首页>課程>Selected Themes on Gender in China>CHES5101

This course takes an anthropological perspective to debate a general human category, gender, in the context of contemporary Chinese society. Through this approach, the course will show how the notion of gender is largely a sociocultural product. The anthropological approach helps us contemplate takenfor- granted beliefs regarding gender and sexuality. Gender politics in essence address differences and inequality. Reflecting upon how gender became a category of analysis for anthropologists, we bring to the fore the relationship between culture and power. Students will explore material, economic, political, and sociocultural factors that underpin such processes of construction. This course will start by introducing core concerns, arguments, and approaches related to gender and sexuality in China. After the introductory sessions, we will focus, week by week, on common (or controversial) gender and sexual issues we encounter in our daily lives. Students are encouraged to examine their own gender identities and beliefs critically; to not only understand how our gender assumptions are shaped but also to develop one’s own gender statements.

WEEK 1 (11 Jan): What is Gender, and Why do We Study Gender?: An Anthropological Approach to Gender and Sexuality

NO TUTORIAL

• Ortner, Sherry.1974. “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” In Woman, Culture, and
  Society, M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere, eds. Pp. 67-87.
• **2Rosaldo, Michelle. 1974. “Woman, Culture and Society: A Theoretical Overview.” In M.Rosaldo and L. Lamphere, eds. Woman, Culture and Society. Pp. 17-42.

WEEK 2 (18 Jan): Performing Chinese Femininities

NO TUTORIAL (Sign up for the tutorial facilitation)

• Huang, Xin. 2012. “From “Hyper-feminine” to Androgyny: Changing
  Notions of Femininity in Contemporary China.” In John A. Lent , and Lorna Fitzsimmons, eds., Asian Popular Culture in Transition, pp. 133-155.
• Pei, Yuxin. 2011. “Multiple Sexual Relationships as a New Lifestyle: Young Women’s Sexuality
  in Contemporary Shanghai.” Women’s Studies International Forum (34): 401-410.

WEEK 3 (25 Jan): The Hybridity and Pluralism of Contemporary Chinese Masculinities

• Song, Geng, and Derek Hird. 2014. “Chinese Masculinity: Is There Such a Thing?” In Men and Masculinities in Contemporary China, pp. 1-21. Leiden: Brill.
• Song Geng. 2022. “‘Little Fresh Meat’ and the Politics of Sissyphobia.” In Televising Chineseness: Gender, Nation, and Subjectivity, pp. 126-153.
• **MANN, Susan. 2000. “The male bond in Chinese history and culture.” American Historical Review 105 (5): 1600-1614.

WEEK 4 (1 Feb): Gender and the Chinese State

• Rofel, Lisa. 1999. “Allegories of Postsocialism.” In Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism, pp. 217-256. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Yang, M. M.-H. 1999. “From Gender Erasure to Gender Difference: State Feminism, Consumer Sexuality, and Women’s Public Sphere in China.” In Spaces of Their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China. M. M.-H. Yang, ed.: Pp. 35-67. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
• **Yang, Wenqi, and Yan Fei. 2017. “The Annihilation of Femininity in Mao’s China: Gender Inequality of Sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution.” China Information 31 (1): 63-83.
• **NAGEL, Joane. 1998. “Masculinity and Nationalism: Gender and Sexuality in the Making of Nations.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21, 2: 242–68.

WEEK 5 (8 Feb): Gender, Marriage, Power and Resistance

• Siu, Helen F. 1990 “Where were the Women? Rethinking Marriage Resistance and Regional Culture in South China”. Late Imperial China 2(2): 32-62.
• Chao, Emily. 2005. “Cautionary Tales: Marriage Strategies, State Discourse, and Women’s Agency in a Naxi Village in Southwestern China.” In Nicole Constable, ed, Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia, pp. 34-52.
• **Wolf, Margery. 1972. “CH3: Uterine Families and the Women’s Community.” In Women and the Family in Rural Taiwan. Pp. 32-42. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
• **Watson, Rubie S. 1991. “Wives, Concubines, and Maids: Servitude and Kinship in the Hong Kong Region, 1900-1940.” In Marriage and Inequality in Chinese Society, edited by Rubie S.Watson and Patricia B. Ebrey, 231-255. Berkeley: University of California Press.

