Fighting Fire with Fire: How Female Students Use Symbolic Power to Fight Predator Professors in China

• In Event: Asia and Asian American Section Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 6: Asia and Asian America Section Roundtable - Gender

Abstract

Sexual harassment (hereafter SH) routinely appears in news reports about higher education in China, but there is a dearth of academic research on the topic. SH refers to the constellation of behaviors ranging from degrading remarks and unwanted sexual advances to violent sexual assault. This article applied Bourdieu’s concepts of symbolic power entwined with different forms of capitals to explore how students reacted to SH and upended the balance of power by pushing for action against the perpetrators. Forty-one students who spoke out about experiencing SH were interviewed between April 2021 and March 2024 from Beijing and Hong Kong. More capitals to counter and combust symbolic power can highlight how different forms of capitals are fluid, context-dependent, and influenced by global hierarchies and students’ empowerment. These findings can help foster institutional changes such as implementing policies to increase student sensitivity and awareness about SH.

Keywords: Sexual harassment, higher education, symbolic power, apprenticeship system, capital, empowerment

Author

• Tsang Yuk Ha Eileen, City University of Hong Kong