Gender, Intimacy, and Class in a Changing China

This book examines the varieties of continuity and change evident in the development of contemporary Chinese society’s attitudes and practices related to gender, intimacy, and class.

By focusing on innovative aspects of gendered experiences in contemporary China, this book reveals the developing trends in gender, including but not limited to social media based digital feminism, patriarchy experienced by tea supply chain workers, and the ‘bromance’ male college students experience through sports culture. It also evaluates more traditional influences, on gender and how these are still shaping the lived experiences of individuals, aspects such as parental marriage-matchmaking practices and revolutionary filial piety. Alongside these traditional influences the contributions contrast developments driven by government and state direction, such as officially sanctioned discourse of social class, particularly the formation of an upper-class identity, as well as how the market economy in the latter half of the 20th century to the present has transformed marriage-transmitted debt.

Featuring a broad spectrum of topics impacting gender and class in China, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Gender studies as well as Chinese Culture and Society.