The “Golden Rule” Misogyny in the Hong Kong Golden Forum During the 2019 Hong Kong Protests

During the second half of 2019, Hong Kong experienced an unprecedented extent of sociopolitical turmoil as pro-democracy activists protested against amendments to the city’s Fugitive Offenders Ordinance introduced by the first female Chief Executive of the city, Carrie Lam. While politics is discussed at various sites, I analyse the Hong Kong Golden Forum, the only online forum in Hong Kong that possesses a specific subculture (the “golden culture”) to understand if this subculture enhances the “golden rule”—the special way forum members treat others. Whether such a culture of reciprocity is indeed practised, including in times of sociopolitical turmoil, is, however, questionable given that the Forum hosts a much smaller number of female than male members and that offensive and misogynistic behaviours have long been reported in studies on related online forums. Drawing on Jürgen Habermas’s theory of the public sphere and more importantly, studies on misogyny, I ask: (1) is misogyny manifested in the Golden Forum? (2) What are the experiences of female forum members in the Golden Forum? (3) What are the motives of the forum members if engaging in misogyny? And (4) how do forum managers respond to and deal with misogynistic messages, if present? In response to the above research questions, I, first, utilise qualitative content analysis to identify if and how misogyny was manifested in the Golden Forum. Second, I use semistructured interview and qualitative survey to interrogate the viewpoints of the stakeholders of the Forum—forum members and managers—on misogyny in the Forum. In phase 1 of my research project, I explain that manifestations of misogyny in the Golden Forum are culturally specific and widespread. In phase 2, I find that forum members and managers are insensitive to misogyny, which leads to the normalisation of misogyny in the Forum. In conclusion, this thesis presents a comprehensive picture of misogyny in the Forum, raising awareness of both misogyny in the Golden Forum in particular and the manifold ways in which misogyny might also operate in other digital contexts around the world, by conceptualising misogyny as a form of distortion of the digital public sphere.