Jiahui Duan on Belittling Grievances: Legal Consciousness and Strategic Non-mobilization in Chinese Workplace Harassment (Law & Society Review)

"Belittling Grievances: Legal Consciousness and Strategic Non-mobilization in Chinese Workplace Harassment"
Jiahui Duan
Law & Society Review
Published online: April 2025

Abstract: This article investigates the interplay between legal consciousness and legal mobilization in Chinese workplace sexual harassment cases. Drawing on 78 in-depth interviews with victims and fieldwork observations, it argues that second-order legal consciousness – the understanding of law derived from observing others’ experiences within relational networks – acts as a lens through which experiences of harassment are interpreted, inhibiting formal legal mobilization. Findings reveal that Chinese employees, facing a legal framework with limited protections and workplace hierarchies that discourage dissent, often strategically avoid formal reporting to safeguard their positions. This calculated inaction is informed by second-order legal consciousness, reinforced by the belittling of grievances, where complaints are minimized, dismissed, or normalized. Consequently, grievances are channeled away from formal, employment-based reporting toward individualized or gender-based remedies, which fail to address the systemic nature of workplace harassment. Bridging legal consciousness and mobilization literatures, this study reveals how the two concepts interact within Chinese workplaces. It further demonstrates that the belittling of employee grievances is not only a barrier to mobilization but also a crucial source of second-order legal consciousness, thus shaping victims’ decisions and perpetuating a cycle of non-reporting.

Jiahui Duan on Sexual Harassment in Irregular Chinese Workplaces: Business Dinners, Team-Building Activities, and Social Media (Law & Social Inquiry)

"Sexual Harassment in Irregular Chinese Workplaces: Business Dinners, Team-Building Activities, and Social Media"
Jiahui Duan
Law & Social Inquiry
First View , pp. 1 - 32
Published online: October 2023

Abstract: Much of the social and economic inequality that sexual harassment perpetuates is created in the workplace. But research has not always acknowledged the fluid and changing nature of workspaces. This article argues that irregular workspaces and activities—bars and other social drinking sites at which yingchou (business drinking activities) take place, team building, and the WeChat social media platform—are significant sites of sexual harassment in China. These irregular workplaces play a significant role in working life in China, and their informality has made them prone to sexual harassment in the context of deeply entrenched gender norms and vertical power hierarchy.

Welcome the new Global Academic Fellow Dr Jiahui Duan!

Welcome to Dr Jiahui Duan who joined the Faculty of Law as a Global Academic Fellow. Dr Jiahui Duan is an interdisciplinary legal researcher with an interest in feminist jurisprudence, legal consciousness, labor rights, power, and resistance. She has previously researched the land rights of rural Chinese married-out women. The current research she conducts focuses on workplace sexual harassment issues in China, with the aim of understanding the development of workplace sexual harassment issues in Chinese society, as well as exploring potential anti-sexual harassment strategies within an emerging economic and political context such as China’s. A common intellectual thread of her work is: examining how individuals’ legal consciousness is formed, reshaped, or even disintegrated in their interactions with other socio-legal actors, and investigating the dynamics of legal rules, social norms, and human agency, as well as the Internet and other technologies.

    Dr Duan received her J.S.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She was also a Lloyd M. Robbins Fellow and a BELS Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Society at Berkeley. Prior to joining Berkeley, she was a certified lawyer in mainland China.    

      Research Areas:

• Law and society
• Gender and Law
• Employment Law

Puja Kapai on Workplace Sexual Harassment in Asia (Nikkei Asian Review)

"Time to confront workplace sexual harassment in Asia"

Puja Kapai
Nikkei Asian Review
15 March 2018

The #MeToo movement against sexual harassment that kicked off in the U.S. is starting to gain momentum in Asia. Actresses in Hong Kong, a prosecutor in South Korea, a journalist in Japan and even factory workers in China have spoken out about their experiences with workplace sexual harassment, putting to rest any notion the problem is not a concern in Asia.

