Luna Yihan Fu

Profile

I am a PhD student and feminist researcher in Gender Studies at the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Leeds. 

My academic journey began with a BA in English Language and Literature, which I completed at Beijing Foreign Studies University in China in 2021. During this time, I nurtured my interest in sociology, ultimately leading me to pursue further studies in the United Kingdom in 2021. In 2022, I successfully attained my Master of Science in Sociology and Global Change from the University of Edinburgh. My Master’s dissertation Women's Agency Against Toxic Hegemonic Masculinity: An Analysis of the Social Media Posts of Chinese Women Experiencing Pick-up Artist Behaviours focuses on women’s agency, hegemonic masculinity and intimate relationships in the Chinese context, which embarked my current research interest in masculinity studies.

Research interests

My PhD research project explores men and masculinities within the organisational and bureaucratic culture. Specifically, I utilise a specific occupational male figure in the Chinese context to describe potentially new forms of Chinese hegemonic masculinities, which I will name “men in the system” (体制内男人). “The system” refers to the organisational context in which it is situated – the Chinese civil service system, which employs hierarchical control over the state’s public personnel administration and legal structures across all geographical levels. This system is directly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, exemplifying the party-state model inherent in the Chinese political system. 

Using a post-structuralist feminist lens, my research will look at the contradictions and struggles over how men in the system are controlled by, resist, and internalise ideal masculine images and the contemporary gendered bureaucratic ideology and culture through bodily performances and discursive practices in everyday lives. As “men in the system” is an under-researched group, I believe exploring “men in the system” and their public and private lives will be novel and helpful in exploring how hegemonic models of masculinity and related gender ideologies are strategically constructed and encouraged in the system to establish traditional gender order and a way of social governance in contemporary China.

 

My research interest:

• Men and Masculinities
• Feminism and postfeminism
• Gender and organisation
• Intimate relationships
• Bodies and sexuality

 

 

Qualifications

• BA English Language and Literature
• MSc Sociology and Global Change

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies