This study explores the positive and negative effects that anger brings to the table for women opposing patriarchal marriage.

Even though emotions play a crucial role in social movements, not many studies have explored their effects in depth within specific contexts. In a recent study, a researcher from Ritsumeikan University, Japan, investigated how anger may affect Chinese feminists opposing patriarchal marriage. By analyzing articles and posts from an online community, she sheds light on the ambivalent nature of anger in the context of the feminist social movement.

For better or for worse, emotions permeate virtually all human activities and endeavors, sometimes prompting people to act yet other times holding them back. In social movements, including feminism, emotions are known to play major roles, as evidenced by a growing body of research conducted over the past two decades. However, most of these studies have analyzed emotions in social movements in a rather broad fashion, with little regard for contextual features. This makes it challenging to understand the functions of particular emotions in specific social movements.

Against this backdrop, Yushuang Yang—a PhD candidate from the Graduate School of Sociology at Ritsumeikan University—decided to analyze the effects of anger in the context of feminism. As stated in her latest paper, which was published in Social Movement Studies on June 23^rd, 2024, Yang sought to shed light on how anger is evoked, expressed, and discussed among Chinese feminists; these people often face a unique set of challenges stemming from their rejection of patriarchal marriage and the ensuing family and societal conflicts.

To gather data, Yang turned to a popular Chinese social networking platform called Douban. “Douban is known for having feminist communities renowned for their ‘radical’ opinions that encourage women to oppose patriarchal values. Thus, for this study, I selected a private women-only feminist group with more than 10,000 members,” explains Yang. “I initially collected all article titles in the community using a data miner tool, totaling 1,031 entities, and then identified the most relevant ones using quantitative text analysis software.” Through this process, Yang ultimately selected 79 articles regarding marriage and family that expressed some form of anger.

Afterward, using methods of emotion discourse analysis, Yang identified various themes in these articles and focused on two specific aspects. The first involved the subversive features of anger in the context of feminism, particularly when directed at imposed structures and opponents of the movement. Meanwhile, the second explored the consequences of anger when it is misaligned with other emotions, such as those felt towards people with who one has an affective relationship.

According to Yang’s analysis, women in this online group did not usually discuss emotions explicitly in their articles related to the marriage system, but instead took a wholly rational tone to present feminist theories. Not only anger was a factor evidently present in their stance against the injustices inherent in patriarchal marriage, but it also had an empowering effect. “In this online community, righteous anger propels many Chinese feminists to refuse marriage and motherhood as a form of resistance and commitment to their beliefs. Even feminists who faced derogatory treatment from men found their righteous anger and humor helped them overcome fear and confront the shame imposed on them,” argues Yang.

As for the other side of the coin, anger seemed to be more of a problem when it had to be actively suppressed in the context of family relationships. Given that anger is harder to express when dealing with those with whom one holds affective ties, this emotion was transformed into frustration, pain, and resignation. Of course, these negative emotions take a toll on one’s physical and mental well-being, affecting them at a personal level.

Overall, this study showcases the markedly different roles that a single emotion can have within a social movement, highlighting the importance of studying these topics in context. “My paper rejects the lineal connection between anger and movement participation and provides a contextualized discussion on the ambivalent effects of anger, alongside its interaction with other emotions,” concludes Yang, “In this way, it contributes to deepening our understanding of anger in public discussions, as women’s anger is usually stereotyped as illegitimate, irrational, and confusing.”

Further studies in this field will hopefully pave the way to a more thorough understanding of the roles of emotions in social movements, enabling us to leverage their positive aspects while minimizing their detrimental effects.

Title of original paper: Ambivalent effects of anger in Chinese feminists’ refusal to patriarchal marriage and family
Journal: Social Movement Studies
DOI: 10.1080/14742837.2024.2369603

About Yushuang Yang from Ritsumeikan University, Japan

Yushuang Yang is a Ph.D. candidate at Graduate School of Sociology, Ritsumeikan University. Her research interests include social movement theories, emotion and social movements, online activism, and feminist movements. She is working on her dissertation with a tentative title, ‘Emotion Cultures in Digitally Networked Social Movements: How Solidarity is Formed and Impeded in Chinese Online Feminisms.’

Funding information

This work was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency [JST SPRING, Grant Number JPMJSP2101].