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In the previous interventions, I mainly focused on Groups A and B. However, in my research design, I also included a transgender participant (Group C). She did not directly take part in the image- or installation-based interventions, but instead shared her perspective on marriage through an in-depth interview.

Participant background:

• Logan (27, living in Shanghai, designer at a beauty company)
• Assigned male at birth but expresses herself in daily life as female.

Interview feedback:
Logan explained that, for her, marriage often implies the possibility of a lavender marriage. Such an arrangement can temporarily ease family and social pressures—allowing parents to “save face” and reducing external questioning. Yet, she emphasized that it is ultimately a compromise, one that denies her true identity and emotional needs.

She said: “Lavender marriage is a practical choice, but personally I resist it. It may bring temporary stability, but I don’t want to give up the possibility of marrying as my authentic self.” Logan hopes that in the future she can enter marriage openly as who she truly is, rather than relying on compromise for superficial peace.

My reflection:
Logan’s interview made me realize that the institution of marriage is not only about men and women—it is also a test of gender norms and identity recognition. Compared with Groups A and B, Logan’s situation highlights more sharply the exclusivity and inequality embedded in the marriage system.

Her account enriched my research by showing that marriage is not a “universally valid” social arrangement; rather, it excludes and constrains certain groups. The experiences of transgender individuals remind me that marriage is not only a negotiation between the individual and the family, but also a reflection of how society accommodates—or rejects—diverse gender identities.

In the third intervention, the use of symbols of the body and institution allowed participants to feel, for the first time, a strong connection between marriage and bodily constraint. However, I also realized that relying on images alone was still limited—they could provoke cognitive and emotional associations, but lacked a truly immersive experience. Therefore, I decided to take the intervention to a new level: through an installation, I aimed to materialize this “constraint” and let participants directly witness a body gradually being covered and restricted.

Elements used:

• Female mannequin (representing the female body)
• Chair (a seated posture that echoes both daily life and traditional scenes)
• Yellow fabric and threads (symbolizing entanglement, covering, and binding in marriage)
• Hanging structure (eventually expanding into a web, symbolizing the entanglement and struggles of the institution)

Intervention process:

1. Begin with the female mannequin in a seated posture.
2. Gradually cover and bind the body with layers of fabric and threads.
3. Expand the process into a suspended web, symbolizing women’s struggles and invisible pressures within the marriage institution.
4. Invite participants to observe and ask: “What relationship between marriage and the body do you perceive here?”

Participants’ feedback:

• Group A (big cities, highly educated, feminist awareness)
  • Participant Vickey (23, Master’s student at UCL) said: “This reminds me of wedding dresses, but not the romantic white veil—it feels broken and imposed. It also makes me think of marionettes, as if women are manipulated by invisible strings and have lost their autonomy.”
  • Another participant Q noted: “The threads feel like a tug-of-war. Marriage may seem like a relationship between two people, but behind it are families, parents, and society pulling the strings. That sense of entanglement makes me feel that marriage is both a connection and a restraint.”
• Group B (smaller cities, limited economic resources)
  • Participant Yi (23, undergraduate) said her first reaction was “oppression.” “These threads make me feel that after marriage, a woman is not only bound to her husband but also by expectations from her family and society. I always thought of marriage as reliance, but this installation made me realize it could also be a trap.”

My reflection:
This intervention was more powerful than any of the previous ones. By watching a body gradually being bound, participants not only understood the “constraints of marriage” cognitively, but also felt it on a visual and emotional level.

This made me realize more clearly that the power of art is not only in recording and expressing, but also in its ability to render abstract institutional pressures tangible—turning them into experiences that can be directly seen and felt. Although such interventions cannot fundamentally alter participants’ logic of marital choice, they do make the notion of “constraint” no longer abstract, but something experienced simultaneously through body and emotion.

In the second intervention, I found that everyday scenes allowed participants to relate more easily, but this connection remained largely at the cognitive level. They could recognize the social constraints behind the institution of marriage, yet they struggled to truly feel the presence of the body and discipline. Therefore, in the third intervention, I introduced more symbolic elements directly linked to these themes: the female body, marriage institutions, and social discipline.

Elements used:

• Images and metaphors of foot-binding
• Silk and textile materials
• Female portraits
• Traditional home furnishings

Each of these elements is closely tied to the body, gender, and marriage institutions. Through them, I hoped participants would more intuitively perceive the relationship between “marriage” and “the female body.”

Intervention process:

1. Ask: “Looking at this picture, what is your first reaction?”
2. Follow up: “Do you think this has anything to do with women’s lives or marriage?”
3. Ask: “Have you ever thought about getting married?”
4. Use the 5 Whys technique to keep probing and guide deeper reflection.
5. Finally, ask: “After this round, has your understanding of marriage changed?”

Participants’ feedback:

• Group A (big cities, highly educated, feminist awareness)
  • Participant Coco (23, Master’s student in the UK) admitted that she feared loneliness and viewed marriage as reliance and protection. But when she encountered elements symbolizing “bodily constraint,” she said the visual impact made her connect marriage directly with women’s restrictions and social discipline. She admired the independence of the self-combing women but confessed, “I can’t imagine living like that,”which further highlighted her dependence on marriage.
  • Other participants mentioned that the symbols of foot-binding and the female body carried much stronger impact, prompting them to link marriage with bodily restrictions for the first time.

