Issue 9.1 focuses on Chinese female (academic) identities in a variety of different contexts. Li Meng asks in what ways well-educated Chinese women are stigmatised in popular culture. Kailing Xie investigates how gender affects the career and reproductive choices of China’s well-educated daughters, particularly those working in academia. Erica Yejun Zou takes a comparative and historical view by examining the practicality of socialist feminism as an alternative model for contemporary Chinese feminism through an analysis of literary works by Ding Ling and Christa Wolf. Denise Kwan examines the ways tin which practices of dressing and adornment are employed to manage the otherness experienced by second generation British Chinese women. We end with a thought-provoking essay by Yan Wu on the experience of being a Chinese female academic in the UK.