This study investigates the perception of the variation of neutral tone, a phonetic feature in China’s official language, Putonghua. Specifically, it explores whether native listeners perceive social meanings such as standardness, regional-ness, status and/or solidarity presumably associated with the low-use, standard use, and high-use of neutral tone, and how gender influences the perception of these meanings. Based on the results of a matched-guise test, the study argues that the high use of neutral tone, through its link with Beijing dialect, is possibly competing with the standard, though the latter maintains a higher level of positive meanings. It also notes that the low use of neutral tone – associated with Southern China and non-Mandarin varieties – carries more negative meanings. The overall gender differences show that gender prejudice towards women still exists in China.