Heteronormativity and Misogyny: Online Evaluations and Representations of English Major Students in Chinese Universities

This paper looks into discourses of the gendered learning experiences of English Major students in Chinese universities, a feminized terrain for its underrepresentation of male students and stereotyped dominant gender discourses around the major. To do so I examine selected online discussions concerning English Major topics on Zhihu, China's most popular question-and-answer social media platform. The analysis focuses on how participants in the discussion threads, who are all English Major students, evaluate and represent their Major, English learning experiences, and peer relationships. This is by investigating their discursive practices of stance taking, boundary work, self-representations, and positionings of others. Contrary to popular assumptions that English Major students in China are internationally-minded and thus socialized to be more liberal towards non-conforming gender performances and identities under the concomitant neoliberalism cultures and values exposures in the English learning processes, my findings suggest otherwise. English Majors in Chinese universiies are found t be spaces of heteronormativity with strong misogyny sentiments from male students, most of whom find it hard to fit in their major. This heteronormativity is especially upheld by male students' orthodox masculinity performances including misogynistic attitudes, distancing from femininity as well as heterosexual self-representation together with female students' homophobic attitudes and disparaging discourses against feminine-acting male peers. I argue that the pervasive heteronormativity surrounding English majors in Chinese universities is a result of gender insensitivity and uncritical education formed via larger social ideology. As the gender positions students take could hamper their English language learning, this study has implications for understandings of gender segregation in higher education in China.