How China’s women claim freedom
Those with good incomes tout their singlehood and economic power in a quiet movement against patriarchal tradition and invasive government.
A woman walks down a staircase outside a shopping mall in Shanghai, China, Oct. 12.
AP
For China’s annual blowout sales event on Nov. 11, when Singles’ Day is observed, the e-commerce giant JD.com decided this year to enlist a famous female stand-up comedian, Yang Li, for its marketing campaign. After all, young single women have become a powerful force for equality in Chinese society. They are also big shoppers in what is now the world’s largest online shopping event. The date, 11/11, called “bare sticks day,” was chosen three decades ago by a group of university students as a reason for celebration. The four digits symbolize singlehood.
The selection of Yang Li did not go well. The comedian is widely known for a one-line question about men: “Why are they so mediocre but still so confident?” The uproar on social media pushed JD.com to apologize on Friday for promoting her.
But the fracas only helped highlight a grassroots movement among young women with good incomes who see marriage as too costly or cannot find men who share their values. Many are also challenging government pressure for them to become wives and mothers – and reverse China’s population decline. They are also quietly claiming a personal freedom by touting their solo consumerist lifestyles.
The women find that “a new sense of economic liberty helps to define themselves and their place in Chinese society,” wrote two scholars, Chih-Ling Liu and Robert Kozinets, in a 2020 essay in The Conversation. “Single professional Chinese women are changing how others see them not through protest or activism – but through their economic power.”
Many of the women make video blogs for the social media site Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”) to show off their “refined” lifestyle. They are creating an individual identity in a society where the Communist Party increasingly does not see a person’s private life as private and whose ruling Politburo has no women among its 24 members.
“These women frame singledom as freedom,” wrote Guo Jia, a researcher at the University of Sydney, for the website Sixth Tone. One study of the vloggers finds the women are narrating their “choice of living a single life as an autonomous and empowering decision.”
China’s e-commerce giants certainly know who these frequent shoppers are. And for this year’s Singles’ Day, they once again are trying anything to win them over. Even in a repressive state, freedom to define one’s identity finds a way.