“She uses men to boost her career”: Chinese digital cultures and gender stereotypes of female academics in Zhihu discourses

Portrayed by the media as story of “how a female PhD juggles intimate relationship with four male academics”, LM incident, named after main character story, was high-profile case, which provoked public debates on Chinese social in 2019. In this article, we explore how stereotyping PhDs plays out Internet users’ discussions about incident. We collected total 632 relevant posts from most popular community question-answering (CQA) site – Zhihu and analysed them drawing critical discourse analysis (CDA). The research findings reveal sexualised portrayal PhDs, is dramatically “different” traditional, asexual stereotypes well-educated women, established postings. Many users, including both women men, mobilise an overwhelmingly speaks to normalisation patriarchal discourses status quo academia beyond. shed light post-socialist gender politics, facilitates perpetuation essentialism China post-reform era.