From Protest to Exile: The Gendered Consequences and Emotional Dimensions of Hongkongers’ Resistance to Chinese Authoritarianism

The 2019 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong ended after months of coercive violent policing and the COVID pandemic, and was followed by the by the Beijing government’s intensified crackdown on civil society and political dissent through the implementation of the National Security Law (NSL) in 2020. Anti-China sentiment, righteous anger against the government and protective love for valiant protesters, fuelled by the escalating cycles of violence during the protests became mainstream emotional structures in post-2019 Hong Kong. The associated ‘feeling rules’ (Hochschild 2003) delegitimised criticisms of misogyny and homophobia when they were tactically employed for anti-government/anti-China purposes and simultaneously muted the feminist response. Drawing on multiple studies carried out from 2017-2024 with Hongkongers, we have argued that, under the influence of these collective emotions, women activists’ experiences of gender-based violence were trivialised, misogynistic slurs against pro-government politicians went unchallenged, and ethics of care across political divisions became impossible (Kong et al. 2023). The structures of feeling that arose during the protests continue to affect Hongkongers who left the city for other countries after 2019. Among Hong Kong young people in the UK, the experience of migration and exile have added to and complicated the consequences of political trauma, further silencing the identification and disclosure of everyday misogyny and sexism, especially among activists who have become political asylum seekers.