“Hooligan
Sparrow”- Has Ye Haiyan come to the End of 15 Years of Feminist Struggle?
Parwana
16. 04. 2020
English translation proofread:
Angela Bainter and Bella Peacock
Prominent
Grassroots Feminist Pleading for Escape
Ye Haiyan says a woman official with the
surname Liu threatened to demolish the
yurt she built for a small guesthouse, and Ms. Liu warned that all her words on
social media WeChat and Weibo are watched by the government, she will face
expulsion and legal penalty if they find out any of her inappropriate remarks.
Ye Haiyan gasps between words,
her tears keep rolling down while she sobs that all her money and energy has been invested in building the yurts; the loss
of them would be unbearable since these are now her main livelihood.
To continue living in China, Ye Haiyan hasn’t
published politically sensitive
articles online for years. Despite that, she feels increasingly helpless living
in the shadow of a harsh political crackdown which seems to have no end. By emphasizing the intention of all her engagement, Ye Haiyan said
she’s really upset by
periodical evictions and obscure accusations which claim her behavior is
against government regulations. Everything she has done is based on her love for the country and
responsibilities as a citizen.
Today, Ye Haiyan’s 15 years of work has been slowly whittled away, reduced to sniggers. Her
story encapsulates a larger more ominous turn – a slow and steady quashing of
radical dissident voices across China until they are little more than hallow echoes.
The
predicament Ye Haiyan exclaimed on Twitter doesn’t sound unfamiliar. The majority of Chinese social activists have experienced similar or even
crueler suppression from the authoritarian government. The question is why such
a prominent figure among the most important modern Chinese grassroots feminists is now reduced to crying
and begging for help in front of the camera over internet?
Background: Alleged
Women’s Emancipation since the Mao Era
There’s a big misunderstanding
that China has already fully emancipated women back in the Mao era. That is not
true. The socialist revolution simply subsumed women under the nationalist
political agenda. Mao’s policy was enforced in response to the urgent
requirement for increased labor to support mass production; it served to exploit
and oppress women more than it empowered them.
[2] A woman
must play the role of an industry worker in the factory like a man while
suppressing her own interests and desires while simultaneously fulfilling many
other traditional roles – a beautiful, thrifty and chaste wife, wonderful cook,
a loving and gentle mother, and an obedient caring daughter-in-law. It’s not an
exaggeration; this ‘‘perfect woman’’ ideal is exactly what the Chinese state still
propagates to people to this very day.
The state’s women’s
organization “Fulian”(All-China Women’s Federation), founded in 1949, dominates
women’s political discourse entirely in China, but it represents neither women’s
interests nor protects them from harm and inequality. “Fulian” has never
announced their working agenda to the public; in reality it functions just like
a state mouthpiece. It is actually grassroots NGOs who are campaigning for women;
some also work with international NGOs, however many of them were clamped down
on in 2015.
The emergence of “Hooligan Sparrow” – On Body, Dignity
and Sexuality of Marginalized Social Groups
If you ask people in China who still
remember the name Ye Haiyan(叶海燕), don’t be astonished by their sneers towards her sagged boobs
and chubby body – this is
most of what survives about her on the Chinese internet now. People laugh and say it is ridiculous that she,
an uneducated worker from the country, exposed her “ugly” naked body in the
name of activism. Some say she must have learned that from western feminists,
and that she is a copycat, a sad clown.
Ye
Haiyan was born in a small village
in Hubei Province; after graduating from middle school she moved to the city
looking for a better life. Back in 2005, a set of naked photos posted on a
popular internet forum “TianYa” with the alias “Hooligan Sparrow” from Ye Haiyan went
viral. Ye Haiyan declared ownership of her own body by bodly showing her
imperfect curves
and desires to the public - demanding freedom
for women to enjoy sexual pleasure the as same as men. The forum post sparked much
uproar on the Chinese internet; the netizens
who were barely exposed to any western feminist thinking at the time were
literally petrified; Ye Haiyan became famous overnight.
Although
her fame on the internet seems at most of the time notorious, Ye Haiyan still
proudly identified herself as one of the
“marginalized persons”. She
set up a small NGO called “Chinese Folk-feminist Studio”,
with the mission to engage in public
service work for vulnerable social groups between 2007 and 2013.
