From 忮忌 zhì jì to 老登lǎo dēng: How Chinese Feminists Are Rewriting Language to Challenge Patriarchy

Your ultimate guide to Chinese feminist slang and buzzwords

In March 2025, Wuwu posted a video on RedNote reflecting on the concept of jealousy. In Chinese, jealousy is usually written as 嫉妒 jí dù, but the 27-year-old chose to use a different term: 忮忌 zhì jì – an alternative spelling of jealousy that removes the female radical (女).

“忮忌 is a good thing, so own up to it when you feel it. We’ve been raised to believe we’re not allowed to feel or admit jealousy. It's only acceptable to praise others or feel happy for them. But today, I want you to acknowledge, accept, and use your 忮忌 because it tells you what you truly want,” she said in the video.

In the caption, she writes, “Let your keyboard remember 忮忌忮忌忮忌忮忌. Take this opportunity to spread the use of 忮忌 instead of 嫉妒.”

At first, nothing happened. But a few months later, her comment section and private messages were suddenly flooded with hate. A coordinated wave of aggressive male users launched an attack, leaving cruel and malicious comments such as:

“Making up your own words now? Why not join the National People’s Congress?”

“Your account didn’t take off. Hope your parents die first.”

Wuwu realized someone had likely taken a screenshot of her post and shared it in a private group, triggering the backlash.

“I wasn’t trying to start a movement,” she said. “It just felt natural, like saying ‘mom and dad’ instead of ‘dad and mom.’ A small shift in language that doesn’t need justification.”

The action, in fact, echoes a broader trend. In recent years, more Chinese women have started to question the deep-rooted misogyny in the language and push back. They’re inventing new feminist terms and satirical buzzwords, swapping “他” with “ta,” replacing 嫉妒 with 忮忌, and simply speaking out online to educate and reclaim space. By changing how they speak, Chinese women are taking back power.

“Politically, verbal innovation rebels against the dominant discourse that authoritarianism has embedded in language. Culturally, it's a protest against a system filled with words that demean women,” write Aviva Wei Xue and Kate Rose in the book Weibo Feminism.

At the end of July 2025, the first linguistic war broke into the mainstream when a RedNote post went viral. A PhD student in Europe, posting under the handle “鸟惠,” unveiled her creation of a feminist keyboard. Her input method transforms language itself: words with positive, admirable meanings gain the female radical (女) to evoke solidarity among women, while characters with the female radical that carry negative meanings are reworked with neutral radicals. The post garnered tens of thousands of likes.

From 鸟惠’s post

Some male users reposted it on other platforms, sparking controversy. Comments ranged from “???” and “I’m confused” to “This is actually illegal. You don’t have the authority to redefine Chinese words.” Women, however, flooded the thread with support: “Where can I download this?” and “Language is the most enduring and powerful weapon—it can carry the foundation of a cause for millennia.” The user had to hide the post after receiving cruel messages.

Two weeks later, another creator, 发疯小林, uploaded a video dissecting the so-called antonym pair “公” (male) and “母” (female). The video drew over five thousand likes and resonated strongly with women. She argued that 公 originally meant “tool” and only took on a gendered meaning after two thousand years, while 母 was born with a strong affirmation of women’s reproductive and nurturing power.

“公 and 母 were never opposites,” she explained. “The true antonym to 母 was 父, and 父 shares its origin with 斧 (axe), symbolizing the father’s control over tools and production. Our entire writing system has always been a patriarchal creation.”

Chinese, though often described as a grammatically genderless language, is far from free of gender bias. Many nouns are grammatically, semantically, and referentially neutral, yet sexism is deeply embedded in the lexicon and cultural usage. The writing system itself reflects gendered hierarchies: the semantic radical 女 (“woman/female”) appears in numerous characters with negative connotations—such as 妒 (“jealous”), 妖 (“treacherous”), or 嫉 (“greedy”)—which are not directly related to women, yet still semantically tie undesirable traits to the female identity. These pejorative associations derive from ancient Chinese social attitudes toward women and have persisted into the modern era. While proposals to replace the 女 radical in such contexts with gender-neutral radicals like 乇 (“evil”) or 人 (“person”) have been made, they have not been widely adopted, leaving the bias structurally entrenched.

