This article attempts to examine the incident of chained woman that took place in Dongji Village, China, in 2022 through the lens of traditional culture and concepts. The chained woman’s living place was not locked and villagers were generally aware of it, but why was she not rescued? Why did the local Douyin blogger who found her use her story as social media fodder rather than seeing it as a crime of gender violence? From the perspective of traditional Confucianism and clan culture, this paper reveals the connection between gender violence against women in contemporary rural China and the traditional culture of local clans. It argues that, in some grassroots villages in China today, the existence of clans is not only a collective identity system that maintains the patriarchal social order, but also a social network that implicitly supports gender oppression. This network reinforces mutual support and patronage among men of the same surname, creates an exclusive structure in the distribution of power and benefits, and shapes the local villagers' consciousness and conception of women, placing them in a position of instrumentality and dependence.

Authors:
Lei Wang, Hof University of Applied Sciences, Germany

About the Presenter(s)
Lei Wang is a lecturer in Chinese language at Hof Universitz in Germany. Her interests are history of science and technology in modern China and Japan, Chinese traditional culture and science communication in Japan.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/ouji1986/

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