Asymmetric participation structures: The practical logic of gender norms in rural communities——A study of collective action among rural women in Jiangxi Province, China

Women's participation in village public affairs provides an important lens for understanding transformations in rural governance and gender relations in contemporary China. Drawing on fieldwork on two forms of women's collective action:collective homecoming activities among married-out women and collective gatherings organised by daughters-in-law in ten villages in Jiangxi Province, this article examines how village gender norms shape women's participatory identities and participation rights through the interpenetration of the public and private spheres. The findings show that village gender norms do not simply sustain existing arrangements by excluding women from public participation. Rather, they generate a practical logic marked by tensions between governance needs and ethical-cultural norms. In response to governance needs, villages enable women to gain participatory legitimacy and access to resources by mobilising their family and kinship relations to repair social ties and serve collective interests, thereby facilitating a flexible expansion of participatory identities. At the same time, ethical-cultural norms constrain the benefits, domains, and levels of women's participation through the prioritisation of household interests, the demarcation of the public–private boundary, and the differentiated allocation of responsibilities based on relational proximity. Women's participation rights consequently undergo a more rigid contraction. Village gender norms thus produce an asymmetric structure of participation characterised by the “flexible expansion of participatory identities and rigid contraction of participation rights.” This analysis extends research on rural women's public participation by distinguishing participation as identity from participation as rights, deepens understanding of the gendered consequences of public–private interpenetration, and reveals how gender norms adapt and persist amid rural social transformation.