compromise with patriarchal discourse has led to the homogeneity and perfect ionization of the familial image presented by rural women on the Internet. With online circulation, such content might attract other rural women’s blind imitation, thus leading to a vicious circle of rural women’s inability to awaken their self-consciousness and self-expression bound by patriarchal discourse.

5.1 Multifaceted Rural Women in the New Era

The fact that rural Chinese female vloggers post videos made by themselves, family members, teams, or even MCNs indicates that most of them have basically developed the awareness of running new media accounts and the ability to produce videos. In contrast to ordinary rural women without jobs, most rural female vloggers have managed to make money from new media platforms. Such social labor income has improved their social participation, and has changed the status of women as “the other” and “the absent group” from new media.

The imagination of the other helps construct one’s social identification (Fang 2009). Rural women have dual cognition of themselves. On the one hand, they naturally adhere to the socially expected role as “a good wife and mother”. On the other, they choose to go beyond and make money from new media platforms to support their family. Such a change, which might be plain and unconscious, has expanded the social participation of rural Chinese women. According to Yanzi, the vlogger who runs the account “Xiangye Xiaoni”: “It’s not that I don’t want to go out for work. Is not it better if I can make money from new media platforms and take care of children at home at the same time?” As a rural housewife, Yan Zi’s choice of becoming a vlogger is motivated by her will to maintain her family role so as to better implement the traditionally perceived family responsibilities.

Furthermore, this autonomous change might result from vloggers’ conscious or unconscious exploitation of stereotypes to attract viewers. For example, the vlogger Xiang Ye Xiao Jing frequently uses the phrase “single mother” in her video title, while earlier videos of hers used her real name “Xiaojing”. Perhaps Xiaojing found the mechanism of the video platform, so she used “single mother” instead of “Xiaojing” in the title, which significantly gained clicks. In real life, as a single mother raising two children, Xiaojing works in a store, takes her children to and from school, and makes videos on her own. The pressure she bears in real life is probably beyond expectation. From the perspective of gender-based violence, she is, on the one hand, a victim of patriarchy, who is confined to her family role in order to make a living, branding her private life with a “single mother” label. On the other hand, however, she has pushed herself into the male gaze and is thus overwhelmed by questions, doubts, and even ridicule from netizens just because of her identity as a single mother with two sons, a supposedly “miserable” and “less competitive” type in the marriage market. In this way, women are constructed as “the other” (Fan 2017).

Of course, there are also “new women” with a high degree of self-awareness, who actively contact with society to show the social role of rural women beyond their family roles. For example, Lingling, a “farmer” who focuses on the farmers in the same villages, can confidently present her understanding of rural development in front of the camera, and can also stand behind the camera as reporters to interview special groups in the village. Another example is “Guangxi Sister Yun”, who has followed her heart to be a farmer after years of working as an urban white collar. Unlike other farmers, Yun’s videos mainly focus on her interest: fishing. An extraordinary female fisherman, she generously shows her confident, cheerful, and positive side on the Internet. “Jiumei the smart woman”, a successful vlogger who has transformed from a farmer to an entrepreneur, helps farmers alleviate poverty through livestreaming marketing and has caused a great social influence by bringing the knowledge of running we-media accounts to more farmers.

5.2 Rural Young Women Wandering Between Urban and Rural Areas

The rural life with agricultural work is the most dynamic theme of rural vlogs. Even so, some rural young women are still haunted by questions and doubts regarding whether to go out for work or stay in the countryside.

“Sister Pomelo from Rong County” admitted in the video that she used to work in the city before returning to the countryside to make a career. In the videos, Siter Pomelo often shows her capability in repairing various agricultural equipment, and labels herself to be “single”. Sister Pomelo’s yearning for love and her firm pursuit of e-commerce business portrays the complicated psychology of many young women today, who believe that love and career are mutually exclusive, yet they strive to have both. Being single, they work harder towards their entrepreneurial, while convincing themselves that love will always come. Why should women be confined to these two goals?

