Abstract
After exploring my participants’ gendered perceptions of success and their determination to embody a successful life in contemporary China, this chapter contrasts the romantic visions of love marriage held by many unmarried women with the reality of married life by drawing on the accounts of married women with children. I then move on to discuss gendered discrimination in the workplace and consider how inequality at home and in the workplace are mutually reinforcing. By looking into their childcare arrangements and the domestic division of labour, I identify the multiple constraints resulting from the assumptions about women’s primary domestic role that limit them from freely excelling in China’s market economy. I reveal the widespread discrimination against women from recruitment to promotion in white-collar professions, where these women find themselves.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
One example is the deletion of social media accounts of the renowned Feminist Voices on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2018 (Feng 2018).
- 2.
This saying might have first appeared in colonial Shanghai at the beginning of the twentieth century, when women were increasingly seen in public at social events among elite circles. It is used to exemplify the ideal wife for a successful man.
- 3.
A marital practice dating back to Imperial China, in which a man marries into and lives with the wife’s family, which is contrary to the patrilineal custom. It happens either when the man’s family cannot afford a dowry to acquire a wife, or a woman’s family needs labour and wants to secure old-age care due to a lack of sons.
- 4.
A popular term that has spread online in recent years to describe children who exploit their parents like worms.
- 5.
Yuhan was an additional woman I interviewed for a related study. I include her in this chapter because she has interesting thing to say about wifehood and motherhood.
- 6.
Due to the recent crackdown on corruption as part of a government campaign, people who are engaged in such activities can also face the danger of being caught up in the ‘anti-corruption war’ initiated by Xi’s government. However, in this context danger means the potential damage to a woman’s reputation.
- 7.
EQ, (Emotional Quotient) refers to one’s emotional intelligence. The English initials have been incorporated into the Chinese language. Howard Gardner, an influential Harvard theorist, describes EQ as the level of one’s ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work cooperatively with them.
- 8.
There has been a slight increase along with the implementation of the Two-Child Policy that started in 2016. The exact number of days varies across regions.
- 9.
The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU; 中国全国总工会) is a party organisation under the CCP’s rule. Historically, it has taken the role of stopping workers’ protests and has sided with the party agenda.
References
Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender & Society, 4(2), 139–158. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124390004002002.
Acker, J. (1992). From sex roles to gendered institutions. Contemporary Sociology, 21(5), 565–569. https://doi.org/10.2307/2075528.
ACWF. (2011). All-China Women’s Federation, report on major results of the third wave survey on the social status of women in China. [Online]. Available at: https://landwise.resourceequity.org/record/228. Accessed 9 March 2018.
Bai, R. (2011). The role of the All-China Federation of trade unions: Implications for Chinese workers today. Working USA, 14(1), 19–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-4580.2010.00318.x.
Bartky, S. L. (1990). Femininity and domination: Studies in the phenomenology of oppression. London and New York: Routledge.
BBC. (2016). The people who can’t quite get a government job. BBC China. [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-38151203. Accessed 10 March 2018.
BBC. (2017a). Inside China’s ‘virtue schools’ for women. BBC China. [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-42305137. Accessed 8 March 2018.
BBC. (2017b). Pregnant woman in Shanxi killed herself trigger debate on who is in charge of the reproductive body? (陕西产妇跳楼身亡引发讨论 孕妇肚子谁做主?) BBC China. [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-41191257. Accessed 6 February 2018.
Bray, F. (1997). Technology and gender: Fabrics of power in late imperial China. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press.
Cao, S. (2017, December). ‘Whingeing’ husbands: Men’s practices of intimacy and inequality in urban China. Families, Relationships and Societies. http://doi.org/10.1332/204674317X15120405853453.
Chen, F. (2003). Between the State and Labour: The Conflict of Chinese Trade Unions’ Double Identity in Market Reform. The China Quarterly, 176, 1006–1028. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741003000596.
Chen, F., Liu, G., & Mair, C. A. (2011). Intergenerational ties in context: Grandparents caring for grandchildren in China. Social Forces, 90(2), 571–594. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sor012.
