Gender-Based ‘Women-to-Women’ Violence Against Urban Chinese Single Women (Aged 30–48) in Contemporary China

In the context of a patriarchal society, ‘women-to-women’ violence is often overlooked or under-appreciated as a form of gender-based violence. This is due to its smaller scale and lower profile compared to ‘men-to-women’ violence, and its perceived lower impact on society. In 2017, in-depth interviews were conducted with 32 never-married single Chinese women aged 30–48 in 13 cities across mainland China, to ascertain how single women in China both perceive and experience ‘women-to-women’ violence. The field research provided extensive evidence that urban unmarried women over the age of 30 are still negatively perceived in contemporary Chinese society, and are subject to a range of punitive actions including insults, verbal violence and social exclusion. Notably, most of the direct perpetrators of violent acts against single women are married women, who are seen to accept and defend the patriarchal society and value system to vilify the existence of single women. Manifestations of the negative image of single women range from moral condemnation and voicing support for patriarchal gender roles, to verbal and physical attacks on single women. This study contributes to the growing recognition of gender-based ‘women-to-women’ violence and the public hostility single women face in China, with the hope that greater awareness of the problem can help single women to live in a more tolerant social environment.