“Watch out for those girls”: “Asian Baby Girl” as Aesthetic Gender Strategy on Chinese Dating Market

• In Event: 50655 - Asian and Asian American Women

Abstract

Gender scholars have documented over the past years an increasing awareness among heterosexual women of the need for egalitarian partnerships. In China, similar trends are evident among young women, alongside the rise of feminist discourse, influencing their partner selection. However, the spread of progressive gender beliefs has been met with backlash, evident in the growing visibility of gender-based hostility in media coverage. Amid the coexistence of competing gender ideologies, increasingly segregated by gender, a critical question is: how do heterosexual women cultivate relationships with heterosexual men that align with their ideals of “a good match”? The dating market offers a productive site to investigate these gendered negotiations. Scholars have shown that dating scenarios often encourage gendered presentation of the self through curating certain aesthetic styles. This study focuses on one such aesthetic adopted through makeup: the “Asian Baby Girl (ABG)” aesthetics. Originating from Asian American gangster culture in the 1990s-US, this aesthetics gained a global revival in the 2020s, attracting many young Chinese women with its portrayal of sexual toughness that goes against the mainstream beauty standard in the country. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews with Chinese women with varying levels of overseas experience, this study shows two distinct pathways through which women manipulate ABG aesthetics on the Chinese dating market. Women with limited to no overseas experience adopt the style as a bold “anti-cute” aesthetic to identify men with potentially more progressive gender politics. Conversely, women with substantial time abroad interpret ABG aesthetics as a status marker, using it to signal their cosmopolitan habitus and assess men’s cultural fit. This research introduces the concept of “aesthetic gender strategy” to unpack the specific function of ABG aesthetics that women in this study perceive to be: a low-cost way to evaluate a man’s political or cultural compatibility, informing their decision to pursue or end the relationship. The idea of “aesthetic gender strategy” can be extended beyond the case to theorize more broadly how people take advantage of gendered cultural resources to navigate inter- and intra-gender relations, while remaining more or less attached to the existing gender order.

Author

• Yijie (Coco) Fang, University of California, Santa Barbara