A Comparative Study Of Online Public Opinion On Sexual Harassment In Universities From The Perspective Of Feminism

Since 2014,more and more sexual harassment events in colleges and universities have been exposed one after another,and have attracted great attention and generated much discussion in cyberspace.Previous studies have shown that the emergence of similar social events will inevitably affect public opinion and cultural norms.In China,there has always been a culture of shame and a social atmosphere condemning the victims of sexual harassment.Therefore,it is an important research topic to explore the changes of social atmosphere under the continuous exposure of sexual harassment in universities.In this study,the author takes the online public opinion in 2014 and2018 as the research object,and compares it by using content analysis and discourse analysis from the perspective of feminism.Finally,the similarities and differences of the public opinion itself and even its implicit gender ideology are presented,as well as the change and invariance of the social climate of sexual harassment in universities.It is found that the similarity of public opinion in 2014 and 2018 is that there are polarized views on the women in these sexual harassment events.On the one hand,many netizens argue that their sexual rights have been violated,so they should be compensated,and some of them even encourage women to prosecute the harasser directly.On the other hand,it is considered by other people that the women should be responsible for sexual harassment.And Some netizens claims the women's hurt should be measured by their lost chastity and they should avoid similar accidents by discipline themselves.The main difference between the public opinion in 2014 and2018 is that the one in 2018 appears to be more friendly to women.On the one hand,more and more people acknowledges women as victims,and show respect for them as equal individuals.The opposite attitudes towards women reflects the distinct thinking mode of male chauvinism and feminism respectively.In male chauvinism,women are described as others which is always been dominated.While the feminists advocate women to rebel against that position and obtaining their own subjectivity.However,in the negotiation and confrontation of words,the proportion of feminism discourse increased in 2018,which reflects the further enhancement of feminism power.The enhancement of the feminist discourse in the public opinion is due to several reasons,the advancement of the social status of modern women,the empowerment of the Internet and the exposure of a large number of pre-sexual harassment events.Then,its influence is is dialectic.On the one hand,it can enhance the feminist power andpromote the exposure of more sexual harassment.On the other hand,it may be symbolized in the process of spreading as to trigger a war between men and women and stigmatize all the professors in the university.