China Digital Times. (2018). Beijing civil affairs bureau issues marriage manual to promote “strong men and weak women” (图说天朝 北京民政局发放婚姻宣传手册 倡导男强女). China Digital Times (中国数字时代) [Online]. Available at: Accessed 9 March 2018.
Chin, T. (2018). Everyday gender at work in Taiwan. Singapore: Springer.
Croll, E. (1995). Changing identities of Chinese women: Rhetoric, experience, and self- perception in twentieth-century China. London: Zed Books.
Croll, E. (2006). China’s new consumers: Social development and domestic demand. London and New York: Routledge.
Crompton, R., & Lyonette, C. (2005). The new gender essentialism—Domestic and family ‘choices’ and their relation to attitudes. The British Journal of Sociology, 56(4), 601–620. [Online]. Available at: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-4446.2005.00085.x.
Dan, L. (2015). A tradition for new mothers in china, now $27,000 a month. New York Times. [Online]. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/02/business/international/china-confinement-care-for-new-mothers-now-27000-a-month.html. Accessed 8 March 2018.
Davis, D. S., & Friedman, S. L. (2014). deinstitutionalizing marriage and sexuality. In D. S. Davis & S. L. Friedman (Eds.), Wives, husbands, and lovers: Marriage and sexuality in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Urban China (pp. 1–40). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Delphy, C. (1993). Rethinking sex and gender. Women’s Studies International Forum, 16(1), 1–9.
Delphy, C., & Leonard, D. (1992). Familiar exploitation: A new analysis of marriage in contemporary western societies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ding, S., Dong, X., & Li, S. (2009). Women’s employment and family income inequality during China’s economic transition. Feminist Economics, 15(3), 163–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545700802526541.
Du, J., Wang, Y., & Zhang, Y. (2015). Sex imbalance, marital matching and intra-household bargaining: Evidence from China. China Economic Review, 35, 197–218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2014.11.002.
Evans, H. (1995). Defining difference: The ‘scientific’ construction of sexuality and gender in the People’s Republic of China. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 20(2), 357–394. http://doi.org/10.1086/494978.
Evans, H. (1997). Women and sexuality in china: Dominant discourses of female sexuality and gender since 1949. Cambridge: Policy Press.
Fang, Y., & Walker, A. (2015). ‘Full-time wife’ and the change of gender order in the Chinese City. Journal of Chinese Sociology, 2(4), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40711-015-0006-x.
Feng, J. (2018). Chinese social media censors Feminist Voices. SupChina. [Online]. Available at: https://supchina.com/2018/03/09/chinese-social-media-censors-feminist-voices/. Accessed 13 March 2018.
Fong, V. L. (2002). China’s One-Child Policy and the empowerment of urban daughters. American Anthropologist, 104(4), 1098–1109. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.4.1098.
Gaetano, A. M. (2015). Out to work: Migration, gender, and the changing lives of rural women in contemporary China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Goh, E. (2011). China’s One-Child Policy and multiple caregiving: Raising little suns in Xiamen. London and New York: Routledge.
Goh, E. C. L. (2009). Grandparents as childcare providers: An in-depth analysis of the case of Xiamen, China. Journal of Aging Studies, 23(1), 60–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2007.08.001.
Hird, D. (2008). White-collar men and masculinity in Contemporary urban China (PhD). Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Westminster.
Hochschild, A. (1989). The second shift: Working parents and the revolution at home. New York: Viking.
Hooper, B. (2002). Women and consumerism in post-Mao China. In K. Sen & M. Stivens (Eds.), Gender and power in affluent Asia (pp. 167–193). London and New York: Routledge.
Ikels, C. (2004). Filial piety: Practice and discourse in contemporary East Asia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Jacka, T. (1990). Back to the wok: Women and employment in Chinese Industry in the 1980s. The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 24, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.2307/2158887.
Jamieson, L. (1999). Intimacy transformed? A critical look at the ‘pure relationship’. Sociology, 33(3), 477–494.
Jinhua Forum. (2009). Current marriage fashion trend: Men provide house, women provide car (时下结婚流行’男房女车’). China Wang (中国网). [Online]. Available at: http://lianghui.china.com.cn/info/txt/2009-02/24/content_17323450.htm. Accessed 8 March 2018.
