It was the largest international summit China had ever held, and authorities prepared for all scenarios. As tens of thousands of feminists from around the world descended on Beijing, Chinese police arrested a well-known gay rights activist and local authorities prepared piles of white sheets to throw over naked protesting women if that happened.
A major gathering of feminist NGOs scheduled to be held at the Workers’ Stadium in central Beijing was moved to the suburb of Huairou. “There was no highway at that time, so it was hours of driving,” recalls a well-known women’s rights activist who was there. “It shows how the government was concerned about all kinds of things.”
Yet the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women of the United Nations a great success. The agreements on promoting gender equality – in which feminist slogans such as “women’s rights are human rights” were adopted by the 189 UN member states – were internationally leading. In China itself, the summit was a great inspiration for local feminists.
This week, China celebrated the anniversary, again with a UN women’s summit. According to it VolksdagbladChina’s main state newspaper, the modest meeting marked a “new milestone” for women worldwide, and China under President Xi Jinping is a global leader in the field of women’s rights.
The feminists who NRC talks about the anniversary see it differently. Much has happened in the field of women’s rights in China since 1995, but feminism remains a highly charged topic. In the last ten years, gender activists have once again faced harsh government oppression. At the same time, there is a lot of interest in gender topics among a young generation, and feminism in China is bigger and more diverse than ever.
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Based on conversations with three Chinese activists of different generations NRC thirty years of feminism in China. For security reasons, two of them cannot appear in the newspaper with their (full) names.
Protesters for women’s rights at the 1995 UN summit hosted by China.
Photo Claudia Ferreira/Getty Images
Fighting for women’s rights The NGO generation
In China, an important outcome of the 1995 UN summit was that the government began to accept NGOs. Independent organizations could help tackle the major problems surrounding gender inequality, which was particularly acute in poor rural areas.
After the summit, women’s rights NGOs were founded en masse. They dealt with issues from health care, education and literacy among women to combating domestic violence and human trafficking, and worked extensively with the government.
“At the same time, the core message of the 1995 summit was that it was the role of the state, of all states worldwide, to solve gender inequality,” says the well-known activist who was there at the time in a telephone conversation. “China also accepted that message in principle. Before that, there was often the idea that women had to do it themselves.”
At the moment it is not safe for her to speak to journalists in her own name, but she has done so a lot over the decades, through her work for various NGOs. Although she was already working at a women’s organization within the state, it was the summit that inspired her to dedicate herself to activism.
For example in the field of domestic violence. A national law on this matter was put on the agenda by women’s organizations in 2003 and introduced twelve years later. According to noted feminist Feng Yuan, despite exceptional opposition, the law was “proposed, pushed through, and ultimately passed thanks to the perseverance of women’s NGOs.”
The emphasis on women’s rights also began to bear fruit, and after 1995 the implementation of the strict birth restrictions under the ‘one-child policy’ became less inhumane.
Speech by President Xi Jinping at the UN Women’s Summit in Beijing this year.
Photo Ken Ishii/AFP
She is now in her sixties and sees that the space for activism and feminist NGOs has diminished. Feminism has also become politically sensitive again in the media and at universities.
An important moment in this regard was the arrest of five young activists in 2015 who were planning a protest against sexual harassment on public transport, the so-called “Feminist Five”. “That was a turning point.”
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Why did this happen? “You have to ask the government that.” But it appears that feminism fell victim to the broader suppression of independent organizations under President Xi Jinping. “The people who work in this system want to control everything, and are suspicious of anything that is independent.”
In addition, feminists have to deal with a new conservative discourse from the government about the role of women. Xi Jinping likes to talk about “family values”, and has in the past spoken negatively about “foreign feminism”. “They have become even more conservative than they already were. Even if many people don’t care, it matters for the direction of policy and where the money goes.”
“But recent decades have shown that women cannot be silenced, and that awareness about gender equality is increasing. You can also see this among the younger generations, and online.”
The power of protestThe MeToo generation
The reach of online feminism in China was evident during the MeToo movement. Despite strict internet censorship, this movement certainly did not affect China. Starting in 2017, countless women shared their experiences with sexual harassment or violence online.
One of them was Zhou Xiaoxuan (32), then a young screenwriter in Beijing. In July 2018, she wrote an online essay about how she was harassed as an intern by Zhu Jun, a well-known TV host. When he sued her for defamation, Zhou filed a lawsuit herself and became a figurehead for the movement.
