A Pampered Daughter

Abstract

By drawing interview data collected from the life stories of twelve young middle class Chinese women, this chapter attempts to find out young women’s understanding of intergenerational power relations nowadays, and the external and social causes which might contribute to the shifting power balance in their private life. In my analysis, I carefully incorporate Western feminist critique of gender hierarchy in the domestic sphere on Chinese situation. For example, I take up the indigenous concept ‘Chinese familism,’ with particular reference to its characteristics such as the male-dominated ‘patriarchal culture’ and the value of ‘ultimate concern’ for the destiny (guisu) of the daughter to understand Chinese context. Second, I employ Western feminist theories that relate the development of individual autonomy and consciousness of selfhood to modernisation driven by commodities or market economy. Furthermore, I take a critical stance in understanding how market-driven autonomy weakens the value of ‘ultimate concern’ towards the female child and examine how this may generate the dissolution of traditional gender pattern in contemporary China.