Readings:

Gail Hershatter, 'Disquiet in the House of Gender', The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 71 Issue 04 , pp 873-894

Susan Mann, 'Women’s and Gender History in Global Perspective: East Asia (China, Japan, Korea)', for the series “Women’s and Gender History in Global Perspective,” edited by Bonnie G. Smith (American Historical Association).

Feminist theory reader : local and global perspectives / edited by Carole R. McCann and Seung-kyung Kim. New York : Routledge, 2010.

Further readings on modern urban history in China:

General studies:

• William G. Skinner, The City in Late Imperial China (1977). (Humanities E-Book)
• Linda Cooke Johnson, Cities of Jiangnan in Late Imperial China (1993)
• Kwan Man Bun, ‘Chinese Urban History: Four Cheers’, Urban History 29.2 (2002): 254-61.

Comparisons

• Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991). Link item in catalogue here.
• Leonard Blussé, Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (2008).

Shanghai

• Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Global Shanghai, 1850-2010: A History in Fragments (Routledge, 2009). Wasserstrom's book also has very useful 'suggestions for further reading' section.
• Leo Lee, Shanghai Modern: the Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945 (Harvard University Press, 1999)
• Historic Shanghai: http://www.historic-shanghai.com/ 
• 'Tales of Old China' http://www.talesofoldchina.com/ (and see also what is available on www.earnshaw.com)

Hong Kong

• John Carroll, "Colonial Hong Kong as a Cultural-Historical Place," Modern Asian Studies, 40.2 (2006): 517-43
• Echenberg, Myron. ‘An unexampled calamity: Hong Kong, 1894’ in Plague ports: the global urban impact of bubonic plague, 1894-1901 (New York: 2007).

Canton

• Paul van Dyke, The Canton Trade: Life and Enterprise on the China Coast, 1700-1845 (Hong Kong University Press, 2005)
• John K. Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: the Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854 (Stanford University Press, 1969).
• The Making of the Modern World has important materials regarding the interactions, and specifically the trade, between Britain and China.

Macau:

• Boxer, Fidalgoes in the Far East, 1550-1750 (Oxford University Press, 1968).
• Visions of China: Stories from Macau Selection, introduction and translation by David Brookshaw. (Hong Kong University Press, 2002).
• The Macau Heritage Project.