Chinese Women Organizing: Cadres, Feminists, Muslims, Queers

by Ping-Chun Hsiung (Editor), Maria Jaschok (Editor), Cecilia Milwertz (Editor)

In the process of helping women to help themselves, female activists have assumed a decisive role in negotiating social and political transformations in Chinese society. This is the first book that describes and analyzes the new phase of women's organizing in China, which started in the 1980s, and remains a vital force to the present day. The political and social changes taking place in contemporary Chinese society have, surprisingly, received scant attention. This volume enriches our understanding of the working of grassroots democracy in China by exploring women's popular organizing activities and their interaction with party-state institutions. By subjecting these activities to both empirical enquiry and theoretical scrutiny, a rigorous analysis of the exchange, dialogue, negotiation and transformation among and within three groups of political actors - popular women's groups, religious groups and the All China Women's Federation - is concisely presented to the reader. This book will be of tremendous interest to students of Chinese Studies, Political Science and Gender Studies alike.

332 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 26, 2020

Reviews

[brood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cultural contexts, intersectionality, and seeing beyond schisms are best displayed in this collection of research and analysis on how women in China organise, with ranging similarities and dissimilarities with feminist organising in the West. The literature presented calculatedly ensures an adept understanding of how NGOs or public organisations work in China, how the understanding of women issues is still impeding, and how arduously have the Chinese equivalent of feminist jargon been developed. It's a great book to understand the young Chinese society post the Revolution in the domain of gender equality and freedom from oppression.