Ideal Womanhood at Elite Universities in China: Work-Family Schema, Self-Assessment of Competence, and Women’s Imagined Futures

• In Event: 50655 - Asian and Asian American Women

Abstract

Drawing on 141 interviews (about equal number of men and women) with junior and senior students at the two most prestigious universities in China, this paper asks whether and how students’ imagined futures are gendered. Women aspire to be competent and hardworking and reject traditional gender roles. However, women’s aspirations remain gendered in that women interpret setbacks and challenges in the competitive learning environment in elite universities as lower level of competence/intelligence. This paper contributes to sociological theories on women’s aspirations: women’s aspirations, at least at the stage of college, are influenced more by university experiences than by gendered work-family schema. Interpreting women’s lower aspirations as being family-oriented may do an epistemological disservice to women.

Author

• Jingyun Dai, Harvard University