‘I refuse to be an ordinary woman’: career, marriage and the ‘femininity awakening’ in China

Alongside China’s rapid social and economic development, historical and hegemonic notions of femininity are being challenged. The shifting understandings of feminism and femininities in China are perhaps most apparent in higher education, specifically in historically male-dominated disciplines. This article draws on research exploring how women studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines understand feminism and how this affects their aspirations around education, family life and career. The article presents an in-depth case study of Ella, a female STEM undergraduate, to illustrate how some young women are grappling with conflicting narratives regarding acceptable femininities in a time of social change. Based on her experiences, we argue Ella’s femininity was produced in three stages: ambitious femininity, intergenerational tensions, and negotiating a middle ground between liberal feminism and Chinese hegemonic femininity.