Negotiating marriage and market: Gendered subjectivities of post-reform businesswomen in China

China’s market reforms have celebrated individual economic success but in gendered ways. Despite the rising number of female entrepreneurs, women’s market success (Market success is a term used by interviewees to describe economic achievements, especially those in the open market, private entrepreneurship, and non-public sectors. It is closely related to profitability, revenue, competitiveness, market share, and social recognition) is often regarded as incompatible with their domestic roles. Differing from single female entrepreneurs who have delayed or rejected marriage—often viewing marriage as a constraint on entrepreneurial pursuits—this study focuses on businesswomen with marital experience, whose more conventional life trajectories are typical in China’s medium cities and small counties. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation with female entrepreneurs, the study illustrates how they endure, embrace, restructure, or exit marital relationships while pursuing entrepreneurial aspirations. The findings contribute to the literature on gender and entrepreneurship by highlighting the tension between women’s economic empowerment and their domestic status in relatively less developed areas of China. The study further advances theories of women’s subjectivity by showing how female entrepreneurs negotiate gender identities through discursive, relational, and performative practices under China’s uneven transition to modernity.