On October 1st, the journal “Continuing Revolution” of the “Revolution” Society published an article titled “Looking at Today’s Feminist Movement from the Wuhan University Library Incident.” On the surface, it advocates for gender equality and women’s liberation, but in reality, it is filled with the prejudices and insults of fascist male chauvinists against the women’s liberation movement and women’s status. The author, based on some sympathy for women’s liberation and the Chinese Communist movement, despises such fascist articles, so he specifically wrote this free discussion to expose the reactionary face of the “Continuing Revolution” Society.
Recently, the Wuhan University Library incident seems to have come to an end after the Wuhan Intermediate People’s Court dismissed Yang Jingyuan’s second appeal. The result from Wuhan University was the revocation of Xiao Mingtao’s disciplinary record. Before a definitive conclusion was reached, a large number of fascist elements, under the guise of ordinary netizens, fabricated various reactionary public opinions and videos, attacking the victim through online violence. After the news of the court ruling and the revocation of the disciplinary action was released, many fascist elements celebrated, and the male chauvinist movement once again claimed victory! The weak and helpless children of bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie, tailing female students, flaunting their prostitution experiences, and publicly singing the lyrics of the greatest revolutionary song of the global working class, “The Internationale,” with obscene words—Xiao Mingtao finally defeated the feminist activists’ persecution and attack under the verdict of a “people’s” court that was ambiguous in evidence and filled with nonsensical testimonies! The “Continuing Revolution” Society seized this opportunity to quickly publish a black article titled “Looking at Today’s Feminist Movement from the Wuhan University Library Incident,” slandering the general public supporting the victim on one side, and frantically praising various disgusting fascist male chauvinists, attempting to distort Marxism, and using the hypocritical face of revisionism to suppress the voices of victims’ resistance and struggle.
At the beginning of the article, the author shamelessly distorts facts based on the stance of fascist male chauvinists, writing:
“In July 2023, Wuhan University master’s student Yang Jingyuan, while studying in the library, suspected that a first-year male student, Xiao Tong, was engaging in ‘masturbation’ behavior opposite her, so she recorded a video accusing him of ‘sexual harassment’ and demanded he write an apology letter. In October 2023, Yang Jingyuan was dissatisfied with the school’s investigation progress, and the incident fermented online. Under public pressure, the school imposed a disciplinary record on Xiao Tong. This led to Xiao being subjected to online violence and diagnosed with PTSD, and his grandfather died from the stress caused by online abuse. Two years after the incident (that is, now), after the court dismissed Yang Jingyuan’s ‘sexual harassment’ charges, the school has yet to revoke Xiao’s disciplinary record. As a result, the incident reignited, triggering further online abuse of Xiao and public criticism and digging into Yang Jingyuan and Wuhan University behind her.”
Such discourse inevitably raises suspicion—does the author even understand the facts of the case, or is he just writing based on a brief summary from Baidu Baike? May I ask, isn’t it suspicious that the video Yang Jingyuan provided shows Xiao Mingtao with legs spread wide, frequently masturbating, and repeatedly twitching his legs when stopping? Why did the typically tough and shameless bureaucratic bourgeoisie brat Xiao Mingtao, in such “slander,” only collapse and agree to apologize within half a minute? Why does this paragraph only mention Yang Jingyuan filming Xiao Mingtao (which indeed became strong evidence) but not Xiao Mingtao secretly filming Yang Jingyuan? Why is the “Wuhan University behind Yang Jingyuan” handling so slowly that she had to take such radical measures to push the matter forward, even threatening to commit suicide with medication in the subsequent court ruling to accelerate proceedings? Why does the author shamelessly cite the rumor that “his grandfather died from stress caused by online abuse,” a fact officially denied, as evidence? Why was Xiao Mingtao diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after being evaluated as “moderately exaggerated, answer casually or seeking help, alert to possible psychological issues” in bourgeois psychological testing?
Faced with numerous questions, the “Continuing Revolution” Society neither answers nor wants to answer. Like all fascist male chauvinists, they rely solely on baseless self-made accusations, shouting about “female fists.”
Their self-deceptive fabrication states:
“The main force behind online violence against Xiao is a huge ‘female fist’ group, and in the face of various ‘sexual harassment’ false accusations, almost all are women who win by false accusations.”
