This chapter examines how Chinese Dating with the Parents reconstructs the ‘new independent woman’ into a ‘little woman’ within heterosexual matchmaking scenarios. It argues that the makeover paradigm embedded in reality dating shows functions as a mechanism that transforms female contestants into desirable and compliant subjects, aligning them with normative ideals of femininity. Developing the concept of a pedagogy of femininity, the chapter shows how dating show hosts and celebrity commentators provide advice, evaluation, and instruction on how women should look, behave, and feel to embody socially sanctioned womanhood. By recontextualising the notion of female masquerade, the analysis traces its evolution from a psychoanalytic concept to the postfeminist “sexual contract” (McRobbie, Cultural Studies 21:718–737, 2007: 718), revealing how female contestants are expected to camouflage traits such as independence, assertiveness, and career ambition that might be perceived as threatening by men. The chapter contends that postfeminist and neoliberal governmentality has extended its reach from disciplining women’s bodies to their minds, exemplified by the transformation of the ‘big woman’ to the ‘little woman’ on reality dating shows. The discourse of empowerment becomes deeply entangled with consumerism, as female self-worth is reframed through practices of self-transformation, aesthetic labour, and the commodified rhetoric of “investing in oneself.”