Promoting or hindering equality? State feminism and the representation of queer women in state-controlled newspapers and Weibo

In China, the state's ideological control over gender and sexuality has intensified, giving rise to a form of state feminism with Chinese characteristics. State feminism, the framework we build on, is typically understood as the extent to which state institutions align with women's movements. This paper extends the scope of state feminism by incorporating the role of media, analysing the gender and sexual norms articulated by state-controlled newspapers and social media in their representations of queer women, in order to understand how different media advance or undermine gender equality. Drawing on materials from state-owned newspapers and Weibo over a six-year period (April 13, 2018 – April 13, 2024), the findings show that the conditional visibility of queer women in state-controlled newspapers reflects a compromised form of state feminism, permitted only when serving Party–state interests by reinforcing heteronormativity and nationalist logics. In contrast, Weibo provides a space where queer women's visibility is subject to negotiation. We propose the concepts of normalisation and low-risk activism to capture how queer women activists on Weibo exercise bounded agency to promote gender and sexual diversity and to raise awareness of gender-based violence. This study aims to deepen our understanding of the distinctiveness of Chinese state feminism and to reveal the opportunities and limitations of the media's role in promoting gender equality.