All Things Female: Philogyny, Digital Feminism, and Storyworld in Chinese iFemale Novels

This article is among the first Anglophone studies to explore an emerging new genre of Chinese online literature known as “iFemale” (ainü 爱女). iFemale novels, characterised by an ensemble of entirely female protagonists and an absence of male-centric romantic plots, represent a radical shift in Chinese women’s digital writing. Departing from the previously dominant Romantique 2.0 web romance, iFemale novels unapologetically reimagine a fully female-centred storyworld, where romantic love is nothing but a minor matter. The article examines the concept of philogyny—a love for/of the female sex—as central to iFemale novels, contrasting it with the “omnipresent misogyny”, a concept made popular in China via the Japanese feminist theorist Chizuko Ueno. By situating iFemale novels in Chinese digital feminism, the article argues that these works all attempt to resist the ingrained misogyny in our society and culture. Recognising the impossibility of realising full female emancipation via collaboration with the patriarchal status quo, iFemale novels, along with Chinese radical feminism, constitute a site to negotiate separatist feminism strategies. They collectively ask how different our world would be without patriarchy, and without the dominance of biological males in every system. A case study of Throw that TradWife and CEO to a New World of Female-Male Equality (2022-) demonstrates how iFemale novels meticulously focus on storyworld settings that defamiliarize female realities, to critique and reimagine not only patriarchy but also the very foundations of “modern society.”