     A study in 2009 by D.K. Srivastava, the former pro vice chancellor of O.P. Jindal Global University, in India, found that 80% of working women in China had experienced sexual harassment at least once in their careers. Some 70% of female factory workers participating in a more recent survey conducted in the city of Guangzhou by the Sunflower Women Workers Center reported encountering sexual harassment. Similarly, 84% of female Chinese journalists polled by reporter Sophia Huang Xueqin said they suffered from workplace sexual harassment. Some 20% reported at least five such experiences, but only 3.5% had reported any incidents to senior managers. ...

     How can we transform Asian workspaces to tackle sexual harassment effectively? ...

    First, companies must revisit their anti-sexual harassment policies and complaint mechanisms and critically examine any barriers victims face...
     Second, victim support is essential...

     Third, building the capacity for and practicing effective interventions to address harmful attitudes and actions will be key to institutionalizing a cultural shift toward dismantling systemic privilege and power and responding forcefully to sexual harassment...
     Likewise, staff training can dispel patriarchal, misogynistic values and myths about women and victims of sexual harassment and violence which can lead to blame, shame or silence... Institutional change also requires that bystander intervention training be introduced, from the bottom to the top of the pecking order to ensure that inappropriate conduct is checked not only through complaints but also informally...This serves an important educational function ...

     Finally, Asia must commit to rehabilitating perpetrators instead of just passing the problem on to the next employer. This requires accountability and a program for rehabilitation with professional assistance. Only a multipronged approach can address the myriad issues which undermine effective strategies to address sexual harassment given its roots in deeply entrenched patriarchal value systems.  Click here to read the full text.

Puja Kapai Interviewed on Sexual Harassment in Hong Kong Sports (SCMP)

"Hong Kong equality watchdog urges sports sector leaders to comply with sexual harassment study"

Su Xingqi, Raymond Yeung
South China Morning Post
2 December 2017

Hong Kong’s equality watchdog on Friday urged sports leaders to cooperate with a new sexual abuse survey it will conduct, and take it more seriously than a similar probe in 2015, after hurdling champion Vera Lui Lai-yiu revealed she had been sexually victimised by her coach.

     An Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) spokesman criticised the sector for not taking a previous study seriously, even as more sexual abuse victims came forward to call hotlines to talk about how they were assaulted...

     Puja Kapai, an associate law professor specialised in women’s studies and anti-discrimination, said whether more people would come forward openly in the wake of Lui’s action depended on how much society could react in a supportive way instead of questioning and blaming the victims... Click here to read the full article.

Puja Kapai Speaks on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace (RTHK)

"Court should be option in sex harassment cases"
RTHK Radio 3
27 Nov 2017

Summary: Legal expert Puja Kapai on Monday urged the government to give the equality watchdog more leeway to take sexual harassment cases straight to court, without necessarily going through a mandatory conciliation process first.  Speaking during a forum on sexual harassment in the workplace, the University of Hong Kong professor noted that at present, the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) can only offer legal assistance to alleged victims and represent them in court after conciliation efforts fail.

     While this is beneficial in some cases where the complainants don’t necessarily want to take their employers to court, Kapai warned that this approach can in certain cases be detrimental to the victim, saying the conciliation process could become another form of trauma.

     "Many of the victims in, particularly serious forms of sexual harassment, would not want to confront their perpetrators in context where they have no legal representation and they feel they already lack power," she said.

     “So rather than push them to go through the reconciliation process which inevitably is likely to fail or be settled prematurely or maybe settled at a very unfavourable amount, it’s probably better to recognize that this is not a suitable case and then to move on to other possibilities like having the EOC support them in bringing a claim in court”, Kapai added.  Click here to listen to the interview.

Farzana Aslam on Harvey Weinstein and the Bystander Effect (HKPF)

"Harvey Weinstein and the bystander effect: How sexual predators persist in a conspiracy of silence"

Farzana Aslam

Hong Kong Free Press

29 October 2017

Harvey Weinstein’s fall into disgrace bears remarkable similarities to the scandal a few years ago in the U.K. about the British celebrity, Jimmy Savile. These two cases have common features in terms of how sexually predatory behaviour is perpetrated, perceived, and ultimately perpetuated.

