“Showing Willingness”: Business Drinking, Embodied Evaluation, and Gendered Boundary Work in China

• In Event: Embodied Labor and Laboring Bodies (Co-sponsored by Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section)

Abstract

This paper examines Chinese professional women’s experiences in business drinking occasions in order to interrogate a broader assumption in sociological understandings of white-collar work: that professional labor is primarily cognitive and largely detached from the body. Existing research treats drinking as a key site where gender is performed and evaluated. In China, large-scale evidence documents pronounced gender differences in drinking practices, reflecting social norms about when, where, and with whom men and women are expected to drink. Workplace research further shows that business drinking is a common form of professional social interaction, particularly in client-facing contexts and relationship-building. At the same time, these occasions are frequently identified as environments where women encounter sexualized comments, pressure to drink, and other forms of boundary testing.

This creates a tension. If professional work is evaluated primarily through expertise and analytical ability, it is unclear why such bodily and gendered practices remain so visible within professional interaction. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Chinese professionals and observations of business drinking events, this paper examines how professional competence and belonging are enacted in these settings. The findings show that drinking occasions operate as arenas in which participants demonstrate willingness, endurance, and social attentiveness through their bodies. These expectations extend professional evaluation beyond technical skill to the management and display of bodily capacities.

The paper argues that when evaluation expands to the “whole person,” it produces gendered consequences. Women are required to participate sufficiently in collective drinking to remain included, while simultaneously managing their bodily presentation to avoid sexualization. This creates a narrow and unstable position that participants actively negotiate through various strategies of self-presentation and interaction. Rather than treating these practices as peripheral to professional life, the study highlights how informal social settings reveal the embodied dimensions of work that are often obscured by ideals of disembodied professionalism. By focusing on business drinking in China, the paper contributes to broader discussions of embodiment, gender, and evaluation in contemporary professional labor.

Author

• Xuanchi Liu, McGill University