The depreciation of women starts from the change of identity brought by marriage: women who have just reached the marriageable age are the most valued, while those who have delayed their marriage are often excluded from property inheritance (Fan 2013). “Xiaoyun”, a de-agriculturalized rural female who works in the city, tried to make her videos more fashionable. The style of videos shot by Xiaoyun while working in the city is closer to that of female vloggers on platforms such as Weibo and Bilibili, for example, speaking in front of the camera and showing her makeup. This indicates the attempt for the de-agriculturalized rural youth to become the “urban people” and integrate into urban life.

At the same time, “desiring marriage”, a regular theme of the video, troubles her daily life. The so-called “leftover women” is traditionally supposed to have a low value in the marriage market, a phenomenon that unveils the extreme inequality in gender and power relations in the marriage market (Fan 2017). In the fragments of life back to the countryside, Xiaoyun’s video titles are often occupied by the words such as “being single” and “getting married”, where the description of independent, urban life no longer exists. After returning to the city again, Xiao Yun seems to find “love”, as the words “male roommate” frequently appear in the video title, and the video content starts to incorporate daily interaction with men.

Xiao Yun’s videos reflect the anxiety of rural women around 30 in face of the dual pressure from both the family and society. “A girl of age should get married”, a myth of rural society, forms a male-centered discourse that highlights the male superiority. Ironically, the man-made discourse of “leftover women” was gradually accepted and recognized by women with fixed feelings: they desire to marry, but they do not compromise to marry a wrong man. The Internet has opened up a space in which they express their troubles and prove that their value in the marriage market by frequently posting videos of interacting with men.

5.3 Vloggers Lost in the Script

Although the self-referred nickname is the primary choice for most rural women vloggers to run their channels, their skillful appropriation of new media seems to be separated from the rural women’s self-awareness and subjectivity. For one thing, rural female vloggers’ self-presentation is affected by the patriarchal discourse in relation to the socio-cultural environment in which they were raised and shaped. For another, the stigmatization and stereotyping of women by media content further aggravates their own stereotypical cognition of the media image of rural women. Not realizing the loss of self-consciousness, some of the rural female vloggers even make use of such stereotypes for traffic. The videos of “Farmer Shasha” and “Juanzi’s rural affairs”, for example, share similar characteristics in the script.

Characters in their script are stereotypically designed to be moody to troublesome. In “Farmer Sasha”’s video stories, Sasha’s mother is portrayed as a stingy, mean, and misogynist woman who, in each episode, fights with her daughter for money. Sasha, on the other hand, is designed to be the “victim” of marriage and her biological family, who returns to her mother’s home after divorce, only to find herself living in the shadow of her mother: not only does she have to tolerate her mother’s complaints about money, but she cannot visit her children without her mother’s consent. Sasha’s character design caters to the traditional idea that “divorce lowers a woman’s price” and amplifies the negative impact of divorce on rural women. It further shapes the divorced woman as a dependent, filial daughter confined to her biological family, implying that women’s value can only be achieved in her nuclear and biological family and that there is no point to operate as an individual.

The setting for “Juanzi’s rural affairs” is even more complex. Juanzi is designed as a divorced young mother, who met her current boyfriend through a blind date. While the man is “idle and ill-educated”, Juanzi’s family attach importance to the bride price. The couple got married after all the hardships but soon divorced in three months because of quarrels between the couple. immediately, Juanzi transformed from a divorced mother to an independent e-commerce entrepreneuse. Eventually, she accepted her ex-husband’s repeated apology and returned to him.

“Juanzi’s rural affairs” portrays Juanzi as an “independent woman”. However, in this script, women are still defined, watched, and consumed by others. In the portrayal where a divorced rural mother who is still competitive in the marriage market because of her young age, beauty, good family conditions, and authoritarian parents, the individual value of a woman is deprived, and what is left is her value as a bargaining chip to her original family. Compared with her boyfriend, Juanzi’s mother has an absolute say in her daughter’s marriage. The devaluation of women and the stereotyping of rural males cater to the bias that men need to assume more family responsibilities in economy, consuming both women and men. In the plot, Juanzi resolutely broke out from the marriage and pursue value for herself. However, she transformed to a brainless girl swoon over her husband after accepting his apology. The awakening of female self-consciousness in this script is transitory and illusory: a woman cannot escape her dependence on men, whether she starts a career or returns to the family.

