Wretched? Women’s Questions of Love and Labour in the People’s Republic of China

This chapter explores the stigma faced by single women (‘shengnü’) in their 20s in mainland China through theories of intimacy, developed by Western sociologists including Illouz and Giddens. By analysing Chinese-language posts on the community Q&A website Zhihu, evidence of the emergence of an individualised intimacy is found, but the non-negotiable constraints of family and fear of ‘wretchedness’ in old age are too compelling for the individualisation hypothesis to be accepted wholesale. The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) welfare policies work at the level of families, not individuals, creating hard breaks to individualisation and making family compulsory. To understand the architecture of choice and the pains of love in the PRC, the intersection of the individualisation in education and labour with family-focussed state welfare policies must be considered.