Chinese weekly publication, New Weekly (新周刊), produces an annual list called, “Top 10 Women of the Year”, celebrating extraordinary women in China. The 2021 list was released recently. However, the it was taken down after drawing backlash for including Wang Leehom’s ex-wife, Lee Jinglei (李靚蕾), and Kris Wu’s accuser, Du Meizhu (都美竹).

In New Weekly’s article, they said, “Even though [Lee Jinglei and Du Meizhu] are not perfect victims and they might not necessarily be independent women, but because of them, the public started paying attention to ‘gaslighting’ and other phenomena, revealing the evil deeds to the world ‘in the name of love’, other women and even the weaker party in a relationship have the opportunity to avoid toxic emotional manipulation and financial pressures that are hard to detect around them.”

The controversy came when Lee Jinglei and Du Meizhu were included in the list among women like Zhang Guimei, a high school principal who founded a free public high school for girls in an impoverished region and Wang Yaping, a Chinese astronaut that became the second Chinese woman to travel in space. Chinese netizens questioned Lee Jinglei and Du Meizhu being on the same list of women who have contributed to society even though their actions might have shed some light to social issues, it was done more so for their own personal benefit.

Aside from the criticism about their contributions, netizens also questioned why Lee Jinglei was even added to the list saying she’s not Chinese (she is half Japanese on her father’s side). New Weekly deleted their post seemingly due to the opposition from netizens.

Credit: Weibo (1, 2, 3)