“Re-feminization” of dependent women migrants: Negotiating gender roles in the Chinese digital diaspora

Abstract

ABSTRACT Chinese women migrating to the US on dependent visas have been paid little attention. ICTs provide them a means to form an online community and to express their voices. Through netnography on a popular online forum of female Chinese immigrants in the USA (www.huaren.us), this article investigates how Chinese dependent visa holders describe and perceive their gender roles after migration. This paper finds that two representative gender roles—“miserable homemakers” and “successful career women”—stand out. However, both these groups of women take on more conservative roles in the domain of reproduction for motherhood and home-making after migration, which is defined as ‘re-feminization’ and represents their increased performance in and valorization of domesticity. By comparing gender norms in the US and China, re-feminization is regarded as resistance to hegemonic Chinese gender norms that devalue domesticity, but do not challenge the sexual division of labor that underlies patriarchal gender norms both in China and the US.