‘It’s also me’ getting a leg up in Chinese universities

The rapidly growing WoYeShi (‘It’s also me’) movement is encountering a pushback from Chinese authorities

China’s WoYeShi (‘It’s also me’) movement is rapidly gaining momentum.

The rapidly growing WoYeShi (“It’s also me”) movement is encountering a pushback from Chinese authorities, who have accused its organisers of plotting with foreigners.

This echo of the American Me Too campaign is finding unexpected support, however, within the Education Ministry, which has announced it is considering setting up a nationwide body to consider complaints of sexual harassment.

The movement has swept through China in the past week, with thousands of students from more than 60 universities signing petitions demanding the establishment of protocols to combat abuse. The response by university administrators has been mixed, and regional authorities are opposed. A university in Shanghai warned students not to get involved in the protests.

“The lesbians are making trouble again,” posted a lecturer at a university in Guangzhou.

Zhang Leilei, a leader of the campaign in Guangzhou, told The Australian that local governments tended to view WoYeShi supporters as troublemakers.

Ms Zhang, 24, said the authorities had for a long time been immersed in patterns of thinking dominated by the need for ­“stability maintenance”.

Police had investigated her to check whether her activities were part of a plot organised by a foreign organisation. “These checks caused me a lot of trouble, including for my relationship with my parents, and I had to move several times,” she said.

Her crime was to hold up ­banners at protests and help co-ordinate the petitions sent to university authorities and the Education Ministry.

The South China Morning Post reported that Xu Yalu, 28, had been sexually harassed on three occasions by the same man in the up-market Shanghai suburb of Jingansi. Each time she reported the incidents, police said her harasser was either too old to be detained or he could not help himself because of a neurological condition.

Ms Zhang said students had been emboldened by the publicity given to harassment cases in Beijing, Xiamen and Nanchang. “They understand that we victims won’t stay silent, and we won’t tolerate it any more,” she said.

Universities are one of the sectors worst hit by sexual harassment because of the academic power structure. Administrators and academics can block students from graduating.

“So we are seeking not only anti-harassment mechanisms, but also a review of the academic power structures,” Ms Zhang said. “On campus or in the office, men still dominate the upper levels of power.”

A survey published in Guangzhou last year showed that 69.3 per cent of students or graduates had encountered sexual harassment, with 75 per cent of the victims being female.

Cheng Shuijin and Zhou Bin, the president and vice-president of the Institute of Chinese Classical Learning at Nanchang University in Jiangxi province, were removed from their positions after a female student alleged online she had been sexually assaulted by Mr Zhou in his office.

She feared she would not be allowed to graduate and when she did raise the alleged attack with Professor Cheng, he ­advised the student to keep quiet or risk ruining the university’s reputation

Huang Xueqin collected more than 4000 signatures for a petition to force Beihang University in Beijing to investigate allegations of sexual harassment from five former students against Chen Xiaowu, a professor sacked on Friday.

“The essence of sexual harassment is an imbalance of power and resources between male and female. As long as this exists, such behaviour is likely to take place in any social arena,” she said.

Additional reporting: Zhang Yufei