Despite the influence of Western values and aesthetics, one of the main characteristics that distinguishes Chinese soap operas from their Euro-American counterparts is the ubiquitous presence of the main characters’ parents, grandparents or in-laws in the storyline. The protagonist's families are not just lurking in the background, they usually have a role to play. As a point of comparison, in Sex and the City (a hugely popular American romcom), the lead character’s parents never made an appearance in its six-year run, not even when she got married! The absence of parental influence, or the “generational axis” as Gonçalo Santos and Stevan Harrell call it, is simply unimaginable for many Chinese men and women. Transforming Patriarchy is an edited volume that calls attention to how the “gender axis” and the “generational axis” interact with each other (p. 4) in the context of “more recent transformations in the age of market reforms, large-scale industrialization, massive urbanization, and fast-paced globalization” (p.4).
Since the third-wave feminist movement, scholars of gender studies have increasingly underscored the intersectionality of gender inequality, racial inequality, and inequality between ethnic groups and social classes. Although intersectionality is also acknowledged by scholars of Chinese studies, emphases are usually given to the impact of class and urban–rural divide. In many cases, generational dynamics are either ignored or dealt with implicitly. As such, one of the major contributions of this book lies in its explicit attempt to explain patriarchy or male domination through an analysis of China's ever-changing generational dynamics. This approach is informed by ethnographic research that shows Chinese patriarchy is “a system of family and kinship that produces and is produced by gender and generational inequalities both within and beyond the domestic sphere” (p. 10). Therefore, “in societies like China, the study of modern patriarchal transformations cannot just focus on gender inequality because gender asymmetries are closely related to generational asymmetries, whatever form the generational axis takes” (p. 33).
The book is also unique in that it provides readers with a model of patriarchy and social change that is not only “sensitive to heterogeneous processes at the local level” (p. 4), but can also be applied in non-Chinese contexts (p. 5). For example, using an intersectional approach, the volume makes clear the significance of the “generational axis” in patriarchal configurations while refuting the rigid opposition between private and public forms of patriarchy – an account that is common in theories of patriarchy in the West (p. 34). Transforming Patriarchy proves that there is broader relevance of ethnography of China to major debates in social science.
Transforming Patriarchy is made up of 12 chapters grouped under three themes: part one: “Rural configurations”; part two: “Class, gender, and patriarchy”; part three: “New technologies, new institutions.” The four chapters in part one, by Melissa Brown, Lihong Shi, Helena Obendiek and Gonçalo Santos, examine the reconfigurations of elderly care and child care in rural China. In part two, chapters by Andrew Kipnis, Roberta Zavoretti, William Jankowiak and Xuan Li, Elisabeth Engebretsen, and Harriet Evans explore the changing landscape of romance, marriage, sexuality, and the politics of residence and care among Chinese urbanites. Finally, in part three, authors investigate the extent to which gender and kinship are shaped by the rising popularity of sitting-the-month centres (Suzanne Gottschang), assisted reproductive technologies (Kerstin Klein), and commercial elder-care insurance (Hong Zhang). The editors have written an extremely detailed summary of each chapter in the Introduction. Readers may refer to it as a signpost to chapters of their interest. The Introduction is a must-read as it not only outlines the theoretical approach of the volume, it also provides readers with an informative overview of China's patriarchal structures before 1949 and patriarchal transformation under socialism.
Although this volume has done an excellent job of explaining how male domination works alongside China's broader system of inequalities, especially generational hierarchies, more could be said about the violence bred from such inequality. Sexual and domestic violence against children, women and elders is a known epidemic around the world. In China, it is particularly difficult for victims to seek help because both sexual and domestic violence are deemed “domestic shame” which should not be made public (jiachou bu chu waizhuan). Such a deep-seated view is further abetted by the nation's denial of its severity. Since the majority of abuse happens behind closed doors and people don't like to talk about it, the problem may not be apparent to ethnographers, but it doesn't mean that it's not there. As we see from Elisabeth Engebretsen's chapter, even in a contractual fake marriage “many lesbians worried that gender-conforming gay men might inflict sexual violence, even rape, and force them to become pregnant” (p. 172). If there is one thing that remains in China's transforming patriarchy, it is the reticence surrounding sexual and domestic violence, which alone merits further investigation.
