Academic women in China

This thesis explores how academic women in China navigate gendered inequalities within a rapidly reforming higher education system. Using a feminist narrative inquiry approach, the study draws on nine life-history interviews with women situated in a variety of disciplines, institutional tiers, and geographic regions. It examines how structural reforms, marketisation, and project- based performance cultures intersect with cultural norms, such as Confucian gender ideologies and filial obligations, to shape women’s academic choices, constraints, and agency. The research is framed by and offers a critical extension of Sylvia Walby’s theory of patriarchy, addressing its Eurocentrism by proposing a “neoliberal-Confucian patriarchy” model to account for the co- existence of modern market logic and traditional family expectations. It reveals how academic policies—such as publication metrics, grant hierarchies, and PhD credentialing— disproportionately burden women, particularly those in mid-career stages or with caregiving roles. Rather than celebrating agency as resistance, the study frames it as constrained negotiation within exclusionary systems. Methodologically, the thesis contributes to underrepresented feminist qualitative research in Chinese academia by using in-depth narrative interviews, follow-ups, and a life-stage lens to trace participants' academic and personal trajectories. Empirically, it identifies three key career stages—women without PhDs, pursuing PhDs, and those who have completed them—showing how institutional rank, discipline, region, and life course all shape opportunity and exclusion in distinct ways. The study concludes with a call for structural reforms that move beyond tokenistic gender inclusion, toward evaluation systems that value care, non-linear paths, and diverse forms of academic contribution.