In late 2024, a short video series with an eyebrow-raising name began quietly reshaping one of China’s most sensitive conversations. “Male Virtue Academy” (男德学院), launched on Douyin (often misrendered abroad as “Baidou,” but in fact China’s TikTok-style platform), set out to ask a question that rarely gets framed so directly in Chinese popular culture: what does “virtue” mean for boys and men today? In a country still grappling with rigid masculinity norms, anxiety about declining birth rates, and polarised online gender wars, the series quickly attracted attention—partly because of its provocative title, and partly because its content was far more reflective and practical than many viewers expected.
The project was created by Baohu Doudou (保护豆豆), a children’s sexuality-education social enterprise best known for producing age-appropriate educational materials on bodies, consent, and emotional wellbeing. By branding the series as “Male Virtue Academy,” the organisers deliberately echoed the notorious “female virtue classes” (女德班) that caused public outrage in the late 2010s for teaching girls obedience, endurance of abuse, and self-sacrifice in the name of tradition. This time, however, the provocation was intentional and ironic. According to the project team, the name was meant to draw attention and then subvert expectations, redirecting the idea of “virtue” away from control and hierarchy and toward responsibility, empathy, and self-care.
The videos are short, accessible, and designed for Douyin’s fast-scrolling audience, but their themes are unusually substantive for a platform better known for comedy skits and lifestyle hacks. The series is structured around four broad areas that Baohu Doudou identifies as gaps in boys’ education. The first focuses on physiology and hygiene, addressing boys’ bodies in plain language and without shame. Topics include puberty, basic health knowledge, and everyday practices that are often ignored in formal schooling but passed around informally, sometimes inaccurately. By treating these issues matter-of-factly, the series aims to normalise conversations that many families still find awkward.
A second cluster of episodes deals with interpersonal boundaries and behaviour, including respect, verbal aggression, and sexual harassment prevention. Rather than framing boys as potential offenders or moral failures, the tone is corrective but calm, emphasising social responsibility and awareness of others. This approach reflects Baohu Doudou’s long-standing philosophy that effective sexuality education should reduce harm without relying on fear or moral panic.
Perhaps the most widely discussed episodes are those centred on emotions and communication. In Mandarin, boys are often told to be jianqiang (坚强, “strong”) and nanchang leishu (男儿不流泪, “men do not shed tears”). Male Virtue Academy challenges this emotional suppression directly, arguing that denying boys the language to express sadness, fear, or vulnerability contributes to long-term mental-health risks. These videos encourage boys to recognise emotions, talk about them, and seek help when needed—messages that resonate strongly with millennial parents and younger viewers who grew up with far fewer emotional tools.
The final theme focuses on life skills and care work, pushing back against the deeply embedded idea of nan zhu wai, nü zhu nei (男主外，女主内, “men belong outside, women inside”). Episodes encourage boys to learn household skills, participate in childcare, and see domestic competence as a form of independence rather than a loss of masculinity. In the context of contemporary debates about marriage, family pressure, and women’s “double burden,” this emphasis gives the series a quietly political edge.
Baohu Doudou reports that some episodes reached around 1.5 million views on Douyin, a significant number for educational content in a crowded algorithmic space. While detailed comment threads are largely visible only within the app, media coverage and public discussion suggest that many viewers were surprised by the series’ tone. Some tuned in expecting satire or backlash-fuelled gender confrontation and instead found something closer to a practical guide for raising emotionally literate boys. The mixed-gender production team—four men and two women—was also noted in coverage, reflecting an effort to model cooperation rather than moral lecturing from one side of the gender divide.
The timing of Male Virtue Academy matters. China is in the midst of renewed official concern about masculinity, social stability, and family formation, with policy discourse often slipping into nostalgia for “traditional values.” At the same time, online spaces are filled with bitter arguments between self-described feminists, “straight men” (zhi nan 直男), and anti-feminist influencers. Against this backdrop, Baohu Doudou’s project occupies an unusual middle ground. It neither glorifies patriarchal authority nor frames boys as inherently problematic. Instead, it treats masculinity as something that can be learned, reshaped, and made compatible with equality.
Male Virtue Academy does not claim to solve China’s gender tensions, and it avoids grand ideological statements. Its strength lies in its modesty: short videos, clear language, and an insistence that caring for oneself and others is a form of virtue worth teaching. In a media environment where extremes travel fastest, that may be its most quietly radical lesson.
Spicy Auntie is squinting at her phone, sipping something iced and judgmental, and thinking: well, well, well… look who finally discovered “virtue.” Boys. Men. Masculinity. Welcome to the chat, gentlemen. China’s “Male Virtue Academy” (男德学院) popping up on Douyin at the end of 2024 is one of those moments where you can almost hear history clear its throat.
For years, Auntie watched the toxic circus of female virtue classes (女德班)—girls told to endure, obey, swallow pain, and call it tradition. Smile through violence. Stay married at all costs. Don’t talk back. Don’t leave. Don’t exist too loudly. And suddenly, someone flips the script and says: what if men were taught virtue instead? Not domination. Not entitlement. Not emotional constipation disguised as strength. Actual, usable virtue.
And here’s the delicious twist: Male Virtue Academy isn’t shouting. It isn’t scolding. It isn’t doing gender war cosplay for clicks. It’s quietly saying things that should have been obvious decades ago. Boys have bodies. Boys have feelings. Boys need to learn hygiene, consent, care work, and how not to implode emotionally at 35. Groundbreaking? Sadly, yes.
Auntie especially approves of the episodes nudging boys away from the ancient curse of nan’er bu liu lei (男儿不流泪, “men don’t cry”). That lie has done more damage than a thousand bad dating apps. Men who don’t learn how to name sadness turn it into rage. Men who aren’t taught care turn partners into unpaid therapists. Men who think housework is emasculating somehow still expect hot meals and clean socks. Make it make sense.
Is Male Virtue Academy perfect? Of course not. It still tiptoes. It still avoids saying “patriarchy” too loudly. It still wraps radical ideas in gentle language so the algorithm doesn’t choke. But Auntie understands survival strategies. In today’s China, subtlety is sometimes the sharpest knife.
What matters is this: virtue is being redefined. Not as obedience, but as responsibility. Not as control, but as care. Not as silence, but as emotional literacy. Teaching boys that washing dishes won’t shrink their masculinity, that childcare won’t erase their worth, that empathy isn’t weakness—this is not “anti-men.” It’s pro-human.
So Auntie raises her glass to Male Virtue Academy. May it confuse misogynists, annoy fragile egos, and quietly raise a generation of boys who don’t need women to shrink so they can feel tall. Virtue, at last, is being redistributed. About time.