My reflection:
This intervention was more impactful than the previous two. Participants not only reflected on marriage cognitively but also began to feel, through bodily symbols, a sense of being “bound.” Compared with historical imagery and everyday scenes, this round evoked stronger emotional resonance.

However, I also realized that relying solely on images is still limited. While they could provoke association and emotional reactions, they fell short of producing a truly immersive experience. This made me think: what if participants could see a body gradually being bound? Would that make the sense of constraint even stronger? My next plan is to create an immersive installation based on this image.

After the first intervention, I realized that although historical imagery could provoke some reflections, the distance from participants’ present lives made it difficult for them to truly relate. Therefore, in the second intervention, I decided to use symbols drawn from everyday life—such as playgrounds, clothing, and domestic spaces. These elements were more likely to trigger personal memories and lived experiences.

Intervention process:

1. Ask participants: “Looking at this picture, what is your first reaction?”
2. Follow up: “Do you think this has anything to do with women’s lives or marriage?”
3. Ask: “Have you ever thought about getting married?”
4. Use the 5 Whys technique to guide them into deeper reflection.
5. Collect feedback about how these everyday scenes connect to marriage.

Participants’ feedback:

• Group A (big cities, highly educated, feminist awareness)
  • Participant Jade (23, UK Master’s graduate, teacher) described marriage as an “equal partnership,” linking partner selection with career development and achievement. Even though she identified strongly with feminist ideals, her perspective still revealed traces of social hierarchy—marriage was not just about emotions, but also about “merit-based partnership” and social equivalence.
  • For her, the everyday symbols felt “closer to life,” which resonated more strongly than historical images, and allowed her to reflect more concretely on social norms and constraints.

My reflection:
Compared with historical imagery, everyday scenes brought the participants closer to the topic, allowing them to connect it more easily to their own experiences. Group A’s responses revealed the layered meanings of marriage for modern women, while Group B’s responses highlighted the role of marriage as social and economic dependence.

However, this reflection still remained mostly at the cognitive level, without triggering deeper embodied experiences. This made me wonder: if I introduced elements symbolizing the body, marriage institutions, and social discipline, would it push the reflection further and make it more visceral?

In the first intervention, I chose historical imagery as the starting point. My idea was that photographs such as self-combing women, traditional architecture, and domestic scenes carry the historical conditions of Chinese women under marital institutions and social norms. These images themselves carry strong symbolic meanings, and I hoped that by showing participants these old photographs, they might connect the “past” with the “present,” thereby triggering reflections on marriage.

The intervention process was as follows:

• Ask participants: “Looking at this picture, what is your first reaction?”
• Give a brief introduction to the story of the self-combing women;
• Ask: “Have you ever thought about getting married?”
• Use the 5 Whys technique, continuously asking “why,” to guide them into deeper reflection.

The feedback from different groups varied significantly:

• Group A (big cities, highly educated, feminist awareness)
  • Participant Melan (25, Master’s student) initially understood marriage as “companionship and security.” Because her parents were divorced, she feared loneliness and regarded marriage as a safeguard. But when she saw the image of the self-combing women, she began to reflect that marriage might not be the only option, even though such independence still felt unfamiliar and distant to her.
  • Other participants generally commented that the images felt “historical” but too distant from real life to provoke personal association.
• Group B (smaller cities, limited economic resources)
  • Participant A (22, undergraduate) grew up in a patriarchal family. Although she had some feminist awareness, she still regarded “being pursued or getting married” as a validation of her personal value. She admitted this belief mainly came from family and social pressures. When confronted with the image of the self-combing women, she admired their independence but immediately said, “I can’t do that,” because in reality she could not truly detach from marriage.
  • Participants in this group also emphasized that the images felt “historical,” but disconnected from real life.

Overall, historical imagery did provoke some reflection: participants in Group A started to realize that marriage is not inevitable, while participants in Group B wavered between admiration and helplessness. At the same time, the distance between these images and present-day life limited the impact of the intervention.

After this experiment, I realized that if participants were to truly bring their own experiences into the process, I would need to introduce symbols that are closer to everyday life. This line of thought led me to the next iteration: everyday scenes. At the same time, I also adjusted the order of the intervention: the historical background of the self-combing women should be introduced only after the initial questions, not before.

Recently, I have been rethinking my research question. At first, my question was:
“How do social and familial expectations shape Chinese women’s decision-making in choosing whether or not to marry?”

But through reading and discussion, I felt that this question was too broad. It leaned more towards a purely sociological approach and did not fully reflect my own research methods and practice. So, I iterated it into:
“How do processes of images/arts analysis shape Chinese women’s decision-making and social and familial expectations in marital choices?”

This shift allows me to directly connect my work with images and artistic interventions, using visual culture as a medium to trigger reflection.

