Paper long abstract:

Men were always the pillar stone of the Uyghur family and society, and the core of the cultural and economic system in Xinjiang. The shifting powers within the Uygur society and the rise of Uyghur women weakened the traditional role of Uyghur men. In the daily reality of Xinjiang, the Uyghur men are discriminated in employment, education, housing, and political representation by the Han (Chinese) majority. This inferiority led to the preservation and emphasis on physical masculine traits as an ethnonational symbol aiming to represent Han men as "feminine" and "weak" compared with the "masculine" Uyghur men.

Uyghur masculinity is defiance against the attempt to represent ethnic minorities in China as inferior, primitive, feminine and exotic, thus depicting the Han as superior, modern and dominant. I suggest defining the representation of Uyghur masculinity as "imagined hegemony," as a paraphrase on Benedict Anderson's concept, "imagined community." Although this representation of masculinity is an attempt to reclaim their hegemony, it nevertheless reflects the declining status of Uyghur manhood. The complexity of this issue is reflected in contemporary Uyghur literature.

This paper is based on famous literary works, such as "Mustache Dispute" (Burut majirasi) by Memtimin Hoshur and "The Flood" (Kelkün) by Muhemmed Baghrash, are depicting the struggle of the Uyghur men to retain their position. The diminishing image of Uyghur masculinity is recovered by the role of historical and mythical heroes in modern Uyghur literature. Heroes, such as Oghuz Khan and Chin Timor, have become models of courage and manhood, and serve as a reminder of the glorious Uyghur past.