Female absence and male-to-female cross-dressing in Badajiao Yangge in Shanxi, China (1949–1966)

This study examines the mechanism of female absence and male-to-female cross-dressing within Badajiao Yangge, a traditional folk dance in Wuzhai County, during the early years of the People’s Republic of China (1949–1966). It explores the profound tension between state-advocated narratives of ‘women’s liberation’ and the persistence of local patriarchal cultural inertia. Using historical and ethnographic methods, the study identifies factors that hindered women’s public subjectification during this period, including foot-binding practices, gender segregation, and norms of female honor culture. Disciplinary powers regarding the body, space, and morality collectively constructed women’s structural ‘absence’ in public performance. Concurrently, male-to-female cross-dressing gained legitimacy by appropriating and suppressing women’s subjectivity through the reproduction of stereotypical and idealized female images. This mechanism constitutes a cultural paradox between the state-promoted ideals of ‘mixed-gender performance’ and ‘Socialist Realism’ aesthetics and entrenched local performance structures. Ultimately, women’s acquisition of performance power is not a linear process of political bestowal, but a dynamic trajectory of conflict, compromise, and breakthrough shaped by the complex interplay between state ideology and local body politics.