ABSTRACT

This chapter examines dating violence in the context of Beijing, the cosmopolitan and rapidly changing capital city of China with a high degree of culture hybridity. It explores how young men and women of Beijing interpret the meaning of dating, love, gender and sexuality, and how they make sense of their violent dating experience. The chapter also considers dating violence as an important area of study in its own right, at the same time investigating its connection to the larger subject of gender-based violence, departing from the standpoint of existing studies, which regard dating violence as a matter of interpersonal and psychological problems. The interaction of local–global feminism leads Chinese feminists to seek their own positions from which to understand violence against women. It portrays dating violence as a multi-dimensional concept in which the roles of 'perpetrators' and 'victims' are sometimes flexible and fluid, with the boundaries of physical, verbal, psychological, and sexual violence blurred.