1.5 Why Have Rumors About Women Stayed the Same While the Times Changed? Public Issues Beneath the Headlines

Public Issues Beneath the Headlines | Sisyphus Express: In Depth

Sisyphus Express

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Note: This episode was first published on March 31, 2025.

Welcome to Sisyphus Highway: In Depth.

In the previous episode, we examined how gender narratives drive rumor and why women face harsher scrutiny in intimate relationships and moral judgment.

Here we look back nearly a century, beginning with the story of Ruan Lingyu.

In 1935, twenty-five-year-old Ruan Lingyu died amid a siege of property disputes, controversy over intimate relationships, and tabloid attacks. Reports portrayed her as greedy, disloyal to men, and morally wayward, while the men connected with her were more easily written as victims and even romanticized.

Nearly a century later, media forms have changed enormously, yet many rumors about women still use the same subjects, language, and narrative positions: money, sex, marriage, and betrayal. Women are publicly condemned while alive and collectively mourned after death, as facts, roles, and public fantasy continually intermingle in circulation.

Beginning with Ruan Lingyu’s death, New Women, and Lu Xun’s essay “On ‘Public Opinion Is a Fearful Thing,’” we discuss how rumor shapes women’s public image and fate. We ask again: over this century, what has changed, and what continues to repeat itself?