ABSTRACT
Men were the cornerstone of the Uyghur family and society and the core of the cultural and economic system in Xinjiang. Shifting power dynamics within Uygur society and the rise of Uyghur women have weakened the traditional role of Uyghur men. In the daily reality, Uyghur men are discriminated against in employment, education, housing, and political representation by the Han. This inferiority has led to the emphasis on physical masculine traits as an ethnonational symbol aiming to represent Han man as “feminine” and “weak” compared with the “masculine” Uyghur man. This chapter defines the representation of Uyghur masculinity through contemporary Uyghur literature. The literary space is an oasis of manhood in which the authors, mostly men, can, on the one hand, debate their decreasing status and, on the other, create an “imagined hegemony” in order to secure and preserve their culture.