In this sense, instead of reflecting the authentic female life, media blindly portrays women as the sex appeal, mother, and housewife (L. Chen 2009). The shared ground for the videos of “Farmer Shasha” and “Juanzi’s Rural Affairs” is that the women shown in the videos are only connected with their family and have little contact with society. Even when showing their work, the focus is always on the women’s weakness or sacrifice for love. Instead of presenting the positive and authentic image of rural women, the rural female vloggers constantly strengthen the stereotype of women and cater to the role expectations of patriarchal discourse, influencing the gender cognition of the audience (Fan 2017).

5.4 The Awakening of the Subjectivity of Rural Women

The exploration of the shift in the identification and power of the male and female farmers in the social development from the perspective of gender studies helps analyze how the social culture affects the awakening of the subjectivity of the female farmers. Subjectivity refers to the internal agency that enables a person, as a social subject, to understand self and others (Mei 2004). Female subjectivity allows women to be able to realize and fulfill their historical missions, social responsibilities, and obligations as well as to have a comprehensive understanding of themselves, participate in social life in their own way to affirm and realize their social values and pursuits (Yang & Zhou 2010). The awakening of female subjectivity lies not only in s psychological participation, but also in their active social participation to realize their own value.

The development of female subjectivity is divided into three stages: natural ease, self-consciousness, and self-improvement (Zu 1999). In the first stage, patriarchy wraps women in the family, forcing them to exercise maternal duties in accordance with the patriarchal customs. At this time, the female subjectivity is waiting to be awakened. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the saying that “women can hold up half the sky” reflected the equal labor participation between women and men at the time, when women began to become the hostess of a family as they contributed more to the family. However, the agriculturalization of men and the de-agriculturalization of women has put all the responsibilities of farm work, housework, and children raising on the wife (Yan 2017). Of all the 30 female vloggers we analyzed, some are still in the “natural ease” stage and assume the role of housewife. Most of the daily life reflected in the videos revolves around the family and children, filmed at home, with little social labor or social contact. Wherever the husband works, rural women, as the main labor force in the family, devote almost little time to themselves.

Women during the stage of self-consciousness participate in society and work, and their subjectivity is thus awoken by the socio-economic development, improved social participation, better education, and their renewed ideas (Zu 1999). They realize that they are independent individuals who can participate in social construction with their own will. The de-agriculturalization of rural women and the entrepreneurial attempt by rural female vloggers indicate that they have connected with society and have social labor income. Some rural women have also become outstanding representatives in poverty alleviation through e-commerce, while others pay attention to rural issues from the humanistic and female perspectives. They have actively participated in social activities and become part of the drive for socialist modernization. However, it is noteworthy that contemporary Chinese society has not provided support strong enough to push the awakening of female subjectivity into the third stage. On the one hand, women are subject to patriarchal discourse to perform traditional family duties. On the other hand, they are influenced by the germination of self-consciousness, trying to break through the traditional shackles. They end up wandering between the two contradictory ideas, not knowing where to go.

“Women can also hold up half the sky. I hope that more women can change their mind and embrace the Internet to learn, to communicate, and to be independent. I am willing to pass on my experience to more people in need.’ Said Gan Youqin.” (Women’s Federation of Lingshan 2020)

As the female representative in poverty alleviation, “Jiumei” sets herself an example for other rural women. She spoke out and encouraged rural women to receive education, improve themselves and catch up with the development of society. This has played an important role in promoting the awakening of the subjectivity of Chinese rural women.

Women’s subjectivity is fully awoken in the stage of self-improvement, where they have become the subject with agency and creativity (Zhai 2006). The third stage calls for equality in the social system, personality, and social evaluation standards. The achievement of the goal of this stage is the premise of the free development and comprehensive liberation of women. Chinese women’s participation in labor has increased since the launch of the women’s liberation campaign in the 1950s, but this physical liberation got little progress. While women had acquired the same labor rights as men, they still lacked self-consciousness. Women’s subjectivity continues to improve with the continuous development of Chinese society, but the stage of “self-improvement” is yet to come. What is worse, the suppression and stigmatization by the patriarchal discourse are reviving. The history written under centuries of the patriarchal discourse is hard to be overturned by decades of feminist movements and research, and the complete awakening of female subjectivity has a long way to go.