Notable projects include, the project for helping HIV infected people, advocating legalization of
prostitution, etc.
During
that time a number of
women writers like Mu Zimei and Lin
Bai also started emerging from the internet, they drew a wide attention from the
Chinese literary world with their sentimental style and themes
centered on sexuality and the female
self-consciousness. Hence, the bottom-up Chinese feminist movement paved its
way by leading the process of self-consciousness awakening through the network
of internet, and stimulating the public discourse on feminism.
It
gradually proved its place in Chinese society.
Debatable Critics on Chinese Social Media until 2013
Riding
the wave of internet fame, Ye Haiyan remained active on the internet. She
often challenged orthodox societal values, and started cyber-fights with people
who were ignorant to feminism or harbored prejudices against women. In two of her best-known articles “I Surely Want Men, and I’ll Take the
‘Purity Memorial’ Too”(《爷，男人我肯定要，牌坊我也拿走了！》2006) and “The
Biggest Resistance to Chinese Feminism
is Women”(《中国女权的最大的阻力是女人》2009), she fiercely denounced two types of women, “Traditional
Pugs” (传统哈巴狗) and “Modern Hot Chicks” (现代辣子鸡) who she considered to be obstacles to the
development of Feminism. The first term indicates women who yearn
for love and approval from men, and over-indulgently work to please men; the latter stands for younger and
even well-educated modern women who exchange their youth and beauty for
luxurious material enjoyments from men.
Unfortunately the audacious ‘‘Body Strategy’’ and the blatant speeches of Ye
Haiyan are apparently a crazy idea in a country which still puts male superiority and traditional values and
morality on a pedestal. Instead of receiving support from people, her social media engagement was demeaned by the
public; many humiliated her and cursed her like a pest. However, Ye Haiyan
didn’t give up, and despite harsh public criticism, she opened a ‘‘10RMB-Shop’’ in the
Guangxi Province in 2011, providing
‘‘affordable’’ prostitution for migrant workers, and hoping to promote a better
understanding of sex workers and needs of migrant workers on the
bottom rung of society. In an interview
with Phoenix New Media(凤凰网) in 2012, she rebuked the slurs by saying that she didn’t need recognition
from netizens, because
she has confidence in her own values,
‘‘If they say prostitution is a disgraceful deed, I would say those whose
job is to fawn over others are more disgraceful’’, she continued.
A
year later, Ye Haiyan rose again to the center of attention on social
media by leading collective action against child sexual abuse and corrupt
school officials. The highly
debated protest
with protesters jointly holding a board titled ‘‘Headmaster, Get a Hotel
Room with Me, Spare the Children!’’, ignited anger and all other possible
emotions on the internet. Afterwards, a masked mob attacked her workplace and
home, forcing her to take self-defense with her daughter. The police sentenced her to 13 days in a detention center for ‘‘suspicion of deliberately harming others’’,
and yet didn’t pressed any charges against the mob.
Support from International Feminist
Communities
In
contrast to the domestic reactions, Ye Haiyan’s feminist pursuits
received widespread recognitions and
support from overseas, artist like Ai
Weiwei,[3] and numerous western media outlets including the BBC, New York Times. In 2016, a documentary film
‘‘Hooligan Sparrow’’ based on Ye Haiyan and her activist struggles made it to
many international film festivals, such as Sundance[4]. The film won the
IDA Documentary Award, and was
shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award for best documentary feature.[5]
The
unrelenting efforts Ye
Haiyan spurred the re-shaping women’s self-consciousness and opposition to
social inequality, which earned her an undeniable role in China’s feminist and civil rights
movement. Her name appears in almost all modern Chinese feminist movement
chronicles. Her work, especially her social media engagement is widely
discussed and quoted among many prominent feminist scholars in and outside
China, including: Wang Zheng, Professor of Women's Studies and History from
University of Michigan, Leta Hong Fincher, an American journalist and a scholar
who specializes in
Gender Studies, and Zeng Jinyan, a scholar, writer and human rights activist. In
2016 Zeng Jinyan wrote about Ye Haiyan in her book “Feminism and Genesis of the
Citizen Intelligentsia in China”, she commended Ye Haiyan as a “unique
social activist”, and “a daughter of farmer, who taught herself to become a civil storyteller, and mastered
a particular competence of language which challenges the discourse of knowledge
production”. [6]
However by searching the name Ye Haiyan in Google now, you will only find outdated articles about her. Her life seems to have
stopped around 2017.