May I ask, where do such data come from? We know that in the extremely reactionary fascist China, women’s power has always been extremely low. From childhood, women are not only taught to obey Confucian rites and laws, obey parents, submit to school and family oppression, but also to become valuable commodities in the future, exchanging for generous bride prices for patriarchal families, often subjected to voyeurism, molestation, and even rape by schools, classmates, relatives, and social hooligans. According to a Weibo poll by @LiangYuStacey on March 24, 2020, among 45,000 voters, 85% of women had experienced sexual harassment or assault. The youngest victims were only six months old, and among them, a large number of morally corrupt social hooligans, only 1.8% were punished, and according to Nazi laws, many punishments were clearly insufficient as a warning. Even for serious criminal cases like rape, only 6.5% were punished. Many victims, fearing revenge from rapists and social condemnation rooted in reactionary Confucian culture, are the oppressed and harmed but are attacked and insulted by male chauvinists with disgusting remarks, wishing to kill the victims. Therefore, they dare not report the case, and some do not even know how to fight back after being harmed. In such a country where women’s status is at an unprecedented low, women cannot even maintain their personal dignity, and without fascist government protection, where is the so-called false accusation right?!
And what about the oppression women suffer in the family and their resistance? How does the “Continuing Revolution” Society view this? They say:
“The most common example is women refusing to undertake traditional gender roles (such as ‘not cooking, not raising children’) but still demanding men to bear the responsibility of traveling and supporting the family… The recent surge of fraudulent marriage cases is an excellent illustration of this stance.”
May I ask, where do such data come from? In fascist China, where most women suffer from sexual assault, it is astonishing that the endless cases are so-called women oppressing men through fraudulent marriages, rather than men raping women?! Even official fascist Chinese media have to admit that, according to their obviously understated data, about 30% of Chinese families experience domestic violence, with 90% of the violence originating from men, and women being battered an average of 35 times before reporting. Given the inaction of fascist Chinese police on domestic violence, the problem will only worsen. Under such circumstances, the “Continuing Revolution” Society shamelessly slanders that one of the mistakes of “female fists” is refusing to undertake traditional gender roles and demanding men to fulfill family responsibilities—this is absurd. Are women, bound by such reactionary family relations, capable of having any voice in the family? Do the vast majority of women, whose personal safety and dignity cannot even be guaranteed, make such nonsensical demands?!
Of course, the “Continuing Revolution” Society also knows that if they only write like this, the article seems no different from the usual rhetoric of male chauvinists, thus failing to achieve the purpose of using revisionism to defend various male chauvinists. Therefore, they rely on these obviously fabricated arguments, pretending to stand on the side of women’s liberation (despite the previous clear exposure of the author’s extreme hatred and indifference toward women’s liberation), and talk about the origins of patriarchy and private ownership. Their discussion on the origins of patriarchy further exposes their ignorance and ugliness.
How did patriarchy come into being? Here, the “Continuing Revolution” Society’s revisionists make inexplicable claims:
“Patriarchy almost emerged simultaneously with private ownership. With the formation of two major social divisions of labor, men, who controlled primitive animal husbandry and agriculture, occupied a dominant position in social production compared to women’s domestic labor. The formation of these divisions of labor also led to rapid productive forces development, producing large surpluses for the first time in human history, creating conditions for the disintegration of primitive communal ownership. As Engels said, ‘the communal nature of production’ and ‘the communal nature of possession’ were destroyed by division of labor, and the family became the basic economic unit of society. Meanwhile, commodity exchange appeared, and the contradiction between use value and exchange value caused class differentiation—private ownership and class oppression thus began to form. To ensure the inheritance of their status and property, male exploiters promoted the transformation of matrilineal clans into patrilineal clans, and patriarchy was thus born.”
This explanation is even more nonsensical. First, it reflects a misunderstanding of family concepts: the “Continuing Revolution” Society inexplicably equates clan families with patriarchal families. During the patrilineal clan stage, primitive society was already in its late period. Although men held higher status than women, and men dominated agricultural and pastoral labor, women only performed auxiliary or domestic work (due to menstruation, childbirth, breastfeeding, etc.). But primitive communism had not yet completely collapsed. Under this patriarchy, men and women still maintained equality; the supposed superiority of men was merely due to their dominant role in production and did not involve slavery or oppression of women in private property societies.