Judge, J. (2002). Citizens or mothers of citizens? Gender and the meaning of modern Chinese citizenship. In M. Goldman & E. J. Perry (Eds.), Changing meanings of citizenship in modern China. London: Harvard University Press.
Li, E. C. Y. (2018). Querying Gender: The Everyday Practice of Zhongxing (Neutral Gender/Sex) among Chinese Women (PhD). Unpublished: Kings College London.
Liu, J. (2008). Sexualized labour? “White-collar beauties” in provincial China. In S. Jackson & J. J. Liu (Eds.), East Asian sexualities (pp. 85–103). London: Zed Books.
Liu, J. (2017a). Gender, sexuality and power in Chinese companies: Beauties at work. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Liu, J. (2017b). Intimacy and Intergenerational Relations in Rural China. Sociology, 51(5), 1034–1049. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038516639505.
Mann, S. L. (2002). Grooming a daughter for marriage: Brides and wives in the mid-qing period. In S. L. Brownell & J. Wasserstrom (Eds.), Chinese femininities, Chinese masculinities: A reader (pp. 1–41). Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mann, S. L. (2011). Gender and sexuality in modern Chinese history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mao, L. (2012). Changing times and diverging lives: The 60s generation of Chinese women from little Red Soldier to glamorous housewife (PhD). Unpublished: University of York.
McMillan, J. (2006). Sex, science and morality in China. London and New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis.
Meng, X., & Luo, C. (2008). What determines living arrangements of the elderly in urban China? In B. A. Gustafsson, S. Li, & T. Sicular (Eds.), Inequality and public policy in China (pp. 267–286). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ochiai, E., et al. (2008). Gender roles and childcare networks in east and southeast asian societies. In E. Ochiai & B. Molony (Eds.), Asia’s new mothers: Crafting gender roles and childcare networks in east and southeast asian societies (pp. 31–70). Brill: Folkestone, UK.
Osburg, J. (2013). Anxious wealth: Money and morality among China’s new rich. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Palmer, E., & Deng, Q. (2008). What has economic transition meant for the wellbeing of the elderly in China? In B. A. Gustafsson, S. Li, & T. Sicular (Eds.), Inequality and public policy in China (pp. 182–203). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PCEncyclopedia. (2017). Updated national maternity leave guideline 2017 (2017产假国家规定). Taipinyang Qinzi Wang (太平洋亲子网). [Online]. Available at: http://baike.pcbaby.com.cn/qzbd/1269632.html#ldjc4ta=baby_tbody1. Accessed 10 March 2018.
Qi, X. (2015). Filial obligation in contemporary China: Evolution of the culture-system. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 45(1), 141–161. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12052.
Rofel, L. (2007). Desiring china: Experiments in neoliberalism, sexuality, and public culture. Durham and London: Duke University Press.
Santos, G., & Harrell, S. (2016). Introduction. Transforming patriarchy: Chinese families in the twenty-first century (pp. 3–36). Seattle, US: University of Washington Press.
Shu, X., Zhu, Y., & Zhang, Z. (2013). Patriarchy, resources, and specialization: Marital decision-making power in urban China. Journal of Family Issues, 34(7), 885–917. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X12450001.
Song, G., & Hird, D. (2014). Men and masculinities in contemporary China. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.
Spector, P. E., et al. (2004). A cross-national comparative study of work-family stressors, working hours, and well-being: China and Latin America Versus the Anglo World. Personnel Psychology, 57(1), 119–142. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2004.tb02486.x.
Spector, P. E., et al. (2007). Cross-national differences in relationships of work demands, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions with work–family conflict. Personnel Psychology, 60(4), 805–835. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2007.00092.x.
Stockman, N., Norman, B., & Sheng, X. (1995). Women’s work in East and West: The dual burden of employment and family life. London: UCL Press.
Sun, D. (2016). Worsening gender imbalance among school teachers: Societal stereotypes against male teachers. (男女教师比例失衡愈演愈烈,社会偏见男性当教师没出息). Yangguang Wang (央广网). [Online]. Available at: http://news.cnr.cn/native/gd/20161008/t20161008_523181008.shtml. Accessed 10 March 2018.
