Performing history, negotiating patriarchy: Actressing as gendered labor and the fragmentation of womanhood in Chinese historical costume drama

Abstract

Gender inequality remains widespread in the film and television production industry, yet it is seldom examined in relation to backstage working environments. This article integrates on‐screen and off‐screen perspectives to investigate the working lives of Chinese actresses. Drawing on ethnographic accounts and behind‐the‐scenes observations, it examines the quantity and quality of female roles in historical costume dramas, alongside the backstage processes that shape these portrayals. Drawing on actresses’ experiences, this research develops the concept of “actressing” to capture their simultaneous positioning as fictional characters, professional workers, and sexualized bodies. Through this framework, it examines how actresses navigate a flexible triad of femininities— nüxing (associated with individual autonomy), funü (associated with familial and collective responsibilities), and nüren (associated with embodied and sexualized femininity). Engaging with Harriet Evans’ (2021) concept of “patchy patriarchy,” this research demonstrates how postsocialist Chinese television production generates fragmented yet interconnected expectations of femininity. It argues that actresses are not simply constrained by patriarchal structures; rather, they strategically negotiate contradictory feminine demands through what I term “strategic performativity.” This perspective shifts feminist critique away from defining “real womanhood” towards expanding the possibilities through which female subjectivities can be enacted, recognized, and imagined.