Women’s Power in Family Decision-Making: An Intersectional Perspective

The gender imbalance in women’s decision-making power under traditional patriarchy has long existed. Existing research mostly focuses on the lack of status among rural or low-income women. However, little is understood about the little and big ways in which the educated women in cities in China exert power in the family. Based on Intersectionality Theory, this study adopts the method of autoethnographic case study to investigate the power practice of one highly educated urban professional woman. Four core family domains were examined: marital residence choice, bride price and dowry negotiation, household and childcare division of labor, and fertility decision-making. This single autoethnographic case study illustrates how the intersection of education, professional status, urban middle-class position, gender norms, and familial emotional dynamics shapes women’s decision-making power dynamics for a highly educated urban professional woman in contemporary China. Their power practices are neither traditional one-way gender domination nor confrontational women’s decision-making power by marginalized groups, but rather characterized by equal negotiation, flexible adaptation, and autonomous leadership. This context-specific form of women’s decision-making power observed in this single case, rooted in daily negotiation and strategic compromise, offers a tentative new analytical dimension for understanding the evolution of gender relations among similar demographic groups in contemporary China.