Zhou Xiaoxuan speaks to journalists and sympathizers outside the court during a hearing in her case against prominent television host Zhu Jun in September 2021 in Beijing.
PHOTO Getty Images
After years of fighting, Zhou lost the case in 2022. Despite an expansion of the definition of sexual harassment in Chinese law in 2020, the burden of proof for victims remains so high that very few cases end in conviction. But her perseverance inspired hundreds of thousands of online followers.
“During those years, I felt supported by feminists across the country. That gave me strength,” says Zhou in an online conversation. She has just traveled to Japan, but makes time for an interview.
Zhou explains what the feminist landscape was like in China in 2018. “Although the Chinese media was hardly allowed to write about MeToo, there were other grassroots organizations and student groups at universities. They are now closed, and many feminist activists have left China.”
When she reflects on the earlier generation of feminists, she sees how they “seized their historic opportunity to do things that were possible at the time.” She didn’t know it at the time, but she did that too. “That public space that existed in 2018 no longer exists. But I do think that the MeToo movement has made a major contribution to the improvement in gender awareness that we now see among young people.”
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Nowadays, Chinese feminism mainly flourishes in various online communities. The spectrum is wide, including groups that are strongly against marriage. “The online debate is rich,” says Zhou, “but also very vulnerable.”
On the one hand, there is censorship, which can close websites or social media groups at any time. On the other hand, feminists face online hate and stigmatization. As elsewhere, it comes from other internet users – mainly men – but sometimes also from those in power. “You see a need to gain more control over young women, especially now that they have fewer children and divorce more often.”
According to Zhou, who is now active in legal aid, it remains important for Chinese feminists to come together offline, even if only to watch a movie together or have a book club. “There is now a lot of talk, but less action. Offline we can better support each other in dealing with the everyday societal pressure that many women try to resist.
The National Olympic Stadium in Beijing during the 1995 Women’s Rights Summit.
Photo Getty Images
Taking action and taking care of each other The overseas generation
Offline, small-scale gatherings are also a focus of the feminist group Louis founded in the Netherlands a few years ago. “We want to be a safe place for Chinese-speaking, LGBTQ+ feminist people in the Netherlands. That wasn’t there yet,” says the Chinese twenty-something during an interview in a Dutch city.
Although Louis was not aware of it at the time, the group is part of a broader movement of Chinese feminist groups that are mainly active abroad. They want to be there for the growing group of young migrants from China, some of whom came to Western Europe after long-term pandemic restrictions in China, and Chinese-speaking regions such as Hong Kong. Many committed young people left there after the suppressed political protests.
When it comes to women’s rights or the challenges of sexual minorities, it is not difficult to connect in the Netherlands, says Louis. “But we also have to deal with racism, or with political problems that most white Dutch people will not understand, for example if your social media account is closed. We do share a lot with other feminist minority groups from authoritarian countries, such as Turkey.”
At the same time, she believes it is important to do more outspoken political work, which is currently not possible in China. “For example, we participate in feminist demonstrations and then see people in our community also carrying signs with Chinese slogans about the situation in China. To distribute online.”
Despite their location outside China, overseas feminists also face political risks. If you are too visible as an activist abroad, you may get into trouble when you return to China, or your family members may be harassed. This summer, a Chinese student returning from Europe was arrested, likely because of her activism for greater freedom in Tibet.
“I have to weigh the risks with everything,” says Louis. One reason for having this conversation is that she also thinks the anniversary of the women’s summit is important. She is part of an online reading group that discusses texts by Chinese feminists from that time on the occasion of the anniversary.
“We don’t have to agree with everything. It is not a pilgrimage. But it is extremely important to see that we have our own feminist genealogy,” she says enthusiastically. “We don’t just need Judith Butler and… bell hooks read, but also our own people, even if they are less visible for political reasons. Like Li Xiaojiang, Lü Pin or Feng Yuan.”
When she tries to characterize Chinese feminism today, she becomes thoughtful. “Whether it is in China or abroad, there are many of us, we are very diverse, and we do have influence. But we also have to look after ourselves. When I am 50, I do not want to be a tough activist, but someone who takes care of others.”
With the cooperation of Wanqing Chen.
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