Based on this flawed understanding of family, they further distort the concept of patriarchy itself. It is clear that their explanation is contradictory: on one hand, they give a relatively natural explanation that patriarchy developed as men gradually gained dominance in productive forces; on the other hand, they crudely and forcibly distort patriarchy into a hereditary system invented by the exploitative male class. From this distortion, it is evident that the “Continuing Revolution” Society is at a loss. The real question is whether patriarchy is a system that emerged historically or if it is inherently a system of inheritance of private property. They have no serious scholarly intent and simply equate patriarchy with private ownership, crudely interpreting patriarchy as a system of property inheritance and power relations.
After exhausting efforts to resolve this (ridiculously, they prefer to waste effort on this nonsensical sophistry rather than studying Marxism or investigating social news), they face another major problem. In their view, patriarchy has been distorted into a natural form of private ownership. So, how does patriarchy function differently from private ownership to maintain private property? Here, the logical gap is completely exposed, and they have no choice but to invent a grand discovery:
“All measures attempting to strengthen women’s dependence on men—such as confining women to domestic labor or denying women an independent social labor status—ultimately aim to strengthen the exploitation of the oppressed classes by the exploiting classes.”
In other words, private ownership leads to exploitation of the oppressed by the oppressors, which is an unprecedented invention! Of course, the “Continuing Revolution” Society also realizes that this explanation is overly far-fetched—more precisely, nonsensical. So they add:
“That is, by recognizing only male workers’ independence in social labor, it forces workers to double their labor intensity, enabling exploiters to extract more surplus products.”
Wait, what does this mean? Why does the concept of patriarchy change again? Earlier, the “Continuing Revolution” Society confidently claimed, “The exploitative male class, to ensure their status and property inheritance, promoted the transformation from matrilineal to patrilineal clans, and patriarchy was thus born.” Combining this with previous statements, patriarchy is an economic inheritance system and a new power relation. But here, the definition of patriarchy suddenly shifts to “recognizing only male workers’ independence in social labor.” Not to mention, how does recognizing only male workers’ independence force workers to increase their labor intensity? First, who are the workers—male or female? The “Continuing Revolution” Society does not specify. But from the last sentence, we see: “allow exploiters to extract more surplus products,” meaning exploiting such workers can produce more exploitation—materialized labor. We know that in patriarchal societies, especially before capitalism, women’s labor was mainly domestic, and productive social labor was usually performed by men. From this, it becomes clear: patriarchy is what causes greater oppression of male workers!
The “Continuing Revolution” Society thus distorts the concept of patriarchy, starting from misrepresenting part of the family concept, then distorting “patriarchy,” ultimately glorifying it as a system mainly enslaving male “workers.”
But what is the reality? In today’s fascist China, patriarchy indeed has reactionary effects not only on women but also on men. This influence manifests as the Chinese monopoly bourgeoisie promoting reactionary ideas, supporting various second-dimensional pornographic arts, and deliberately creating and amplifying so-called “female fist” rhetoric online to vilify women, banning news of women’s oppression and slavery, and corrupting the morals of Chinese men, especially petty bourgeoisie men. Today, Chinese men enjoy various oppressive pornographic and reactionary works, while vilifying women as lazy parasites or prostitutes eager to sell their bodies, glorifying their own hooligan behaviors as natural instincts. The “Zhongxiu” (Chinese revisionist) regime propagates this, allowing the masses of men to enjoy the pleasure of being oppressive tyrants at home, and many even ignore their own oppression and slavery under the regime, venting all their dissatisfaction onto women. Therefore, it is not that recognizing only male social labor increases exploitation of men, but rather, because many men, influenced by the regime, spontaneously or consciously enjoy oppressing women, unwilling to resist the fascist Chinese government, which further enables the regime to oppress workers.
This conclusion exposes both the “Continuing Revolution” Society’s habitual ignorance and their nature as a petty bourgeois right-wing organization detached from the masses and the people. Such absurd explanations naturally cannot deceive the people. Hence, the “Continuing Revolution” Society did not elaborate further (as can be seen from their sentences, especially their frank admission that “workers” are exploited but they dare not openly expose their views—namely, that male workers are exploited more). To divert attention, they then risk illogical and abrupt shifts, suddenly talking about women’s oppression and the spontaneous feminist movements among the masses.