WEEK 6 (15 Feb): NO CLASS (Lunar New Year Holiday)

WEEK 7 (22 Feb): Empowerment or New Forms of Exploitation?: Gendered Mobility in Contemporary China

• Schein Louisa. 2005. “Marrying out of Place: Hmong/Miao Women Across and Beyond China.” In Nicole Constable, ed, Cross-Border Marriages: Gender and Mobility in Transnational Asia, pp. 53-79.
• Klein, Kerstin. 2016. “Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Sperm Donation, and Biological Kinship: A Recent Chinese Media Debate.” In Transforming Patriarchy: Chinese Families in the Twenty-First Century: pp. 219-233.

WEEK 8 (29 Feb): Gender, Class, and Work

• Yan, Hairong. 2008. “Part I ‘Intellectuals’ Burden’ and Domestic Labor.” In New Masters, New Servants: Migration, Development, and Women Workers in China, pp. 57-79. Durham: Duke University Press.
• Pun, Ngai. 2005. “Imaging Sex and Gender in the Workplace.” In Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workplace, pp. 133-164. Durham: Duke University Press.

WEEK 9 (7 Mar): NO Class (Reading Week)
Work on your reflection paper!

WEEK 10 (14 Mar): Gender, Body and Consumption

Reflection Paper Due

• Wen, Hua. 2013, “The Commodification of the Body.” In Buying Beauty: Cosmetic Surgery in China, pp. 125-146.
• Zheng, Tiantian. 2009. “Turning in the Grain: Sex and the Modern Man.” In Red Lights: The Lives of Sex Workers in Postsocialist China, pp. 105-146.
• **Song, Geng, and Derek Hird. 2014. “Masculinities at Leisure.” In Men and Masculinities in Contemporary China, pp. 169-210. Leiden: Brill.

WEEK 11 (21 Mar): Gender, Aging and Caregiving

• Zhan, Heying Jenny. and Rhonda J. V. Montgomery. 2003. “Gender and Elder Care in China: The Influence of Filial Piety and Structural Constraints.” Global Perspectives on Gender and Carework 17 (2): 209-229.
• Eleanor, Holroy. 2001. “Hong Kong Chinese Daughters’ Intergenerational Caregiving Obligations: A Cultural Model Approach.” Social Science & Medicine 53 (9): 1125-1134.

WEEK 12 (28 Mar): Gender, Eating and Cooking

• Gao, James, Z. 2013. “Eating, Cooking, and Shanghai’s “Less-than-Manly Men”: The Social Consequences of Food Rationing and Economic Reforms.” Front. Hist. China 8 (2): 259-293.
• Liu, Chen. 2020. “Food and Gendered Intimacy.” In Food Practices and Family Lives in Urban China, pp. 50-71. London: Routledge.
• **Martin, Diana. 2001. “Food Restrictions in Pregnancy among Hong Kong Mothers.” In David Y. H. Wu and Chee-Beng Tan, eds., Changing Chinese Foodways in Asia, pp.97-122. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.

WEEK 13 (4 Apr): NO Class (Ching Ming Festival)

Final Research Paper Proposal Due (Optional)

WEEK 14 (11 Apr): Individual Consultation Sessions (TBA)

NO TUTORIAL

WEEK 15 (18 Apr): Romancing and Queering the Cyberspace: Gender and the Charm of “Beautiful Men”

• Feng, Jin. 2013. “Addicted to Beauty.” In Romancing the Internet: Producing and Consuming Chinese Web Romance, pp. 53-83.
• Ye Shana. 2022. “Word of Honor and Brand Homonationalism with “Chinese characteristics”: the Dangai Industry, Queer Masculinity and the “Opacity” of the State.” Feminist Media Studies: 1-17.

Friday, 26 April 2024: Final Paper Due