Study of three Chinese women academics' subjectivity and agency

Abstract

Scope and Method of Study: The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which three Chinese women academics construct their subjectivities through both embracing and resisting the dominant official discourses in Chinese universities and in Chinese society, and how they create agency and resistance in their various daily discursive practices. This study used life history methodology with a poststructuralist feminist theoretical framework to critique and deconstruct the dominant official discourses of being women academics, the discourses of professionalism, the discourses of administration, the discourses of gender equality, and the three Chinese women academics' own discourses. Data were collected through multiple interviews, observations, personal artifacts and documents.

Findings and Conclusions: These three women academics' narratives seem both to confirm and contradict the dominant discourses of being Chinese women academics, the discourses of professionalism, the discourses of higher education administration and discourses of gender equality. Besides constructing their subjectivities within and against these official discourses, these three women academics also create their own discourses during their narratives of their life history. Among their own discourses there are discourse of age and discourse of specialization. Their life histories suggest that their construction of subjectivities as women academics are multiple, situated, fragmented and contradictory. Their resistance resides not only in their brave transgression of gendered ideologies and norms, but also in the appropriation of the dominant gendered discourses. Moreover, their resistance resides in their acts of breaking the existing binaries and their continuous construction of their gendered identities. It is hoped that this study can shed light on examining Chinese women's subjectivity and agency.