Embodying Middle Class Gender Aspirations

This book takes a feminist approach to analyse the lives of well-educated urban Chinese women, who were raised to embody the ideals of a modern Chinese nation and are largely the beneficiaries of the policy changes of the post-Mao era. It explores young women’s gendered attitudes to and experiences of marriage, reproductive choices, careers and aspirations for a good life. It sheds light on what keeps mainstream Chinese middle-class women conforming to the current gender regime. It illuminates the contradictory effects of neoliberal techniques deployed by a familial authoritarian regime on these women’s striving for success in urban China, and argues that, paradoxically, women’s individualistic determination to succeed has often led them onto the path of conformity by pursuing exemplary norms which fit into the party-state’s agenda. 

Chapter 1. Researching China’s Lucky Generation: The Post 80s.- Chapter 2. Women, Family and the Nation in Contemporary China.- Chapter 3. Premarital abortion, what is the harm? The Responsibilisation of women’s pregnancy among China’s ‘privileged’ daughters.- Chapter 4. The Right Time for Childbirth: The Naturalisation of Motherhood within Marriage.- Chapter 5. The Gendered Construction of Exemplary Middle-Class Identity: The Hegemony of Chenggong (success).- Chapter 6. Reality Bites: Gendered Experiences of Marriage and Work.- Chapter 7. Concluding Discussion: Living with Contradictions.