In her book Burnout Market Feminism: Urban Chinese Businesswomen in the Internet Age, Dr. Ling Tang examines how female entrepreneurs navigate China’s digital economy. Rather than viewing Chinese feminism solely through state socialist or civil society lenses, Tang introduces a third perspective focusing on women’s economic agency within the market.

While China’s booming digital landscape allows women to achieve significant financial success and leverage economic growth to gain social tolerance, such as for non-normative identities, this market-driven empowerment comes at a high cost. Entrepreneurs face structural frictions, including state regulation of personal desires, navigating toxic, male-dominated guanxi business cultures, and absorbing heavy platform pressures. Consequently, women engage in auto-exploitation, framing extreme overwork as passion and national duty. Ultimately, Tang illustrates that while market practices offer a viable route for feminist ideas when civil society is constrained, true empowerment requires moving away from growth-obsessed burnout.

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