A diachronic study of female stereotypes in China in the 21st century based on word embeddings: an analysis of Southern Weekly

This study investigates the diachronic evolution of female stereotypes in China from 2008 to 2023, against the backdrop of rapid socio-cultural changes and uses a combination of word embeddings and qualitative analysis. Based on the corpus of Southern Weekly, the most influential newspaper in China, this study identifies 15 words with significant differences in gender association distances for analysis from the list of 114 words across multiple dimensions. By analysing the gender biases and relational shifts of the selected 15 words, this article reveals societal expectations and stereotypes of gender roles as reflected in the distribution of lexical gender biases. Furthermore, it examines the dynamic changes in word associations, offering insights into the evolving perceptions of gender roles in Chinese society. Through the lens of media discourse analysis, this research contributes to understanding the intersection of language, gender and cultural transformation in contemporary China.