Leftover Women Research Articles

Book review: Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China

Book review: Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China

Are You the One? China's TV Dating Shows and the Sheng Nü's Predicament

This study looks into TV dating shows in post-millennial China. These widespread shows, exemplified by Fei Cheng Wu Rao (translated, by both local and global media, as If You Are the One), open up an ongoing social forum, which, to varying extents, enables self-articulations and renegotiations of class and gender identities and gives voice to selected female participants of the media. Through the lens of critical discourse analysis, the paper focuses on analyzing the stage arrangements and hidden rules of Fei Cheng Wu Rao, female participants' self-introductions, both male and female participants' depictions of their “ideal” spouse, and the remarks of the host and the two expert commentators. The study argues that these dating shows play upon the predicament of Chinese single women, especially those labeled as “sheng nü” (“leftover women”), who strive for upward social mobility, yet are constrained within the new gender mandate of a market economy. Stigmatizing single womanhood, the dating shows also grant a glimpse of the varied ways the media and women participants play a complicit role in reducing women's potential to resist new forms of male privilege in post-socialist China.

Understanding Sheng Nu (“Leftover Women”): the Phenomenon of Late Marriage among Chinese Professional Women

AbstractIn the past few decades, there has been a rise in the number of single, unmarried Chinese professional women, which is known as the sheng nu or “leftover women” phenomenon. Through an interactionist grounded theory method, this study has located the interactional constraints faced by 50 single Chinese professional women that were issued by their male romantic partners and parents, respectively. “Discriminatory” and “controlling” gendered constraints issued by the women's male suitors and partners reflected the persistence of the Chinese patriarchal structure, and this was found to be the leading cause of the women being “leftover” in the marriage market. Parents' traditional views continued to exert strong influences on the women's marital choices, but this was seen to conflict with their more “modern” views toward advocating and supporting the women's strong economic achievements. The four different types of Chinese professional women that were constructed based on their different partner choice strategies not only gave rise to an in‐depth and nuanced understanding of the sheng nu phenomenon in China, but could also be generalized toward understanding the marital choices of single professional women in other patriarchal societies who faced similar dilemmas in reconciling interactional constraints imposed by men and parents alike.

In Pursuit of Feminist Postfeminism and the Blessings of Buttercup

In Pursuit of Feminist Postfeminism and the Blessings of Buttercup Teresa Hubel (bio) I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in thinking that the term "postfem-inism" is often and perhaps most frequently used—by the mainstream media generally and by actual people—as a kind of casual dismissal of feminism that comes implicitly coupled with the suggestion that the cutting-edge place to be these days, with regard to women, is the one where the old victim mentality has been sloughed off and a new flying-free-of-those-chains approach to gender in all its diversity and in all its equal opportunity has been boldly embraced. Given the terms of this unstated argument, any criticism of this postfeminism automatically slots the critic into the role of the relic, the leftover women's libber still fighting battles that no longer need to be fought. And who among us, standing in front of our students or our colleagues, wants to be seen to be so pathetically tilting at windmills? Only the bravest. Or the least self-conscious. Because this form of postfeminism works to keep women quiet about their structural complaints and teaches them to interpret those complaints as being of individual rather than collective origin, it works as another new face of patriarchy. To publicly and proudly claim feminism, then, is to do what our female feminist forerunners have done for us and for decades: it is to combat patriarchy. As Rudyard Kipling suggested in his famous [End Page 17] patrilineal legacy to his son, it is an act of courage to "keep your head when all about you/ Are losing theirs and blaming it on you" (578). I wish it were this simple. Raised in a world where individualist and masculine models like this one were valued, I've been conditioned to hunger after this role of the lone male hero fighting against great odds. I may have been born a female, but I want to die as Clint Eastwood or maybe Bruce Willis (or if not die at least ride off solitary and strong into the sunset). I tell my students to pay attention to this cross-culturally ubiquitous chosen-boy story, which has been reiterated so many times that it has become invisible as a narrative, some of its latest incarnations in the western world being found in the American film The Matrix and the English public-school adventures of Harry Potter. Strange how we never seem to get tired of certain stories and interpretations, while others, such as feminist understandings of the way the world works, are rendered tiresome after only a few renditions. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact, stunningly realized in the 1970s as the result of studies into mixed-sex and same-sex conversations, that, from certain male-centred perspectives, any talk from women is too much talk.1 When I was a younger feminist, I used to think that all I needed to do to free myself of patriarchal dictates was to stay vigilant and be aware of how such dictates were delivered, through which narratives, codes of normality, sets of values. Now I'm not as confident about any individual's capacity, including my own, to rescue herself from entrenched systems of oppression, and I'm far more respectful of their tenacity. So I'm prepared to forgive myself for lapsing into such a weirdly hybrid fantasy as this one about being a lone feminist yet still masculine hero. And, by the same token, I try to be patient when my students, particularly the women, make it clear that feminism is something they no longer need, given that the war's over and we've won, and now we're entering this new triumphant [End Page 18] stage of human history called postfeminism. I try not to be irritated or angry. Though I am. Often. I have a secret identity. It's Buttercup from the Power Puff Girls, the one with blazing green eyes whose image stares out at me from the coffee cup I'm holding as I write this. Her perpetual anger occasionally makes her misuse her power, smashing buildings and such instead of...

