It represents a negative stereotype portraying Hong Kong women as worshiping money, narcissistic, being obsessed with foreign culture, and suffering from the so-called "Princess Syndrome" which means girls or non-married women requesting others to treat her like a princess.
[1] "Gong nui" (港女) was a neutral word used to describe ordinary Hong Kong women.
The negative usage of gong nui began in 2005 when several fights and discussions started online.
In February 2005, a Hong Kong girl identified as "Jenny" complained about her boyfriend for not paying $63.80 for snacks on an online forum, which was later known as the "63.8 Incident".
The word "Hong Kong Girls" was coined online and there are several main forums either defending or attacking this phenomenon.
The Hong Kong girl, Jenny, posted their story on the online forum, she.com and let netizens comment on it.
"Princess Sickness" is a popular slang expression closely related to the "by imperial decree" attitude.
[2] They make efforts to avoid themselves not to be assigned as "Gong Nui", thus highlighting gender as a relevant category in the number of cross-China border marriages between Hong Kong men and Mainland Chinese women is increasing.
Both groups of females are labelled because they violate social expectations of how good girls should behave.
[3] "Gender stereotypes are not created in a vacuum, but rather emerge from within a particular sociohistorical context in which social participants position themselves and others in salient ways.
If females think that the male should be rich and pay all the thing, they will be labelled as greedy or "Gold digger".
They can choose not to marry and maintain single until an ideal male appearing, but not control by family and society.
Even the society encourages equality of male and female, this gender stereotype still stays in the person's heart.
Gong Nui being self-confident, men would gradually lose their self-esteem in front of these girls and they would be afraid of having low status at home after marriage.
Most of the online forum users recognise gong nui as undesirable and greedy women, who even represent a bad image of Hong Kong girls.
都未見過一個咁物質的女人,影衰我地d女仔呀...< [...] 個個月LV Gucci咁買比個gf 你去搵過嗰d男人做bf啦< Are girls falling in love with you or your money?>> Among the attackers, men expressed their fear of meeting gong nui while women expressed their anger on how gong nui reflects a bad and terrible image of other Hong Kong women. 本人是女性-有這種像jenny的人,影衰晒d香港女性... 難怪香港男性上大陸找女伴...< No wonder men start to search for wives up north.>> People also compare gong nui to women in other countries, for example Taiwan and South East Asia. 我既愛妃乃香港溝台灣種既 ..... 溫柔賢淑 係絕佳妻子 ........係澳洲識既 大家真係咪係HK 溫食la ...... 上大陸la ....包你地有意外收穫 .....我有好多朋友都係上邊識到D非大戶出身 但行出來氣質絕不差於大家閨秀ge女子 最重要係 唔單止有心去相夫 打點家頭係直頭專業地識服侍老公 專業既管家 .....同埋很知足 不貪慕名牌 ... 基本上拒地係靚到 咩著係身都係名牌< The most important point is, not only are they good at helping husbands, but also professionally taking care of families and serving husbands...And they are contented with no greed in high-end brands...Basically they are so beautiful to put on any brands of goods.>>小弟內子乃緬甸華僑, 各位有興趣試試東南亞女子, 小弟覺得佢地相對比較純同溫柔體貼, 而且通常華僑都有d米, 但係又唔會話好好名牌, 仲會同你慳家< Also Chinese are always rather wealthy, but they are not addicted with brand name goods, and even save money for you.>>However, the truth is that there is also existence of "Gong nui", narcissistic women in many countries. Some of them nowadays have high education level and income, as a result, they would simply want their partner to have as same social status as they have. From their point of view, all they want is a stable future and the sense of security instead of money or material stuff. Although equality of male and female is encouraged in Hong Kong, the old thinking "husband should be richer than wife" is still not eliminated. [6] Additionally, the population proportion in Hong Kong also accounts for the reason why there is an existence of the term of gong nui. There is an article listing 81 faults of Hong Kong boys, including stingy, horny, immature and appear to be very weak in a relationship .