Studies On The New Generation Of Women Migrant Workers’Gender Identity And Communication Practices

This research is an empirical study on new generation of women migrant workers in Shanghai&Nanjing. Based on fieldwork, the author seeks to observe and experience the new generation of women migrant workers’ communication behavior and gender identity. The paper tries to describe the changes of women migrant workers’ gender consciousness and their gender roles during their urban experience, thus analyzing the influence of patriarchal culture, mass media, interpersonal relationship on their gender consciousness.The research indicates that the construction of new generation of women migrant workers’ gender identity can be interpreted as a complex process of communication practices in which the new generation of women migrant workers take advantage of mass communication, intergenerational communication, interpersonal communication, to compromise, to imitate, to dialogue, and this process involves multi-sides, multi-roles and complicated interactions. More specifically, the new generation of women migrant workers forms aesthetic imagination and recognition through media content reading. They imagine and copy consumption patterns of urban female, but take more rational consumer behavior as a result of their low-income. They use modern media tools to destruct the criterion of patriarchy, and fight for free marriage and gender equality to decrease intergenerational communication’s effect, but to be involved in patriarchal family’s shelter. They regard the beautiful and exceptional girls of their smilar group as the reference sample instead of urban female who has considerable social distance with them and has superficial instrumental significance to their interpersonal relationship. In addition, they obtain others’ support via interpersonal communication and external force to get self-confirmation.As external and floating population, the new generation of women migrant workers resist against gender politics, social classes and geographical discrimination. At the same time, their gender consciousness, gender concept, gender identity are changing and reconstructing all the time. They conduct positive individual behavior and obtain self-confidence and self-conscious during their marriage, career and self-building. They try hard to communicate and experience in city life, conforming modern and self-reliant gender identity in order to adapt and integrate into urban society more successfully.