Theorizing the Bachelorette: “Waves” of Feminist Media Studies

Previous articleNext article No AccessRoundtable: Film FeminismsTheorizing the Bachelorette: “Waves” of Feminist Media StudiesLynn SpigelLynn SpigelSchool of CommunicationNorthwestern University Search for more articles by this author School of CommunicationNorthwestern UniversityPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 30, Number 1Autumn 2004Beyond the Gaze: Recent Approaches to Film Feminisms. Special Issue Editors Kathleen McHugh and Vivian Sobchack Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/422232 Views: 1204Total views on this site Citations: 24Citations are reported from Crossref © 2004 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Nicole Cox “The butterfly effect”: sexual assault and the aftermath on Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why, Feminist Media Studies 88 (Dec 2022): 1–15.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2022.2154376Stefan Helmreich Wave Theory ~ Social Theory, Public Culture 32, no.22 (May 2020): 287–326.https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-8090094Steven Downing They’re Not Mean Girls If They Are Adult Women: Reality Television’s Construction of Women’s Identity and Interpersonal Aggression, Sociological Research Online 23, no.11 (Oct 2017): 3–20.https://doi.org/10.1177/1360780417735781Hannah Feldshuh Gender, media, and myth-making: constructing China’s leftover women, Asian Journal of Communication 28, no.11 (Jun 2017): 38–54.https://doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2017.1339721María Elena Cepeda Beyond “filling in the gap”: the state and status of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies, Feminist Media Studies 16, no.22 (Jul 2015): 344–360.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2015.1052005Souha R. Ezzedeen Portrayals of career women in Hollywood films: implications for the glass ceiling’s persistence, Gender in Management: An International Journal 30, no.33 (May 2015): 239–264.https://doi.org/10.1108/GM-07-2013-0073Kumarini Silva, Kaitlynn Mendes Introduction: (In)visible and (Ir)relevant: Setting a Context, (Jan 2015): 1–15.https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137454928_1 Introduction, (Jan 2014): 1–26.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-001 Archives of Pain, (Jan 2014): 27–58.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-002 Speaking Sex/Speaking Race, (Jan 2014): 59–82.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-003 Race-Pleasures, (Jan 2014): 83–106.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-004 Laughing Matters, (Jan 2014): 107–127.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-005 On Refusal, (Jan 2014): 128–145.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-006 Conclusion, (Jan 2014): 146–151.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-007 Notes, (Jan 2014): 153–179.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-008 Bibliography, (Jan 2014): 181–211.https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822377030-009Nicole Cox Kicking Ass…With Lip Gloss: Mediating Gender on TLC's Police Women of Broward County, Critical Studies in Media Communication 29, no.22 (Jun 2012): 149–163.https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2011.637223Mary Beltrán Bridging the Gaps, Feminist Media Studies 11, no.11 (Mar 2011): 21–26.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2011.537020Audrey Yue Critical Regionalities in Inter-Asia and the Queer Diaspora, Feminist Media Studies 11, no.11 (Mar 2011): 131–138.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2011.537042Stefan Helmreich Nature/Culture/Seawater, American Anthropologist 113, no.11 (Feb 2011): 132–144.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01311.xMythili Rajiva In Papaji 's House, Feminist Media Studies 10, no.22 (Jun 2010): 213–228.https://doi.org/10.1080/14680771003672338Sharon Sharp Television, gender and space: an overview of Lynn Spigel, Science Fiction Film & Television 2, no.22 (Jan 2009): 281–292.https://doi.org/10.1353/sff.0.0085Sherryl Vint The New Backlash: Popular Culture's "Marriage" with Feminism, or Love Is All You Need, Journal of Popular Film and Television 34, no.44 (Jan 2007): 160–169.https://doi.org/10.3200/JPFT.34.4.160-169Elizabeth McMahon Puberty Blues Takes Feminist Generationalism to the Beach, Australian Feminist Studies 20, no.4848 (Nov 2005): 281–289.https://doi.org/10.1080/08164640500280241