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China’s marriage squeeze poses a profound challenge to the construction of masculinity in rural regions, where marriage continues to play an important role in the production of gender identities, marking manhood and its virtues. What are the consequences when men fail to marry and to assert respected male seniority? We show that in the context of China’s imbalanced sex ratio, family members attempt to rescue or restore the dignity of their sons and brothers by “giving gender,” gestures of care that are aimed to bolster gender authenticity and thereby strengthen a young man’s marriage prospects. By discussing both the intergenerational and intragenerational dynamics of gender collaboration within the family, we furthermore challenge existing studies that project gender antagonism in the wake of radical demographic change, while complicating the image of China’s rural bachelors as social outcasts.

This article examines how, following increased participation of students from rural backgrounds in China's higher education system, the educational achievements of young women affect the gender dynamics of rural households. It shows that the contributions of university-educated daughters to rural households go far beyond what has been described in the literature on women in rural Chinese families. Decisions pertaining to the careers and marriages of highly educated daughters are shaped by the strategies of rural households aiming to establish independent households of brothers and sons. Drawing upon ethnographic research in Hubei province, this article sheds light onto the processes of intense negotiation underlying household strategies and articulates the dilemmas faced by female members of rural households after graduating from university. How can they best support their families while constructing a life they desire and without treading on dominant gender ideologies? ARTICLE HISTORY

This article employs the concept of care as a lens through which to examine the anti-COVID-19 measures taken in post-lockdown Wuhan. Based on photographs that depict the Chinese response to COVID-19 at the epicentre of the virus outbreak, the article analyses the visibility of anti-virus measures as a form of government communication inscribed textually and symbolically onto the urban landscape. The state demonstrates its care and capability by implementing highly visible high-tech measures to contain the virus. Bringing care into the literature on crisis management in China sheds light on the Chinese state’s reaction to COVID-19 in eliciting nationalist sentiments and positive feelings of cooperation while stigmatizing critical voices as uncooperative and unpatriotic. It shows that care is central not only to the functioning of liberal democracies: the Chinese state also relies on narratives about care to showcase the superiority of its political system and to distinguish between desirable and unwanted forms of citizens’ political engagement after the COVID-19 outbreak.

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