Male beauty vlogging in China: a masculinities perspective

Male beauty vlogging is flourishing in China despite fears of a masculinity ‘crisis’, sissyphobia and LGBT crackdowns. Key questions arise: To what extent does male beauty vlogging challenge the notion of a crisis of masculinity and offer new, positive gender expressions for men? To what extent does it reinforce hierarchical and oppressive formations of gender and sexuality? This talk, part of a series of talks from the Confucius Institute at the University of Manchester, analyses three male beauty vloggers’ promotion of a ‘fake-natural look for straight men’ involving non-visible makeup and examines another vlogger’s critique of the feminization of visible makeup-wearing men.

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