‘I Am Not a Feminist, but’: Exploring Affective Intra-action of the ‘Feminist’ Label Among Chinese Youth in the Postdigital Era

Abstract This paper addresses the disparity between Chinese feminist ideologies and the lived experiences of Chinese youth through a postdigital feminist perspective. Drawing on in-depth interviews and reflective fieldnotes with four Chinese college students, I explore the discursive-material discourses and (negative) affective intensity of the feminist label in China. I argue that feminisms in China have formed as compressed (post-)feminism —a mode of political expression and struggles deeply shaped by the geo-politico-techno conditions of the glocally postdigital contexts . The findings reveal that China’s state-sanctioned, top-down ‘gender equality’ discourses—combined with neoliberal individualism and the emotionally charged visibility of digital feminist movements—produce an ambivalent affective terrain for young people. Their aspirations for gender equality are non-intersectional and depoliticised, and often coexisting with unease towards feminist identification and affective subjectivity. Through a feminist ‘eclectic’ approach, this paper highlights the intra-action of gendered power structures, postdigital infrastructure, internalised misogyny, and the colonial legacies of feminist theory in shaping the meanings, feelings, and exclusions attached to feminism among Chinese youth. The findings offer new insights into the more-than-digital conditions of feminist activism, urging a re-imagining of postdigital feminist education in the Chinese context.