“Capitalist patriarchy still maintains gender division of labor, and through its corresponding ideology, considers women’s labor as a supplement to men’s income in the family, or views women as ‘housewives,’ as reserve labor. The prevalent bride price, trafficking women, and online pornography are all manifestations of patriarchal ideology, treating women as commodities, instilling the idea that women should be oppressed. The gender division of labor that still exists in capitalist society not only limits women’s participation in productive labor but also manifests in some industries’ dress codes for female workers. The mainstream feminist movement developed in this environment.”
Here, the “Continuing Revolution” Society appears to acknowledge some oppression and slavery of women in capitalism, but it is merely superficial—using vague words and confusing the minor aspects of women’s oppression to explain the current situation. They abstractly discuss the oppression of female workers in the family but do not mention that in China, female workers are often mere domestic slaves or reproductive tools satisfying their husbands’ lust, with no rights as persons. If they violate norms, they are insulted by their husbands; if severe, they are abused or murdered. They abstractly talk about unequal treatment of women in the workplace but dare not mention that women often do more strenuous work than men, even with the same labor, due to menstruation, childbirth, etc., and in some factories, women perform much heavier labor. Moreover, women face wage discrimination, being despised for being weak, not hardworking, and having their wages unfairly deducted or lowered for various reasons. They abstractly discuss social pornographic concepts but openly side with the hooligan Xiao in the Yang Jingyuan case, talking about so-called fraudulent marriages and online violence with emotion, while when discussing women’s issues, they appear as old-fashioned gentlemen.
After beautifying the patriarchy (the “Continuing Revolution” Society shamelessly claims that this is Marxist view of patriarchy), they immediately begin to praise the main target of this article—the fascist male chauvinists. Since, in their view, women’s oppression and slavery are merely uncomfortable experiences (as seen from their verbose comments on Yang Jingyuan and their magnification of women’s oppression issues), and male “workers” are genuinely exploited and oppressed by patriarchy, they naturally draw the absurd conclusion:
“With the emergence of ‘female fists’ in gender opposition, it is the conservative male chauvinist ideas representing patriarchy. The gender conflict incidents provoked by petty bourgeois and bourgeois feminism often lead to a deterioration of the general impression of women and the reactionary male chauvinists’ attacks on women’s legitimate rights… State organs and schools protect women in these incidents, not only because some families have strong backgrounds but also because bourgeois and petty bourgeois feminism does not fundamentally threaten private property, making it a derivative of patriarchy, a supplement to reactionary male chauvinism, reflecting the parasitic life of women exploited by the ruling class.”
This also means that the Continuing Revolution Society believes the following: The so-called “女拳” (Nüquán, “female fist”) elements play a role in providing male chauvinists with reasons to attack and in creating a negative impression of the so-called general female populace among society’s average men. The reasons why the fascist Chinese government supports “女拳” elements are twofold: primarily because “女拳” elements do not threaten the foundation of fascist China’s rule, and second because “女拳” elements themselves have certain connections, being linked to China’s large bourgeoisie, and are thus essentially insiders of the fascist Chinese government. The Continuing Revolution Society’s passionate denunciation of the crimes of “女拳” elements ignores their accusations of “reactionary male chauvinism.” The article’s title clearly states “From the Wuhan University Library Incident to Today’s Feminist Movement,” yet once again exposes that the Continuing Revolution Society neither understands the Wuhan University Library incident nor the current feminist movement.
