University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

“Leftover women,” media discourses, and gender and class in post-socialist China

Peng, Anqi

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130124

Description

Title
“Leftover women,” media discourses, and gender and class in post-socialist China
Author(s)
Peng, Anqi
Issue Date
2025-06-10
Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)
McCarthy, Cameron
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
McCarthy, Cameron
Committee Member(s)
  • Valdivia, Angharad
  • Ciafone, Amanda
  • Martin, Jeffrey
Department of Study
Inst of Communications Rsch
Discipline
Communications and Media
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
  • Leftover Women
  • Neoliberal Governance
  • Gender
  • Class
  • Post-socialist China
  • Critical Discourse Analysis
Abstract
Women remaining single in their late 20s or after 30 years old in China are known as “shengnü,” and the most widely used English translation is “leftover women.” This dissertation investigates the media representations of single women as a culturally and politically loaded discursive construct in post-socialist China. Exploring the discourses around single women across diverse media and social contexts, including mainstream television dramas, transnational commercial campaigns, online matchmaking discourse and feminist digital activism, this study examines how the images of single women function as a contested site through which gendered governance is enacted, negotiated and challenged. Drawing on a multi-sited discourse analysis informed by theories of intersectionality and neoliberalism, the project highlights the contingent and hybrid nature of China’s neoliberal formation, where governance increasingly occurs through the entanglement of market rationalities, patriarchal traditions, and state imperatives. Ultimately, the dissertation reveals how gender and class function not merely as categories of difference but as dynamic axes through which power is produced, contested, and sustained in post-socialist China.
Graduation Semester
2025-08
Type of Resource
Thesis
Handle URL
https://hdl.handle.net/2142/130124
Copyright and License Information
Copyright 2025 Anqi Peng

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