A brief history of modern Chinese feminism: From anti-foot-binding marches, to the viral sexual harassment cases, and the struggle for reproductive rights
In 1931, the whole of China was astounded when Wenxiu, the concubine of China’s last emperor Puyi, declared in major newspapers that she had filed a lawsuit to divorce the emperor. Just months earlier, in December 1930, the government of the Republic of China (1912 – 1949) had enacted a new marriage law which guaranteed freedom of choice in one’s marriage partner for both men and women for the first time in Chinese history. This “consort’s revolution” made a huge stir at the time, and inspired many Chinese women to make their own choices over marriage in the decades to come.
Nearly 100 years later, marriage and family continue to be major concerns within Chinese women’s movements today. Last month, blogger Quan Xixi and two of her classmates at the elite Peking University had the opportunity to interview leading Japanese feminist scholar Chizuko Ueno, and were lambasted by Chinese netizens for focusing on “shallow and offensive questions” such as why Ueno was unmarried, and whether that was because she has been “hurt by men.” Quan and her classmates also expressed their concerns of being judged as “imperfect feminists” because all of them were married, compared to Ueno, whom they called a “flawless feminist.”
The video of the conversation soon reached more than 10 million views after its release, with critics online disappointed that the interviewers’ elite educational backgrounds didn’t lend themselves to more interesting discussions. Yet some feminist internet users offered a different take: “There is no lack of feminists who are more capable of having deeper conversations with Ueno in China,” stated a Weibo user under the handle AstralDrop, yet those individuals have had their social media accounts closed down, and some have even relocated abroad. “[Marriage] is the only kind of feminism-related topic that is allowed to trend online nowadays.”
Hatty Liu is the former managing editor of The World of Chinese, and an award-winning communications researcher. Born in China, and raised in China, Canada, and the US, she leverages her cross-cultural identity to create more empathetic knowledge across national boundaries.
Anita is a researcher at The World of Chinese. She is interested in stories that involve gender inequality, social issues, as well as current affairs. She is also passionate about the development of subcultures in Chinese society.