Starting with the former, the Continuing Revolution Society uses the Wuhan University Library incident as a symbolic event of the “女拳” movement, implying that they believe Yang Jingyuan’s negative impact on Xiao Ze was because, on one hand, Yang Jingyuan had support from the Nazi government, and on the other hand, she herself is a “女拳” element, supported by the Nazi government. However, both points are incorrect. Comparing Xiao Ze and Yang Jingyuan’s economic capabilities reveals the difference: Xiao Ze is a descendant of bureaucratic monopoly bourgeoisie, with his grandfather being the former deputy chairman of Dongfeng Motor Corporation, a state-owned enterprise, and his mother also a capitalist. His registered company, Wuhan Yongchanglong Industrial & Trade Development Co., Ltd., has a registered capital of ten million yuan, with actual paid-in capital of six million yuan. His high school classmates also revealed that Xiao Ze is extremely wealthy and often boasts about having several tens of thousands of yuan in pocket money per month, with various luxury cars chauffeuring him to and from school! During university, with the help of his monopolistic bourgeois family, he owned an Audi costing around 300,000 to 400,000 yuan. After the incident, Xiao Ze and Yang Jingyuan’s legal representation differed greatly: Xiao Ze’s lawyer was Chen Ling, a first-level partner at Hubei Today Law Firm, a member of the Hubei Provincial Political Consultative Conference, an enforcement supervision expert for the Hubei Provincial Party Committee Political and Legal Committee, and director of the Hubei Lawyers Association’s Administrative Law Committee. He has been invited multiple times to train government agencies, professional institutions, and universities in Hubei and Wuhan on legal theory and affairs, and has represented provincial and municipal government departments in legal matters. He is a senior bureaucrat in the political-legal system. Yang Jingyuan’s lawyer, Ding Yaqing, is at most an independent liberal who is not favored by the fascist government. Furthermore, the second reason given by the Continuing Revolution Society—that Yang Jingyuan is a “女拳” element supported by the fascist Chinese government—is even more nonsensical. In fact, the fascist Chinese government has consistently obstructed Yang Jingyuan’s rights to appeal. Since Yang Jingyuan raised her legitimate demands, Wuhan University, which is backing her, has sought to protect its reputation, trying to downplay the incident despite video evidence and Xiao Ze’s reactions confirming his guilt. As a reactionary institution serving the bourgeoisie, Wuhan University persisted in small-scale handling, private negotiations, and monetary bribes to force Yang Jingyuan to give up. Yang Jingyuan, to defend her rights, continued to fight back, even publishing an article titled “On My Experience of Sexual Harassment at Wuhan University Library,” which fully exposed Wuhan University’s collusion with social hooligans like Xiao Ze and delivered a strong slap to Xiao Ze and his bourgeois family. Wuhan University, frightened by her resolve and actions, quickly responded that very day by punishing Xiao Ze. Xiao Ze’s family, of course, did not intend to stop there—they filed lawsuits (which later were dropped), and then spread false rumors and manipulated public opinion online, portraying Xiao Ze as an honest, simple student. After Yang Jingyuan filed a lawsuit against Xiao Ze, the so-called People’s Court openly displayed its shamelessness by ignoring all relevant evidence and unjustly ruling against Yang Jingyuan.
This shows that the Continuing Revolution Society is even unwilling to investigate facts that ordinary netizens are aware of, instead fabricating a so-called “女拳” group based on slander and rumors from fascist male chauvinists, openly siding with the bourgeoisie in opposing oppressed women. As for their criticism of “女拳” elements, it appears merely as slander and a farcical target practice against ordinary people.
Finally, regarding the so-called male chauvinists mentioned by the Continuing Revolution Society: they shamelessly claim that “女拳” elements give reactionary male chauvinists reasons to attack and insult ordinary women. But in the Wuhan University Library incident, didn’t reactionary male chauvinists give no evidence at all, merely insulting Yang Jingyuan for two years because she publicly opposed reactionary fascist patriarchy? Just as the Continuing Revolution Society does, isn’t it true that they, as mouthpieces for male chauvinists and fascist government revisionists, wrote this nonsensical and rumor-filled article without understanding women’s status or the Wuhan University Library incident? This further proves that the Continuing Revolution Society is no different in behavior and logic from male chauvinists—they are all attempting to deceive the broad working women, distort the feminist movement, and are just con artists!
Related materials:
武汉大学图书馆事件研究 (Full account of the Wuhan University Library incident)
https://www.chinadevelopmentbrief.org.cn/news/detail/21403.html#:~:text=*The stories shared below have all been approved by the parties involved, with some anonymized.%20Over 85% of women have experienced sexual harassment or assault*%20Among women with a history of marriage or romantic relationships, about one-third have experienced sexual violence within intimate relationships%20Six months—the youngest victim reported in media reports, a quarter of males have committed rape against women or girls%20Even if resisting to the end, only 14.3% of perpetrators stop the assault%20After telling family, only a quarter of victims received support%20*Only 1.8% of sexual harassment or assault offenders are punished, and only 6.5% of serious criminal cases like rape are penalized (Data on Chinese women being sexually assaulted)