Pronouns also reveal gendered asymmetries. In spoken Mandarin, third-person pronouns are not distinguished by gender, but in written modern Chinese, 他 (he) is the default generic form, while 她 (she) was only introduced in the 1920s to mark female referents. Historically, 他 was considered gender-neutral, but over time it became male/generic, mirroring the disfavored English use of “he” as a universal pronoun. This shift cements a male-centered linguistic norm, casting women as marked and men as the unmarked default.

Terms of reference likewise privilege men and diminish women. Men are typically addressed with titles like 先生 (“sir” or “master/teacher”), which carry connotations of respect and authority, while women’s forms of address often reference marital status, age, or appearance rather than professional or social achievements. Even when women earn honorifics like 先生 in academia, such usage is exceptional and not standardized in dictionaries.

Commonly, gender markers are unnecessarily added to otherwise neutral nouns, emphasizing the sex of the referent and reinforcing stereotypes—for example, 女博士 (“female PhD”) or 女司机 (“female driver”). Male-specific equivalents are rare, and when they exist (e.g., 男护士 “male nurse”), they are marked precisely because they deviate from gendered norms. Words like 女强人 (“female strong person”) praise women in traditionally male-dominated spheres but lack a male counterpart, implying that success is expected of men but exceptional for women. Meanwhile, femininity is demeaned in slang such as 娘炮 (“feminine cannon,” meaning “sissy”) or 事儿妈 (“issues mother,” meaning overly fussy person).

In contrast, male-coded terms like 哥们儿 (“bros”) connote loyalty and camaraderie, reinforcing the social value placed on masculinity. Even in paired expressions, the male element takes precedence—e.g., 夫妻 (“husband and wife”) or 男女平等 (“men and women are equal”)—positioning the male first both linguistically and symbolically.

In Weibo Feminism, Xue and Rose pointed out that Chinese contains a disproportionate number of vulgar insults aimed at women’s bodies and sexual behavior, reinforcing language as a disciplinary tool. Terms like “black fungus” (黑木耳 hēi mù’ěr) stigmatize women as sexually impure, weaponizing shame over their bodies and silencing their voices. The anxiety this created could not be erased by rational explanations or appeals to biology.

The tide shifted when feminists coined “needle mushroom” (金针菇 jīnzhēngū), mocking fragile masculinity and countering not only “black fungus” but also “easy girl,” a label male netizens use to attack Chinese women who date foreigners. These men, echoing incel logic in the U.S., blamed women’s choices, and even diseases like HIV/AIDS, on supposed sexual betrayals.

From there, feminist wordplay moved beyond body shaming and into broader social narratives. Women played a central role in dismantling the “leftover women” stereotype. Instead of accepting the label 未婚女 (wèi hūn nǚ, “to-be-married woman”), they introduced 不婚女 (bù hūn nǚ, “non-marrying woman”), signaling a deliberate rejection of marriage rather than a temporary state of waiting. They also coined 渴婚男 (kě hūn nán, “marriage-thirsty man”) to highlight men’s desperation to wed, flipping the narrative that only women are devalued by singlehood. Perhaps the most striking coinage is 扛大鼎 (káng dà dǐng, “carrying the giant ding”), a metaphor for the crushing marital obligations imposed on wives: living with the husband’s family, unpaid domestic labor, sex on demand, and producing sons to carry on the family name.

Satire, too, became a weapon. Terms like 蝈蝻 (guō nǎn, a pun on “Chinese men” 国男 guó nán, but written with characters for “worm”) and 蛆 (qū, “maggot”) are used to call out misogynistic men online. At the same time, feminists have embraced and subverted insults aimed at themselves. Opponents mock 女权 (nǚquán, “women’s rights”) as 女拳 (nǚquán, “women’s fists”)—the two are homophones—branding feminists 拳师 (quán shī, “boxers”) as aggressive and undesirable. Instead of retreating, women rebranded the slur as empowerment, jokingly describing their activism as 每日打拳 (měi rì dǎ quán, “daily boxing practice”).

