“Modern-Day Instruments of Torture for Women”: The Competing Discursive Practices and Meaning Reconstruction of Duckbill Pliers on Chinese Social Media Platforms

Although medical technology in China continues to advance, the vaginal speculum, commonly referred to as the "duckbill pliers," has sparked intense outrage among women netizens. This study revisits the complex relationships between gender, power, and healthcare through the lens of a recent online debate about the duckbill clamp, using the framework of Relational Dialectics 2.0. The study reveals the key significance of this core issue. Two pairs of competing discourses were identified: the "Blaming the Patient" and "Blaming the System" discourses, which focus on the examination process; and the "Pragmatic Doctors" and "Empathy-Seeking Patients" discourses, which highlight contrasting doctor - patient perspectives. The first pair centers on the attribution and legitimacy of women's pain during gynecological exams, while the second addresses the relationship and interpretive divide between doctors and patients. Within the dialogic transformation, a newly emergent discourse from women's voices has appeared: the "The Predicament of Women." This discourse transcends the issues of gynecological instruments and the doctor-patient relationship, reflecting on how structural gender issues permeate healthcare within a broader cultural significance system.