INTERSECTIONS/ For Mang Mang, No Wall is Unbreakable
A special chat with Chinese diaspora outlet Mang Mang about their reporting on gender issues and feminist movements in China.
Dear subscribers,
Welcome to a special edition of Intersections — our monthly Lingua Sinica bulletin dedicated to women’s issues and feminism in the Chinese-language media space.
This week, I spoke to Mang Mang (莽莽), a Chinese-language diaspora outlet, about the vital role they try to play in promoting more diverse and constructive dialogue — not just about China and the difficulties posed by its restrictive media environment, but also about gender, identity, and social activism. Mang Mang was launched in January 2023 following the wave of demonstrations inside China and abroad in late 2022 known as the “white paper movement” (白纸运动). The outlet, run by a group of young people who now live overseas, has since become an essential platform for people curious about current affairs in China. As Mang Mang often features thoughtful work on gender issues, I was eager to sit down with the editors and learn more about how they think, and work.
Dalia Parete
CMP Researcher
Intersections: Could you explain a bit more about the initial inspiration behind Mang Mang? Your platform addresses so many topics, and your emphasis on Chinese women’s stories particularly interests me. Why do you think it's so important to tell their stories, and what inspired you to draw attention to their experiences?
Mang Mang: Mang Mang was launched to break through China's restrictive media environment and act on freedom of speech by reporting on and documenting a wide range of issues. These include China's social dynamics and public activism. The publication also pays attention to the activities of ethnic groups in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, and other regions, fostering connections and dialogues between Chinese activists and activists of other communities. The gender situation in China and women activists at home and abroad are key areas of focus for us at Mang Mang, as gender equality and diversity in China is something we want to promote.
This is true not just because we grew up in China’s harsh gender environment, but also because gender and feminist movements there have inspired and shaped our sense of public awareness and participation. At various moments, feminist performance art, different waves of the MeToo movement, incidents of gender-based violence, and the online public discourse around gender issues have shown us how deeply gender inequality, discrimination, and violence can impact individuals, families, communities — and society at large.
We think the media plays an essential role in advancing these issues, and we hope to document the voices of women and queer (酷兒) people, and also embrace gender perspectives and understandings on various issues.
Gender and feminist movements [in China] have inspired and shaped our sense of public awareness and participation.
INT: In this harsh environment, have you found ways to reach audiences inside China? And what kind of feedback have you had from these audiences?
MM: From our data and traffic monitoring, it is rather complicated to determine which of our readers are inside China and which are outside. If readers are in China, they tend not to interact with us directly. Even our most popular articles receive only a small number of comments. But we always know there are readers in China.
We once saw on Weibo that someone went to one of our partner bookstores to purchase a physical copy of Mang Mang. The post was up for a few months before it finally disappeared. We also hear stories quite often about people taking copies of the magazine back to China to share with their friends. One copy of the magazine was bought overseas, taken into China, passed through several hands, and then finally carried out of the country again — until the last reader finally told us the whole story. Stories like that encourage us and give us confidence that if we just keep publishing our work will eventually reach people. No wall is unbreakable — like the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. People will continue to seek knowledge despite the most stringent censorship.
We’ve definitely taken note of the fact that a lot of the positive responses we receive stem from our physical copies, which leads us to reevaluate the importance of print publishing in a culture with strict censorship. In China, internet content can disappear instantly, but once printed, a book cannot be fully deleted. It survives in communities and spaces, demonstrating the tenacity of Chinese civil society.
No wall is unbreakable — like the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. People will continue to seek knowledge despite the most stringent censorship.
INT: Your work highlights a diverse range of stories and experiences. What are some of the main obstacles you face when searching for and sharing Chinese women's experiences?
MM: One of our main challenges is reporting and writing in China. Currently, our primary online presence is based overseas, and very few writers can dig into and track events on the ground in China. Doing journalism in China comes with high risks and a scarcity of outlets. Gender reporting, in particular, is often targeted by domestic censorship. While the internet gives us a glimpse into some public discourse on gender issues and voices from smaller, niche groups, if we want to reach a broader audience, we also need to consider those who can’t access the internet or the information that’s hard to capture.
For this reason, we hope to create a platform where works that can’t be published domestically can be shared. We also aim to inspire and support more writers to continue working on the ground, allowing them to publish their work and reach their audience while managing the risks involved.
INT: As you continue to share these stories, what resources do you use to find them? And how can others — whether journalists, activists, or regular citizens — help to respectfully and substantially raise awareness on these topics?
MM: We’re currently working hard to maintain close connections with gender organizations and individuals dedicated to gender work both in China and abroad. At the same time, we’re encouraging more writers to focus on gender issues. Thanks to these connections, we come into contact with women of differing ages, economic backgrounds, identities and professions — including, for example, female migrant workers overseas or female international students involved in social movements. Many of these individuals are also potential writers. Through our conversations with them, we discover shared concerns and topics that are both relevant and feasible.
In discussing these issues, we believe the media can serve as a connector, bringing together diverse voices. Much of our work involves connecting different voices, and drawing different people into the conversation — so exchanges can be lively and generate dialogue. This dialogue can help, in turn, to shape the understanding of the audience. We want to encourage more people to speak up, first of all, and secondly, we want to inspire writers to identify the right people who can speak on a particular topic. With this approach, journalists, [conversation] participants and the public can all be the subjects as well as the objects of speech. And we can all become more aware of our roles and our importance, responding thoughtfully to facts and views while nurturing our passion for the conversation.
INT: You mentioned your close connections with gender organizations just now. Are there any groups or resources, in particular, you could highlight for our readers who are interested in following these voices?
MM: WOMEN我们 is a bold, independent media outlet with a gender-focused perspective. It is dedicated to reporting on Chinese human rights defenders, featuring numerous stories about women's rights activists. Another one is Diyin Podcast (低音), a nonprofit, independent media outlet that amplifies the voices of marginalized communities and issues. It covers a range of gender-related topics.
INT: It seems that Mang Mang is also very community-focused as a media outlet. In what ways has Mang Mang been able to connect with its readers and spark a conversation?
MM: We use social media networks such as Instagram, X, and Substack for long-form posts with comment sections. Furthermore, our submission email is always open. There are risks, however, associated with the sensitive themes we cover, and as we mentioned before readers are unlikely to connect with us frequently in the public comment sections of social media. This has made it impossible for us to plan online or offline activities like book releases and reader meetups.
Because we are from an activist background, most of our members remain connected to other networks. We actively use our positions within these activist networks to facilitate private discussions and contacts. Often, the outcomes of these debates lead to publications or other activities that you see in Mang Mang. We hope these outputs can connect with a wider audience and inspire those thinking about social change. Through anonymous submissions and calls for contributions, meanwhile, we try to reduce the risks entailed by participation while stimulating our readers’ appetite for expression by engaging them with questions.
If you are interested in Mang Mang's work, subscribe to their newsletter here. And if you wish to learn more about the emotional impact that some stories have on journalists when reporting them, keep an eye out for some related insights from Mang Mang in the next edition of our Chinese-language newsletter Tian Jian (田間) at the beginning of December.