“We were long trained to listen to men, to speak less, be gentle. Now, women’s self-awareness is stronger; we hear these comments and feel irritated. So we name them, we call it out, sometimes until you stop talking like that,” said Yaoyao Song, a master’s student at Linköping University in Sweden, whose research focuses on feminist counter-discourse in Chinese digital culture.

In recent years, feminist buzzwords have spilled into the public sphere through memes, evolving into pop culture. The most widely circulated is 老登 (lǎo dēng). The term comes from a Northeastern dialect, where it originally described sleazy or annoying middle-aged men. Online, it has been retooled to critique male-centered works—老登文学 (lǎo dēng wénxué, “lao deng literature”) or 老登电影 (lǎo dēng diànyǐng, “lao deng films”)—that reinforce the male gaze and patriarchal tropes. These stories revolve around men: plots, character arcs, and settings all serve male growth. A classic device is the “dead woman” trope, where a wife or mother dies only to fuel the man’s career or determination. People now even joke about 老登发言 (lǎo dēng fāyán, “lao deng speech”) and rate men by their 登味 (dēng wèi, “deng quotient”).

The target isn’t just any man; it’s the one holding the most resources, power, or authority, whether in a family or in society. Traditionally, such figures were untouchable. Now, women have a word that cuts straight at them. Calling a film “pretty dēng” or labeling a comment “dēng” is more than mocking a man; it’s calling out the gendered logic that decides who gets to speak, whose stories matter, and whose voices vanish.

A related term is 爹味 (diē wèi), which emerged around 2020. Originally neutral—traits of a father—it morphed into an insult for condescending, self-important, mansplaining behavior. By contrast, 男宝 (nán bǎo) is lighter. It pokes fun at men who enjoy only the earliest perks of patriarchy—entry-level “patients” of the disease 直男癌 (zhínán'ái, straight man cancer). But 老登 (lǎo dēng) lands harder: it targets those with real power and cultural dominance, the figures long glorified as “leaders, gentle fathers, caring husbands.”

Other terms work by flipping the gaze. 女凝 (nǚ níng, “female gaze”) claims women’s right to look, to define reality from their perspective. Old slurs are also being reclaimed. 娘们儿 (niáng menr) once meant “girly” as an insult; now, on platforms like RedNote, you’ll see it used as praise: “太娘们了”—meaning powerful in a distinctly feminine way.

Even bureaucratic terms like 妇女 (fùnǚ) or “March 8” (International Women’s Day) have been re-energized. Online, women greet each other with “half the sky” pride. Netizens coined 老天奶 (lǎo tiān nǎi, ‘Old Sky Granny’) as a cheeky answer to 老天爷 (lǎo tiān yé, ‘Old Sky Grandpa’), flipping the divine patriarch into a feminine counterpart.

“Language is powerful; wordplay accelerates the spread of egalitarian ideas. The wider the spread, the deeper the impact,” Song said. “With feminism’s rapid rise, the emergence of ‘lao deng’ works like a scalpel, slicing into structures many tried to keep sealed. It gives ordinary people, even those unfamiliar with feminist theory, a way to glimpse patriarchy’s raw edges.”

Changing language habits is the first step toward dismantling patriarchy, and some women incorporate this resistance into their everyday lives. Zhu Xiao, a 20-year-old college student in Nanjing, insists on replacing 他 (he/him) with the gender-neutral “ta”. In her view, 她 refers to women and 他 refers to men. She often questions, when a group includes both men and women, why must people default to 他们?

Irritated by the way 他 is treated as the universal pronoun, Zhu makes a point of using “ta” whenever she names folders or writes papers. She also knows that in today’s climate, any mention of feminism invites backlash. So instead of calling for a full replacement of 他们 with 她们, she advocates for the compromise of ta们 – a neutral spelling in pinyin.

“To me, language is a kind of invisible violence,” Zhu said. “When we live so long in a culture where women must always yield, always be the second sex, we slowly adapt and accept it as natural. That’s why I resist, gently, step by step.”