Feminist Explorations of Urban China

This introductory chapter outlines the collaborative feminist research addressed in this book. Shedding light on the transformations in the lived experiences of women in the time of China’s New Era, this book addresses how women have coped with drastic urban transitions, referencing also the intense debates and negative sentiments attached to feminism(s). Drawing on the experiences of women, this book captures the gendered and class dynamics configured by urban development. Its contents are divided into two parts: “Social Transitions: Contesting the Urban Middle Class” and “Social Struggles: The Everyday Lives of the Working Class.” Centering on the topics of family and marriage, in conjunction with education and work, the first part covers topics relating to urban middle-class women who are single, queer, and entrepreneurs, and the anti-marriage sentiments they experience. The second part discusses the struggles of women workers-in the service sector, those working with waste, and those formerly designated as socialist workers-in the context of socio-spatial hierarchies and shifting social identities. This book argues that while the social worlds of urban middle-class women have been constantly and affectively (re)shaped by urban policies, working-class women have faced economic challenges that urban policies have been less likely to address.