"Strong women" and "weak men": Gender paradoxes in urban Yunnan, China Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Coffey, Courtney Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 09/10/2021 19:02:34 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/283919 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI fihns the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter &ce, vdule others may be from ai^ type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. 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Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & HoweQ bifimiiatioii Conqiaiiy 300 North Zed> Road, Ann AAor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 "STRONG WOMEN" AND "WEAK MEN": GENDER PARADOXES IN URBAN YUNNAN, CHINA by Courtney Coflfey Copywright © Courtney Coflfey 1999 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN ANTHROPOLOGY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 1999 UMX Number: 9927443 Copyright 1999 by Coffey, Cotirtney All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9927443 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. AU rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Htle 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Artwr, MI 48103 2 THE DNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA « GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Courtney Coffey entitled "Strong Women" and "Weak Men": Gender Paradoxes in Urban Yunnan, China and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 3 /Zo/^r Dr. Mark Nichter Date ^ nk^ 31 xAA/m \m Dr^-^ohn Olsen Date J / 9f Dr. Ana Ortiz Date Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. j/jo/ ^9 Dissertation Director Date Dr. Mark Nichter STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fiilfiUment of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available under the rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank first of all my mother. Donna Harris, for all of her support. From my first solo trip to Taiwan and China in 1986 to many subsequent sojourns abroad, she has looked past motherly misgivings and given me the fiieedom to roam as I have wished. Many of the faculty at Arizona encouraged my development as an independent thinker. Susan U. Philips and Jane H. Hill developed my abilities to understand how language and culture are dialectically related. Jane H. HiU, Graduate Advisor for several years diuing my graduate career, offered much encouragement and good humor, for which I am grateful. Ana M. Alonso taught me Marxist, feminist and post-structural theory with great passion, always linked in her seminars to the realities of cultural struggle in the world. Thomas Weaver, Richard Henderson and Helen Henderson have also been important mentors for me in cultural anthropology. Robert M. Gimello and Wang Xiaojim of East Asian studies helped me find pathwa}^ to China. Wang Xiaojun in particular is a gifted language teacher whose talents I hope are, however poorly, somehow reflected in my understanding of the Chinese language. My committee members, Mark Nichter, John W. Olsen and Ana T. Ortiz have been fentastic to work with, making the trials and difficulties of fieldwork and dissertating seem siumountabie. Many thanks to John W. Olsen, ^Kilose &ith in my project, professionalism, and commonsense advice about my woric as a China anthropologist have all inspired confidence. Whenever 1 had the "dissertation blues,'' I found that a talk with John got me back on track. Ana T. Ortiz has been incredibly encouraging, while suggesting various interpretative strategies that would enrich my work. Ana's advice and support, both as a career mentor and as an intellectual guide, have been essential and much appreciated. I cannot imagine a better advisor than Mark Nichter. 1 am grateful for Maik's encouragement, imagination and seemingly dauntless energy. While swamped with his own work, Mark would invariably turn up with a key reference that was, serendipitously, just what I needed at the time. Mark has enriched my work by encouraging me to look beyond reductive understanding of complex phenomenon, to consider multiple interpretations and multiple points of view. I would like the acknowledge the firiendship and intellectual companionship of my colleagues; Maijorie Bennett, Elizabeth Cartwright, Tracy Duvall, Gao Xing, Tuoya G^en, Elizabeth Krause, Tao Yang, Xia Jingfeng, and Zhu Xiangji thanks for helping to shape this dissertation and for much more. Thanks especially to Fan Haiyan for some inspired transcriptions. Thanks also for assistance firom the late Jiang Danian, who always found time and great patience for my questions. I am very grateful to the National Science Foundation for flmding my project. I am also thankful for support from the University of Arizona, including a fellowship from the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute. Thanks to Magnus Fiskesjo for interesting conversations the field," and especially for lending moral support in the midst of logistical fhistrations. In Yunnan, I am most grateful to Fang Hui, an amazingly generous person whom I am lucky to count as a fiiend. A good-hearted soul with a wonderful sense of humor. Dr. Fang is in feet a fiiend to all who know her. Her introductions were key to my success as a researcher in Yunnan. Many thanks to Yunnan University, Vice President Lin Chaomin and most especially Professor Wang Zhusheng and his wife Yang Hui for supporting my research. Wang Zhusheng, to our misfortune, passed away in March of this year. I hope he would be pleased with this dissertation. My partner, Kurt Thomson, has supported me in many ways, not the least of which was joining me in Yunnan. Kurt, I could not have completed this without you. My deepest gratitude to the people of Mangshi and Kunming, whose great generosity enabled me to learn so much, in such good company. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS UST OF TABLES 8 ABSTRACT 9 1 INTRODUCTION 11 Critique of Chinese Women as a Discursive Category 13 Historical Context 17 Communist Policies: Grand Speeches, Little Change 17 Post-1978 Reform Era: The Iron Rice Bowl Cracks 21 Gender and Economics in the Reform Era. 22 Paradoxes of Gender and Ideology 25 Ambiguities and Contradictions 27 2 THE FLAVOR OF YUNNAN: ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH ON THE BORDERLANDS 33 The Flavor of Dehong 34 Commercialism and Image-Making on the Border 40 Transnational Gazes: Looking Out/Looking In 43 Engaging Questions 55 Living in Mangshi: Encounters with Local Moral Communities 61 Mangshi City: Paranoia and Pleasure on the Burma Road 74 Open Secrets and the State 74 Parallel Paradoxes 78 3 PASSING: MASKING INDEPENDENCE 81 Qi Fengmei: Embodied Conservatism, Underground Critique 89 Zhou Mingxia: The Margins of Respectability 98 Jia Wei: Self-styled Iconoclast Grounded in Tradition 105 Pao Qing: "God will bring him to me." 116 Liu Hui: Independent Survivor 121 The Limits of a Critical Consciousness 129 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS - CONTINUED 4 SHAPING THE SELF: CULTIVATION, CLASS AND GENDERED IDENTrnES 134 Searching for Individualized Identities 136 The Imperative of Optimism: Talking about Changing Gender Roles 142 Unlimited Choices 145 "Self-Respect" and Psychology as Key to Women's Liberation 146 Women Should Be Good at Work and Good in the Kitchen: Return to Gender Complementarity 154 Naturalized Differences: Women's Emotionalism and Men's