China View: The Feminist Movement’s Fight For Fairness
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In recent years, the government has tightened restrictions on social organizations, making it more difficult and riskier to organize. This has restrained the possibility of organizational building and has forced feminists in China to alter how they operate. While the feminist movement has successfully raised awareness of gender inequality in the country, there has been social backlash and government crackdowns against related activism. The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) endorses gender equality and the central government has been directly involved in designing policies that have improved the gender gap in areas such as educational attainment and labor force participation. However, gender inequality remains a severe problem within the country and women in rural areas are also disproportionately affected.
Feminism aims to “define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights of women for the equality of the sexes”. However, China’s feminist movement has been one of the latest targets of sweeping censorship and propaganda. The movement has the potential to mobilize large-scale protests and spark political discourse, which is why the government sees feminist groups as a threat. Efforts to suppress the movement have included crackdowns on feminist social media accounts which have been shut down, due to “illegal and harmful information”. How have these policies impacted the growth of the feminist movement?
“Being able to mobilize people is a taboo for the Chinese Communist Party. In China, only the government can mobilize people, so any cause that results in gathering is seen as a threat to its ruling,”
-Shen Hsiu-hua, Associate professor of sociology at National Tsing-Hua University
China has a long history of women’s movements, but it was not until after the revolution of 1949 that dramatic changes took place. The new government made a firm commitment to guarantee equality between women and men. Legal provisions such as the Marriage Law of 1950 and the Constitution, ratified in 1954, guaranteed women equal rights in all social and political contexts. State-sponsored institutions were also established, such as the Women’s Federation, to guard the rights of women. Free marriage, free divorce, and economic independence was also codified. Campaigns were also conducted to mobilize women to participate in the labor force.
During the Great Leap Forward Movement in 1958, women experienced rapid progress in terms of gender equality as women’s labor force participation continued to rise. This trend persisted throughout the Cultural Revolution period (1966-1976). However, women still suffered an extremely low status in Chinese culture, exemplified by unequal employment opportunities and increasingly income disparities between men and women. In rural areas, the decollectivization of agriculture, a policy adopted by the government to revitalize the agricultural economy, also greatly reduced female participation rates in the labor force. During the late 1970s, the works of Western feminists were introduced in China and women’s studies was incorporated as an independent discipline in universities. “These changes in academic and social atmosphere laid the cornerstone for advancing gender equality in the decades to come”.
One of the most impactful moments in the history of the Chinese feminist movement was the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. Following this event, there was a surge in the establishment of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) supporting gender rights in the country. This also led to the development of women’s studies societies, associations, centers, and institutes which brought attention to pressing gender issues, such as reproductive health, domestic violence, and migrant workers. Many of these NGOs were receiving massive financial support from international donors, which alarmed the government and led to increased monitoring and regulation.
Since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, authorities have intensified crackdowns on civil society organizations, leading to the detention and arrest of hundreds of activists. To address contemporary challenges such as stunted population growth, the government has shifted gears toward a family-centric approach, advocating traditional gender roles, which has clashed directly with China’s growing women’s rights movement. “To address the challenges of an aging population, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government has ramped up efforts to bring traditional ‘family virtues’ back in vogue and introduce messaging that valorizes women’s role in caring for children and the elderly”.
The government’s efforts to suppress the movement led to the detention of the Feminist Five in 2015, a group planning to protest against sexual harassment on public transportation. The arrest and eventual release of these activists sparked a surge in engagement from many young women who joined online discussions on feminist issues. In response to this growing movement, the government has increased state surveillance of NGOs and feminist activists. Control over the internet and digital media has also been tightened, leading to the censorship of social media posts, websites, and accounts. The government also actively stigmatizes the feminist movement by labeling it as extreme, or by claiming that it is an “ideological weapon” used by Western countries to undermine the Chinese political system.
The government clearly views feminism as a threat to its authority. Concerns about harassment and violence against women are ignored or outright silenced and public spaces for discussing women’s rights are dwindling. As gender inequality issues continue to persist, new generations of women are taking a stance through the use of performance art and cyber feminism. Performance art refers to feminist protest activities that involve body performance and behavior art, such as shaving their heads to protest gender discrimination in higher education admission. Through the use of social media, feminists have also been able to bring awareness to equality issues by voicing their dissatisfaction with the government on platforms such as Weibo and WeChat. The surge of interest in feminism is reflected in the fast-growing world of Chinese podcasts.
Over the past few years, podcasts have become a space where feminist women can feel represented and discuss their frustrations with the government. Podcasting has become popular because they are less likely to be censored or taken down, at least for now. To circumvent harsh internet censorship, feminists have also been utilizing emojis and other symbols to spread their message. During the MeToo movement in 2017, which aimed bring attention to sexual misconduct against women by sharing stories of harassment and assault, the #MeToo hashtag was blocked on Weibo. “But Chinese feminists found a way around it—they began using #RiceBunny in its place along with the rice bowl and bunny face emoji”. Despite the government actively shutting down several prominent feminist online groups and pages, feminist topics and discussions of gender inequality have continued to spread across Chinese social media platforms.
“Keeping the movement going will be challenging, but these feminists are tenacious and extremely determined. The Chinese government can’t wipe out the women’s movement in this era of global connectivity.”
-Leta Hong Fincher, author of Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China
