Hashtag created
Chang Jiang, an associate professor at Tsinghua University, created the #I'llBeYour-Voice hashtag on Sina Weibo in late July, and was soon flooded by responses.
Chang said more than 600 people, the vast majority of them women, had shared stories of sexual misconduct through private messages to him that week.
He redacted the Sina Weibo "handles" of those whose messages he reposted on his public page. All such posts were either from victims or those who knew victims. His page was viewed some 1 million times alone on Aug 1.
Sexual misconduct is a universal problem and no country can claim to be free of it, with variations only in degree.
In the Chinese context, social media have been at the forefront of the battle.
Chang said that among the messages he received on Sina Weibo in late July, the main groups were female college students or young graduates who had experienced sexual harassment, women who were born or grew up in rural areas and alleged that they had suffered sexual abuse or assault, and "real-name whistleblowers" who accused specific people of misconduct.
"It was heartbreaking, especially when I read the stories from the girls in the countryside," said Chang, 36, who teaches journalism and communication at the university in Beijing. "This is something so dark that I never imagined (existed) before."
In a culturally conservative society such as China's, such campaigns can help eliminate "a sense of shame" that victims of assault, abuse and harassment might feel, he added.
'Shadow in our hearts'
The six female university students interviewed said the online discussions empower women as well as men to break the invisible code of silence.
The majority wanted to remain anonymous when talking to China Daily about their ordeals, but most described the women who identified themselves on social media while sharing similar stories as "brave". One interviewee said it is easier for influential women to come forward than for other women.
It took years for some Hollywood actresses to go public with accusations against film producer Harvey Weinstein.
"It is a kind of reform to promote gender equality and awareness," said a 22-year-old female student from Beijing Foreign Studies University, of the wider online engagement over the subject in China.
"My friends and I have experienced different kinds of sexual harassment in public. And, such things have cast a shadow in our hearts," said the student of Chinese, adding that gender discrimination is a root cause.
Shi Hanjin, a Chinese student who attends college in Los Angeles, said she had yet to encounter any woman who had not felt sexually harassed, but that through sharing stories women find out that they are not alone.
"I have met male strangers who have stared at me or tried to grope me in public both in Guangzhou (the capital of Guangdong province) and here in LA," Shi said.
Three other female students in China emphasized the need to enhance gender education from childhood.
"The government should help higher education institutions establish related organizations to receive and deal with reports of sexual harassment," said a 23-year-old female student of public finance at Zhongnan University of Economics and Law in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.
"The government should emphasize education in this field from childhood."
A 24-year-old female student of English literature from Xiamen University in Fujian province urged the government to open channels where harassment complaints can be made, and said awareness should be improved among men and boys in the country. Her university has been offering some safety lessons, "warning girls of the dangers they may meet in this regard", she added.
In essence, these students want anti-harassment offices to be set up on university campuses.
A law student, 25, from China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, said she was harassed by a man in his 50s during her internship at a company where he worked.
She said she saw no reason why universities should not have "zero tolerance" for sexual misconduct by faculty members, adding that many students keep quiet, fearing the fallout on their academic careers from trying to expose the transgressions of their teachers.
Liang Tao, 23, who is studying biomedical engineering at Zhejiang University, said he will pay closer attention to women's rights now that he knows more about them from the online discussions. One of his female classmates was harassed on a bus, he added.
Empathy for survivors and anger toward perpetrators has always existed in society, he said. "But in the past, there was no social media and people's awareness was low."
Another male interviewee, Lian Dashuai, 25, from Southeast University in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, said women who speak out against their harassers usually do so once they are well away from them. Lian, who is studying preventive medicine, sees the related discussions, especially in Chinese universities, as a positive development.
Both the male students and also Zhang Zepeng, who is studying at Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, feel that younger Chinese men have a better understanding of gender equality－they do not view women as "inferior". The male interviewees also said they support the online conversations.
Drawing a slightly different picture of the modern Chinese man, two female students said during the interviews that their partners appeared indifferent to their plight when they told them about incidents of sexual misconduct they had experienced in the past.
For one female university student from Jiangsu, the importance of awareness can never be overstated.
"My family told me not to live with my boyfriend," she said of the conservative approach some parents have toward live-in relationships in China.
"But they failed to tell me how to respond to sexual assault," she said, alleging that an older male relative had assaulted her in a different area of China years ago.
