Femininity and Gender in Contemporary Chinese School Stories: The Case of Tomboy Dai An

School stories in contemporary China, which target a pre- and early-adolescent readership, frequently evoke representations of girlhood and boyhood in normative gender terms. The present article considers issues of femininity and gender in Tomboy Dai An (Jia Xiaozi Dai An), one among a series of commercially successful school stories by the popular female author Yang Hongying. Drawing on contemporary theories of gender and sexuality with a primary focus on Judith Butler’s work, the article examines critically the text’s representations of femininity, its construction of ideal womanhood, and the strenuous labour invested in correcting gender deviations. It is posited that, on the one hand, Yang’s text, written with the overt intention to enhance children’s gender awareness, serves to guide female children into traditional feminine roles, and as such, risks reaffirming gender stereotypes and perpetuating patriarchal values. On the other hand, by revealing the contingency associated with gendered identities, and by acknowledging that deliberate—and sometimes even violent—efforts need to be made to preempt and correct gender deviations, the text sets out to question, paradoxically and inadvertently, the very stability and authority of gender as a natural fact, calling attention instead to its improvisatory and performative nature. Despite its effort to shape the thinking of young readers, the text nonetheless presents the pre- and early-adolescent years as a potentially deviant site where different possibilities of gender play out.