Her Stories Across Oceans: Chinese Women in the Australian Literary Imagination

This book examines how Chinese women are represented in Chinese Australian writing at the intersection between China, the Chinese diaspora, and Australia. It analyses how concepts of femininity and feminism are embodied by Chinese women and how their images change over time depending on different contexts, perspectives and discourses. The research questions include: what does it mean to be feminine, and what does it mean to be feminist? In what context and by whom have the terms been received, understood and negotiated? How have they changed over time? It focuses on transnational feminist concepts and practices and on the reconstruction of these ideas within Chinese women’s and gender studies, together with diasporic theories and discourses in the Australian context. The diversity of authors chosen, spanning generations, ethnicities, and genders, not only deal with stereotypes, racism and identities, but also show us what it means to be a Chinese Australian in everyday life. Their rich and varied experiences challenge any stereotype of “woman”, “Chinese”, or “migrant”, and offer us alternative images of modernized Chinese women living in contemporary Australia.