     The male perpetrators in each case had achieved a certain status and standing in society; they were powerful and popular. Their alleged predatory behaviour was directed at the young and vulnerable. The predatory behaviour spanned decades... Click here for the full text.

Puja Kapai Discusses Sexual Harassment in Hong Kong on Backchat (RTHK)

"Sexual Harassment in Asia"
Presenters: Hugh Chiverton and Danny Gittings
Backchat, RTHK Radio 3
20 October 2017

Description: On Friday's Backchat, sexual harassment. After the revelations about Hollywood Mogul Harvey Weinstein, many actors, sports stars and others, as well as hundreds of thousands of others through twitter are stating that they have suffered sexual harassment and assault. If people are aware of the scale of the problem will it change attitudes? Why did people like Harvey Weinstein get away with it, when so many were aware of the problem? How can women without power fight back? Do women in Chinese societies suffer less harassment than in the West?  Panelists: Puja Kapai, Raees Baig, Susanne Choi, Sylvia Martin and Gina Marchetti. Click here to listen to the programme.

Puja Kapai Interviewed on the Abuse of Sex Workers in Hong Kong (SCMP)

"Sex worker abuse 'on the rise' in Hong Kong and most of the alleged abusers are police officers"

Rachel Blundy,
South China Morning Post
31 December 2016

Abuse of prostitutes is on the rise and police officers are mostly responsible, according to the city’s main non-profit organisation that cares for the rights of women.

     Zi Teng, which offers support for prostitutes, this year received 615 reports of physical and ­verbal abuse relating to both police and clients, up from 225 in 2015. The most ­serious cases, ­concerning clients, ­included grievous bodily harm, rape, robbery and fraud.

     Police were reported on 490 occasions for a ­catalogue of alleged abuses, including 225 cases of arbitrary arrest, when sex workers were not told why they were being held, and 100 cases of ­excessive ­licence checks, when they were approached and questioned several times on the same day.

     Other allegations against officers included ­forcing women to carry out free sexual services (11 cases), provide free massage services before arresting them (17), making verbal threats and insults (57), carrying out indecent assaults (three) and physically assaulting them (three).

...

     Puja Kapai, director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law at the University of Hong Kong, said the latest figures suggested workers faced ­rising levels of abuse, but emphasised that they may also reflect an increased awareness to report violence.

     “It is fair to say the situation looks like it is getting worse,” she said. “But I would want it to be made clear whether this was linked to the increasing visibility of gender-based reporting about violence.

     “It may have something to do with more Legislative Council discussions about this issue as well.

    “It may also be that people are more likely to speak to Zi Teng now and to report these incidents.”... Click here to read the full article.

Puja Kapai Interviewed on Sexual Harassment in Universities in Hong Kong (HKFP)

"Sexual harassment at Hong Kong's universities - rarely reported, but not rare"
Medhavi Arora
Hong Kong Free Press
3 January 2016

Before 19-year-old Chloe Wong entered a university in Hong Kong as a freshman, she was vulnerable and stressed after a messy breakup. She enrolled for a course taught by a “short, burly, hairy” man who also happened to be her academic advisor, requiring her to spend time with him regularly.

     In class, the professor would often call upon her to read aloud, casually touch her shoulder and at times, look at her while teaching and stare at her legs. After Chloe’s first advising meeting with the professor in his office, he asked her for a kiss on the cheek, saying it was customary in his culture to kiss goodbye...

     “In recent years, we became aware of a couple of inappropriate orientation activities that were highly sexualised,” said Puja Kapai, associate professor of law and equal opportunity advisor at HKU.

     According to Kapai, there have been instances of sexually charged behaviour during mass orientation programs such as faculty level orientation activities. Field trips, late evening engagements and halls of residence also sometimes result in the greying of boundaries where colleagues, students, and neighbours take advantage of the opportunities for sexual harassment in a less formalised setting...

     “We should know that there have been ‘x’ complaints received of which ‘y’ have been dealt with, and as a result, ‘z’ cases have resulted in disciplinary action or dismissal. We need to build a solid system that can make victims feel confident that these complaints are taken seriously and we are not quite there yet. Confidentiality is important but transparency is also important,” said Kapai... Click here to read the full article.