No Home and No Future
Since 2010 the electricity and water in Ye
Haiyan’s home and office have been frequently shut off, and she has also been the target of numerous anonymous
threats and violence. After staging the protest against child abuse in 2013,
she carried alleged “bad records”, and was evicted multiple times, which
resulted in her being displaced for
three years.[7] Living
under constant
government surveillance and suppression has left Ye Haiyan feeling that she cannot do anything anymore. She has
been beaten down, and has kept a low profile since then.
In
2019, after wandering between many cities in China, in the hope of finding some
peace away from the harassment and attacks, Ye Haiyan and her family finally settled
down in a remote grasslands region(Xilamuren) of inner Mongolia. They rented a small
yurt and renovated it into a simple
guesthouse, trying to make a living between hosting travelers and selling some
paintings and articles.
Ye
Haiyan’s dream to be the first “female grassroots political representative” has come to nothing after years of
struggle and suffering. She doesn’t dare publish sensitive articles or piercing
comments anymore. The protest
actions and performance
art she used to manage have now
become history. However the government is not satisfied with this, the local
police never cease their periodical surveillance and interrogations. She can no longer move about
freely, and her passport has been confiscated too.
Outcast Civil Rights Activists from China
Grassroots social activists
like Ye Haiyan face acute survival issues over the years. At the beginning of 2015 Chinese authorities started to
take severe systematic measures against civil rights groups
and activists. Along with many arrests and crackdowns, news and activities from
Chinese feminist movement have slowly
vanished. The control
over all domestic and international NGOs indicates that human rights activism has lost its ground in mainland China. No more protests or collective
actions can be put forward, social and civil rights efforts have all fallen into stagnation. Massive tracking, detention and secret arrest of social activists,
protesters and dissidents at all levels have also become an open secret. After supporting the “Feminist Five”(女权五姐妹) in 2015 and initiating the #MeToo campaign in 2018, Chinese feminist NGO “Feminist Voices”(女权之声) and many others were forced to close. The few remaining feminist and social rights voices in Chinese society also have become more and more feeble since their stands and opinions are being
marginalized.
The
iron hand of the state
utilizes traditional media
as well as social media to paralyze
the development of the civil society, and endangers the survival of human
rights activists to a great extent. Their speech only survives
merely hours among a small group on social media. Advanced ideologies like Freedom of Speech,
Human Equality, and Democracy can hardly find their soil to grow. What is even more disappointing is that because of the collaboration formed by the
didactic state media, influential
celebrities and social media influencers, systematic smears frequently discredits social activists and their engagements.
As a result, the majority of
people refuse to recognize social activism and its efforts, which distances it from the
very groups that these efforts are trying to reach. Under these circumstances, how can a civil rights movement which has
neither a mass foundation nor policy support survive?
However, perhaps one day the political environment in China will change, some independent media groups
and individuals are now trying to adopt a
discreet approach to work around politically sensitive themes, while
waiting for the opportunity to come; they concentrate on building up networks,
and patiently cultivating sober and independent thinking communities.
Yet it is impossible for Ye Haiyan, and many
others like her who had already achieved notoriety in China, to go back to a quiet and anonymous “normal life”; their names are on the black list of the government;
they are closely monitored, and
their every single move is watched. Ye
Haiyan finds herself on
the verge of survival, the idea of continuing her activism (even discreetly) is out of the question.
From Unforgettable to Forgotten
After enduring 15 years
feminist struggle, today she is vulnerable and helpless. Even though she has
voluntarily withdrawn from public view, the idea of being free from surveillance
and leading a normal life in China seems like an unattainable dream. Now she
can only beg through Twitter for help and shelter from a distance, but perhaps
her tears and grey hair can convey more than her words can express.
As of the completion of this
article on April 16th, there have been no further updates from Ye
Haiyan on Twitter since the day she posted her S.O.S video on March 27th.
[1]
Twitter叶海燕 @liumangyan
https://twitter.com/liumangyan/status/1243416978540249094
[2] Invention and Intervention: The Making of a Female Tradition in
Modern Chinese Literature, Lydia H. Liu DOI:10.1525/california/9780520211032.003.0006
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