Sun, S., & Chen, F. (2015). Reprivatized womanhood: Changes in mainstream media’s framing of urban women’s issues in China, 1995–2012. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77(5), 1091–1107. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12219.
The World Bank. (2017). Labour force participation rate, female (% of female population ages 15+). The World Bank. [Online]. Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.CACT.FE.ZS?page=3. Accessed 2 February 2018.
Uretsky, E. author. (2016). Occupational hazards: Sex, business and HIV in post-Mao China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Wang, Z. (2000). Gender, employment and women’s resistance. In E. J. Perry & M. Selden (Eds.), Chinese society: Change, conflict and resistance. London and New York: Routledge.
Wen, H. (2013). Buying beauty: Cosmetic surgery in China. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Wielander, G. (2018). Introduction: Chinese happiness-a shared discursive terrain. In G. Wielander & D. Hird (Eds.), Chinese discourses on happiness. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Yan, Y. (2015). Parents-driven divorce and individualization among urban Chinese youth. International Social Science Journal, 64(213–214), 317–330.
Yang, F. (2011). Religion in China: survival and revival under communist rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yang, N., et al. (2000). Sources of work-family conflict: A Sino-U.S. comparison of the effects of work and family demands. Academy of Management Journal, 43(1), 113–123. http://doi.org/10.2307/1556390.
Zavoretti, R. (2016). Being the right woman for ‘mr. right’: Marriage and household politics in present-day Nanjing. In G. Santos & S. Harrell (Eds.), Transforming patriarchy: Chinese families in the twenty-first century (pp. 129–145). Seattle, US: University of Washington Press.
Zhang, E. (2001). Goudui and the state: Constructing entrepreneurial masculinity in two cosmopolitan areas of post-socialist China. In D. L. Hodgson (Ed.), Gendered modernities: Ethnographic perspectives (pp. 235–265). New York: Palgrave.
Zhang, L. (2010). In search of paradise: Middle-class living in a Chinese metropolis. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Zhang, P. (2017). Female virtue class caught public attention (‘女德班’再成舆论热点). Xinhua Wang (新华网). [Online]. Available at: http://www.xinhuanet.com/yuqing/2017-12/11/c_129759745.htm. Accessed 8 March 2018.
Zhang, Z. B. (2016). Building a well-off society: Measurement, standards and scientific connotation (全面建成小康社会:衡量标准与科学内涵). Chinese Academy of Social Science (中国社会科学网) [Online]. Available at: http://cssn.cn/zzx/zgzz_zzx/201611/t20161109_3270781.shtml. Accessed 26 March 2018.
Zhen, X., & Lin, L. (2015). School teachers gender imbalance. Where are the male teachers? (中小学校男女教师比例失衡 “男神”教师去哪儿了). Sohu Wang (搜狐网). [Online]. Available at: http://www.sohu.com/a/5308352_100908. Accessed 10 March 2018.
Zhong, X., & Ho, P. S. (2014). Negotiative intimacy: Parental expectations of family relationships and filial piety for their one-child (协商式亲密关系: 独生子女父母对家庭关系和孝道的期待). Open Times (开放时代), 1, 155–175.
Zhou, D. (2009). Blue book of development and reform. Beijing: Social Science Literature Press.
Zhu, J. (2010). Mothering expectant mothers: Consumption, production, and two motherhoods in contemporary China. Ethos, 38(4), 406–412. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2010.01158.x.
Zhuang, P. (2012). New standards on filial piety cause unhappiness. South China Morning Post. [Online]. Available at: http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1018761/new-standards-filial-piety-cause-unhappiness. Accessed 8 March 2018.
Zuo, J., & Bian, Y.(2001). Gendered resources, division of housework, and perceived fairness—A case in urban China. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(4), 1122–1133.
Zurndorfer, H. (2016). Men, women, money, and morality: The development of China’s sexual economy. Feminist Economics, 22(2), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13545701.2015.1026834.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Xie, K. (2021). Reality Bites: Gendered Experiences of Marriage and Work. In: Embodying Middle Class Gender Aspirations. Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1139-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1139-1_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-16-1138-4
Online ISBN: 978-981-16-1139-1
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)