Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on New Trends in Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
[PDF]
Academic Women in China
Yan Liu
ABSTRACT:
Confucianism imposed an irresistible duties of submission upon women, who were dominated by male aspirations. Existing research shows that Chinese universities generally prefer to employ graduates with overseas backgrounds, and the main criterion for a university academic post is the number of academic publications. Faced with such pressure, academic women are more likely than men to end up making concessions when forced to choose between family and career. This research draws on Walby’s patriarchy theories (1989, 1990, 2020) to critically analyse the personal experiences of academic women in China and discuss how patriarchy structures have a negative influence on academic women’s career advancement in China. By theorizing the patriarchy from both private and public patriarchy, encompass with the Chinese gender regimes, this study will contribute to the debate on patriarchal theory by critically applying it to the Chinese context. This research also draws on feminist epistemology, using narrative research techniques to gain insight into the pressures and challenges faced by academic women in the China higher education (HE) sectors. National and international scientific studies on Chinese women academics are relatively few in number compared to the large number of international publications on women academics in other countries (Tang & Horta, 2022). Furthermore, considering the unpopularity of qualitative research methods in China (Chen, 2015), this research will make a methodological contribution in adopting the narrative approach to explore gender issues in the patriarchal environment of China.
keywords: Confucianism, Chinese ideology of gender, Feminist epistemology, narrative of female, women’s family and career