My current idea is to invite three different groups for interviews and interventions:

• Group A: Women from big cities, highly educated, with feminist awareness.
• Group B: Women from smaller cities or with limited economic resources, who tend to regard marriage as stability and reliance.
• Group C: Transgender individuals, whose experiences with marriage are shaped by heteronormative and familial pressures.

I plan to compare the groups, but at this stage I feel I will focus more on Group A, because their background is closer to my own.

In terms of methodology, I intend to use autoethnography. This means not only conducting interviews, but also incorporating my own experiences and reflections into the research—being both a researcher and a participant.

In my current research, I explore how social and familial expectations shape Chinese women’s decisions about marriage. My project investigates the ways in which traditions, gender norms, and generational values construct a particular “script” for what a successful life should look like — often culminating in heterosexual marriage and motherhood.
A key reference for my research is Sandy To’s China’s Leftover Women: Late Marriage among Professional Women and Its Consequences (2013). To’s work provides a deep sociological insight into how highly educated, urban women in China are labeled “leftover” when they delay marriage. Contrary to the narrative that these women are “too picky” or “career-obsessed,” To argues that they are in fact navigating complex structural constraints and gendered social expectations.
What I find especially resonant in her work is her methodological approach. Through in-depth interviews with professional women in cities like Shanghai and Guangzhou, To reveals how the “leftover woman” identity is not self-determined but co-constructed — by parents, peers, partners, and the state. She highlights how family conversations, matchmaking rituals, and subtle daily interactions all work together to shape a woman’s perceived value in the marriage market.
Inspired by this, I plan to conduct a series of focus group interviews as part of my intervention. However, my participant groups will be more diverse. In addition to women from first-tier cities with higher education backgrounds (a group reflective of my own positionality), I will include women from underdeveloped regions and transgender women. I aim to evoke emotional responses by presenting participants with curated narratives and social messages about marriage. This process will allow me to examine how different positionalities experience and respond to the institution of marriage.
While the analysis will compare across the groups, my primary focus will remain on the first group — not only because of shared background, but also to enable a more rigorous auto-ethnographic reflection. By doing so, I hope to engage with To’s argument while extending it beyond class and geographic boundaries, questioning how marriage expectations are internalized or rejected across different gendered experiences.
Ultimately, my goal is not to answer whether marriage is “good” or “bad,” but to unpack how “choice” itself is conditioned, constrained, and performed under the weight of social structures. What is framed as personal preference is often already shaped by decades of policy, media narratives, and cultural scripts.
I invite others to think with me: How do you recognize — or resist — the voices that define what your life should look like?

This book focuses on a group of typical “urban professional women” who are highly educated and successful in their careers but choose or have to marry late. These women have been labeled as “leftover women” by mainstream media and their families, but they themselves are not criticized by society for being “too picky” or “career-oriented”. On the contrary, what they are confronted with are structural limitations and gender biases.
The article employs the in-depth interview method, mainly interviewing highly educated women in first-tier cities to analyze how they encounter the construction and pressure of the “leftover woman” identity in their daily lives, family conversations, dating scenarios, and the workplace.
The author believes that “leftover women” are the result of the joint shaping by the triple systems of the state, society and family.

In my intervention measures, I also adopted the interview method, but I will further expand the sample selection to include voices with a more cross-disciplinary perspective. In addition to highly educated women in big cities, I will also join women from remote cities and transgender women groups to conduct small-scale focus group interviews, attempting to present how “marriage choices” are heterogeneous constructed across different identities, regions, and body types. This is not only an extended understanding of the label “leftover women”, but also aims to challenge the implicit gender norms and institutional exclusions behind contemporary marriage and love discourse.

In 2007, mainstream media vigorously promoted the concept of “leftover women”, describing unmarried women over 27 as “not excellent enough” and “unwanted”, suggesting that the market value of their marriage was depreciating.
Fincher revealed that this is a national-level social project: the intention is to encourage highly educated women to get married as early as possible in order to combat demographic issues, especially the imbalance in the gender ratio and the decline in the birth rate.
What the state is concerned about is not women’s happiness, but to bind them into the family structure through marriage, thereby reducing the welfare pressure on the state and social instability factors.
Even though the image of “independent women” has been promoted among urban elites, the country has been constantly strengthening the life path of “marriage – childbearing – stability”. Although it ostensibly emphasizes “free choice”, the state and social systems regard “whether women get married/have children” as a social responsibility.

key words:
The term “leftover woman” is a social identity that has been shaped rather than formed naturally.
Behind this is gender engineering under state intervention;
Women’s happiness has been given way to the national population control target.
“Choice” is merely a superficial phenomenon; freedom is defined by structure.

This question asks explores the ways that social pressures (like traditions, cultural norms, or public opinion) and family expectations (such as parental hopes, family values, or generational beliefs) influence how Chinese women decide whether to get married.
It will look at how women might feel encouraged or discouraged from marrying based on what their families or society expect of them. And consider things like:
The pressure to marry by a certain age
The idea of being labelled “leftover women” 剩女
The importance placed on marriage by parents or grandparents
Economic or career goals that might conflict with marriage
How changing attitudes among younger generations might resist traditional expectations
This question explores how personal choices are affected by broader cultural and family influences, especially in the context of modern Chinese society.