“Cinderella Men”: Husband- and Son- Caregivers for Elders with Dementia in Shanghai

Traditionally, women had the day-to-day responsibility for eldercare. However, social changes have created alternatives for men to take on what is generally considered a “female duty.” Particularly, as the prevalence of dementia has increased in China, men are increasingly becoming the primary caregivers for their kin. Yet, we have limited understanding of male caregiving. Based on twenty months’ ethnographic study of 60 men taking care of a relative with dementia, this paper examines motivations, practices, struggles and strategies of male caregivers. While acknowledging the gendered nature of caregiving, I argue that eldercare goes beyond solely social construction of gender roles and power asymmetries between males and females. Men—both husbands and sons—who engage in caregiving are motivated by love, affection, moral obligation, reciprocity based on past assistance, and property inheritance. Male caregivers’ care practices and their responses toward challenges vary from case to case, yet, these differences have less association with gender identity but more with cohort variations. The expanding home roles of male caregivers call attention to the social transformation of gendered care practices in China and beyond.

Sexual health influencer distribution of HIV/syphilis self-tests among men who have sex with men in China: A secondary analysis to inform community-based interventions (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Social network-based strategies can expand HIV/syphilis self-tests among men who have sex with men (MSM). Sexual health influencers (SHIs) are individuals especially capable of spreading HIV and STI information within their social networks. However, it remains unknown whether a SHI can encourage their peers to self-test for HIV/syphilis. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine MSM SHIs' impact on improving HIV/syphilis self-test uptake within their social networks compared to non-sexual health influencers. METHODS In Zhuhai, China, men 16 years or older, born biologically male, ever had sex with a man, and applying for HIV/syphilis self-tests were enrolled online as indexes and encouraged to distribute self-tests to individuals (alters) in their social network. Indexes scoring >3 on a sexual health influencer scale were considered SHIs (Cronbach alpha 0.87). The primary outcome was mean number of alters encouraged to test per SHI index compared to non-influencers. RESULTS Participants include 371 indexes and 278 alters. Among indexes, 77 (20.8%) were SHIs and 294 (79.2%) were non-influencers. On average, each SHI successfully encouraged 1.66 alters to self-test, compared to 0.51 alters encouraged by each non-influencer (aRR 2.07, 95% CI 1.59-2.69). More SHIs disclosed their sexual orientation (80.5% vs. 67.3%, P=.02) and were volunteers (18.2% vs. 2.7%, P<.001) than non-influencers. More alters of SHIs than non-influencers came from a rural area (45.5% vs. 23.8%, P<.001), had below-college education (57.7% vs. 37.1%, P<.001) and had multiple casual male sexual partners in the past 6 months (25.2% vs. 11.9%, P<.001). CONCLUSIONS Being a SHI was associated with encouraging more peers with less testing access to self-test for HIV/syphilis. SHI can be engaged as seeds to expand HIV/syphilis testing coverage. CLINICALTRIAL NA

Transnationalism in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club

Chinese American literature is commonly interpreted as the narrative of the living experiences of Chinese Americans. Under the past nation-state research paradigm, Chinese American literature critics both in China and America are preoccupied with the “assimilation” of immigrants and their descendants in Chinese American literature texts, they argue that Chinese culture is the barrier for the immigrants to be fully assimilated into the mainstream society. But putting Chinese American literature under the context of globalization, these arguments seem inaccurate and out of date. This article examines the transnational practices and emotional attachments in Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men and Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club to show that the identity in these two works are neither American nor Chinese, but transnational. Thus, Chinese American literature is not the writing of Chinese Americans’ Americanness, but a celebration of their transnationalism.