Jieyu Liu – författare

Although it is generally believed in China that socialism raised women’s status and paid work liberated them from the shackles of patriarchy, the economic reforms of the last two decades of the twentieth century meant women workers were more vulnerable to losing their jobs than men. Unlike previous studies, which have focused on the macro-structural features of this process, this book makes the voices of ordinary women workers heard and applies feminist perspectives on women and work to the Chinese situation.Drawing upon extensive life history interviews, this book contests the view that mobilizing women into the workplace brought about their liberation. Instead, the gendered redundancy they experienced was the culmination of a lifetime’s experiences of gender inequalities. Setting their life stories against a backdrop of great social-political upheaval in China, the book suggests that the women of this ‘unlucky generation’ have borne the brunt of sufferings caused by sacrifices they made for the development of socialist China.

Since the late 1970s, China has transformed from an inefficient centrally planned backwater to a fast-growing market-orientated economy. While economic reform has enabled average living standards to improve immensely, the benefits have been shared disproportionately depending on demographic factors such as location, age, gender, and social class.This new four-volume collection from Routledge addresses some of the pertinent questions raised by the difference in ordinary people’s experience of China’s economic modernization. In particular: what are the socio-cultural transformations accompanying China’s economic transition? What are the experiences and responses of people who have gone through these social changes? What are the theoretical implications for social scientists who study social and economic development?Social Transformation in China answers these questions by collecting essential and cutting-edge scholarship to reflect and capture experiences of socio-cultural transformations in China. Topics covered include: issues around work, the restructuring of state enterprises, unemployment, changes in welfare provisions, migration and women workers’ experiences; the family, love and marriage, the one-child policy, and ageing; the cultural domain, including works on media and consumption; the emergence of civil society.Given China’s ever-growing economic influence, and sheer population size, there is an increasing demand from the rest of the world to understand Chinese society and its rapid economic modernization. By collecting the work of leading figures on China from disciplines such as Sociology, Anthropology, Social Policy, Cultural Studies, and Political Sciences, this set will not only appeal to researchers and students in Chinese Studies but also more widely to academics and policymakers who are concerned with the social impact of economic development.

Although it is generally believed in China that socialism raised women’s status and paid work liberated them from the shackles of patriarchy, the economic reforms of the last two decades of the twentieth century meant women workers were more vulnerable to losing their jobs than men. Unlike previous studies, which have focused on the macro-structural features of this process, this book makes the voices of ordinary women workers heard and applies feminist perspectives on women and work to the Chinese situation.Drawing upon extensive life history interviews, this book contests the view that mobilizing women into the workplace brought about their liberation. Instead, the gendered redundancy they experienced was the culmination of a lifetime’s experiences of gender inequalities. Setting their life stories against a backdrop of great social-political upheaval in China, the book suggests that the women of this ‘unlucky generation’ have borne the brunt of sufferings caused by sacrifices they made for the development of socialist China.

The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies presents up-to-date theoretical and conceptual developments in key areas of the field, taking a multi-disciplinary and comparative approach.Featuring contributions by leading scholars of Gender Studies to provide a cutting-edge overview of the field, this handbook includes examples from China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong and covers the following themes:theorising gender relations;women’s and feminist movements;work, care and migration;family and intergenerational relationships;cultural representation;masculinity; andstate, militarism and gender. This handbook is essential reading for scholars and students of Gender and Women’s Studies, as well as East Asian societies, social policy and culture.

The Routledge Handbook of East Asian Gender Studies presents up-to-date theoretical and conceptual developments in key areas of the field, taking a multi-disciplinary and comparative approach.Featuring contributions by leading scholars of Gender Studies to provide a cutting-edge overview of the field, this handbook includes examples from China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong and covers the following themes: theorising gender relations; women’s and feminist movements; work, care and migration; family and intergenerational relationships; cultural representation; masculinity; and state, militarism and gender. This handbook is essential reading for scholars and students of Gender and Women’s Studies, as well as East Asian societies, social policy and culture.

This book paints a vivid picture of women's active involvement in reshaping intimate and public sexual life in East Asia. In bringing together exciting new feminist research on sexuality from East Asia and making it available to a wider audience, East Asian Sexualities unsettles stereotypes, rectifies lack of awareness and demonstrates that East Asia matters.The chapters address the diversity and variety of everyday sexual lives and sexual politics in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. They range from workplace sexual cultures, trans-national sexual relations, the conditions of sex-work and the emergence of new sexual desires, cultures and movements. The contributors highlight the gendered and sexual consequences of globalization and rapid social change. In doing so, they engage with western debates on late modernity while also exploring the contested understandings of modernization and westernization in the East. This is a collection which illuminates the local situations in which women's sexual lives are lived and offers fresh perspectives on global issues.