City Research Online

Abstract

This thesis explores the representation and perception of female subjectivity in contemporary Chinese reality dating shows. A new reality dating show format, Chinese Dating with the Parents premiered in 2016. The show’s format is defined and identifiable by ‘traditional’ features such as the presence of family members on the set and parental advice on how to select or evaluate potential matches. Understanding gender as discursively and performatively constituted, and the activity of dating framed within a reality show format, the thesis examines how the performance of female subjectivity are circumscribed by gender, familial relationships, dating activities, and are shaped by broader policies and campaigns, and how the gendered texts are deconstructed by female viewers. The thesis is based on qualitative interviews with 23 women aged between 23-36 years in Xi’an, China and texts-in-action viewing sessions with them to record live moments of television reception and engagement with the ongoing shows. Female candidates on Chinese Dating with the Parents are presented as postfeminist subjects who are already emancipated and empowered, without reference to gender inequality of any kind. However, whether postfeminist discourse can ultimately empower women or not remains a question. This thesis seeks to make theoretical and empirical contributions to the emerging and distinctive Chinese postfeminist sensibility embodied by a group of young women. The main argument is Chinese Dating with the Parents has reinforced patriarchal discipline on women and reproduced gender inequality via reinventing traditional matchmaking rituals and inciting women to perform and sustain a postfeminist sensibility which conceals the systemic, structural, and taken-for-granted inequality. The thesis seeks to explore an emerging and distinctive Chinese postfeminist sensibility and contributes to research on female subjectivity, mediated intimacy, dating shows, and more generally to literature on the global interrogation of how postfeminism and neoliberalism are lived, experienced, and represented.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > School of Policy & Global Affairs Doctoral Theses School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology Doctoral Theses

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