THE EMBODIMENT OF TRANSFORMING GENDER AND CLASS: SHENGNU AND THEIR MEDIA REPRESENTATION IN

Abstract

ABSTRACT Zhou Chen Department of Anthropology University of Kansas 2011 This thesis examines a large number of middle class, single, career women in China's metropolises. They are sensationalized and problematized as Shengnü (left-over women) by popular newspapers and magazines. Empowered by the market economy and Western vision mass media displays, they hold new expectations in relationship and future marriage. Meanwhile, their prospective conflicts with the social ideal of women: a "good wife wise mother" with a job. This failure of fitting the ideal is socially constructed by the socioeconomic complexity, because their whole identity and routine of life is also determined by the current development trend. Young Chinese including Shengnü, who pursue the maximum personal benefits, are conducted to cluster in limited residences, industries and occupations. This development mode is also male-centric and devalues women's domestic contribution. Particularly, Shengnü are constructed to be self-interested middle class and materialists by intersecting political agenda and mass media. It leads to resentment from the populace due to the sharp social stratification in post-Mao China. Worse still, Shengnü's middle class lives are not legitimatized in family or marriage, which makes them a threatening exception from the middle class ideals in both political agenda and public culture. Then as vulnerable as Shengnü are, they tend to be the convenient target for various anxieties engendered by disorders in sexual ethics. Shengnü, as a hot topic, packets other negative social phenomena and resentments about them into one outlet.