Legend Zhu is a traditional Chinese beauty. Tall and with shoulder-length hair, she is the leader of a university modeling team that is often required to walk the runway at campus fashion shows in tight dresses and dramatic eye makeup.

Soon after graduating from college, Zhu’s appearance again attracted attention, but for a very different reason. This summer, she posted a selfie with very short hair and no makeup on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media platform known for lifestyle influencers.

“From model to natural woman,” Legend Zhu wrote in the post, attaching a photo of herself before the transformation during her modeling career. “So comfortable!”

Legender Chu’s photo received more than 1,000 likes and numerous compliments. People also praised her for defying pressure and defying traditional beauty standards. “This is so brave,” one comment read.

It is necessary to muster up courage, because the online recognition of Legende Zhu’s new look is not the whole story. There are negative comments, too, which she deleted.

In China, anything to do with women’s rights can be a sensitive topic. The Communist Party has long declared gender equality one of its core principles, but is wary of civil society organizations. Women who speak out about women’s rights online are often shamed, and sometimes their social media accounts are deleted for “sex discrimination.” Women who have been sexually mistreated by powerful men have either lost in court or been forced to remain silent.

Leta Hong Fincher, author of “Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China,” said young Chinese women, especially college-educated ones, are becoming more aware of these issues. She said gender discrimination in college admissions and the workplace has prompted some young women to resist gender roles, including those related to appearance.

Legendre Zhu, 23, is one of a growing number of young women who have been inspired by a growing trend of rejecting what China’s internet calls “beauty service” — the high, sometimes painful price of pursuing mainstream definitions of attractiveness — by arguing that time and resources should be spent not on achieving beauty standards but on personal development, including education and career growth.

“In order to maintain beauty, you have to keep investing time, money and energy to maintain it,” said Legend Zhu. “But I found that most boys don’t have this (trouble). I think it’s unfair.”

Women who share this philosophy also refuse to starve themselves, shunning the dangerous diet culture that has becomePopular Internet ChallengesFor example, users are asked to place an A4 sheet of paper vertically across their abdomen in an attempt to cover their waist. Only the slimmest waists can be completely covered by a 21cm wide sheet of paper.

Legend Zhu said that when she was a college student in Beijing and considering entering the fashion industry, a modeling agency suggested that she lose at least 20 kilograms to 100 kilograms. At 1.77 meters tall, she felt it was unreasonable: “I didn’t dare to think about what kind of harm my body would suffer.”

She decided to study for a postgraduate diploma in urban planning instead.

Annie Xie from the northern city of Qinhuangdao has been wearing makeup and contact lenses since middle school, and dieting to fit into the smallest skirt size.

At 15, she was hospitalized for anorexia nervosa, after which she began to look inward and was inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s feminist classic, “The Second Sex.” “Women are not born women, they are made women,” she said, and it felt “like being struck by lightning.”

Anne Xie said feminist theory helped her break free from her obsession with appearance. Now 23 and preparing to move abroad, she has stopped dieting, wears loose clothes, does not wear makeup and often does not wear a bra.

In the West, feminists have been speaking out against patriarchal ideas for decades. But in many East Asian countries, where traditional gender expectations persist even amid rapid economic and technological development, rejecting narrow definitions of beauty is often seen as radical.

Japanese women launched asportsSouth Korean women are taking a stand against dress codes that require them to wear high heels in the workplace, challenging the country’s entrenched and restrictive beauty culture.

In China, capitalism and the prosperity it has brought have in part led to greater pressure on women to look beautiful. The cosmetics and skincare market in China was worth more than $69 billion last year, according to iResearch.

State indoctrination promotes traditional gender norms, urging women to marry and have children early, and narrows standards for what beauty means. “So the government assumes that women who rebel against traditional beauty are more likely to rebel in other ways,” said Hong.

Zelda Liu, a 27-year-old from the southeastern city of Suzhou, said that when she decided to cut her hair short, she had to do it herself. Barbers were hesitant, worried that shaving too short would hurt her scalp – a reason she found ridiculous: “Isn’t a woman’s head a head?”

More than a year later, she still has the hairstyle, which she says means she no longer receives unsolicited male attention or makeup advice. She describes her newfound freedom as “a relief”. She now also lives abroad.

Annie Xie from Qinhuangdao said an ex-boyfriend once commented that she had “fallen.” “I find it ridiculous,” she said. “I never want to go back to the way I was before.”

Not all opposition came from men, with some women taking to social media to argue that women who adhere to traditional beauty standards should not be made to feel uncomfortable.

Fiona Chen, a Chinese feminist online celebrity, said women who refuse to conform to these norms often view other women who disagree with them as less progressive. But she said such criticisms should focus on the underlying reasons why gender expectations are unfair.

“It’s not women who are sick,” she said. “It’s the patriarchy.”