Leftover or Individualised? Representations of Chinese Single Womanhood in Western English-language News Media

ABSTRACT

Since 2007, Chinese state-run media has used the term ‘leftover women’ to describe single women who are 27 or above. While considerable research has examined patriarchal discourse surrounding China’s ‘leftover women’ in the Chinese state-run media, very little scholarship has explored the female individualisation discourse that emphasises independence and self-actualisation in Western English-language news outlets. To fill this gap, this study employed feminist critical discourse analysis to examine how the female individualisation discourse is constructed in a bid to advocate gender equality in 55 articles collected from the Western English-language news media. The analysis found three predominant themes underlying the female individualisation discourse: critiques of patriarchal social practices; pursuit of true love and self-actualisation; and advocacy of single women’s reproductive rights. These themes are formulated by various discursive strategies – specifically, membership categorisation, scientific rationalisation, authorisation and metaphor. This study sheds light on the discursive construction of the female individualisation discourse that endeavours to empower single women in the Western English-language news media.

自2007年以来，中国新闻媒体用 ‘剩女’一词来形容27岁或以上的单身女性。

尽管已有大量研究考察了媒体中围绕 ‘剩女’ 的父权式话语&#，但很少有学者探讨在西方英语新闻媒体中对同一现象的描述时所使用的以强调独立和自我实现的女性个性化话语。为了填补这一空白&#，本研究采用了女性主义批评话语分析法&#，对西方英语媒体上55篇新闻中描述女性个性化话语的构建以倡导性别平进行了研究。分析发现&#，女性个人化的话语背后有三个主要主题&#对父权制社会实践的批判&#追求真爱和自我实现&#以及倡导单身妇女的生育权利。这些主题是由不同的话语策略制定的&#，包括成员分类、科学合理化、授权和隐喻。本研究揭示了西方英语新闻媒体中旨在赋予单身女性权力的女性个性化话语的构建。

KEYWORDS:

• China
• ‘leftover women’
• single women
• female individualisation discourse
• feminist critical discourse analysis
• media
• patriarchy
• All-China Women’s Federation

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Edward Aspinall, David Hundt and the Asian Studies Association of Australia for their wholehearted support, as well as Phoenix Lam, Adam Forrester and two anonymous reviewers for their very insightful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The West refers to some countries in the Americas, Australasia and Europe that share ‘three distinct traditions: (1) the classical culture of Greece and Rome; (2) the Christian religion, particularly Western Christianity; and (3) the Enlightenment of the modern era’ (Kurth, 2003, 5).

2. METALUDE is accessible at www.ln.edu.hk/lle/cwd/project01/web/introduction.html.

3. Factiva is accessible at https://professional.dowjones.com/factiva/. The data were taken from online news portals including broadsheet (Kingston Whig-Standard, National Post, The Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, The New York Times, The Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Toronto Star), tabloid (Fort McMurray Today, The Advertiser, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun, The Sun, The Sunday People), and compact newspapers (The Guardian, The Independent, The Times), as well as other cable news (Cable News Network, Voice of America).

4. Conceptual metaphors are written in capitals.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Worldwide Universities Network.