Sisters rising against Big Brother
In China it’s 2019 but it feels more like 1984 and Big Brother is watching you. In an environment of intense censorship and authoritarian social control, China’s Government has encountered a terrifying new threat. A nascent feminist social movement is gaining momentum, spurred on by the Government’s own actions, so it’s not hard to see why the “core leader” is concerned.
Rewind to 1945 when the Communist revolution enshrined “the equality of men and women” then betrayed a generation. The horrifying ensuing period of state-mandated economic growth — The Great Leap Forward — resulted in the most deadly famine in modern history, killing 14 million people between 1959 and 1961.
As Chinese women were relentlessly driven into hard labour, a generation of babies was left neglected. To add insult to injury, after the economic and market reforms of the 1980s and
90s, China started aggressively pushing women out of paid work and back into child-rearing roles.
Today, the country’s leaders are increasingly disturbed at the prospect of emancipated women rising up to challenge political legitimacy, so the Government silences, by any means necessary, those who dare to rebel.
Against this backdrop, journalist Leta Hong Fincher tells the story of “The Feminist Five” protest movement leaders campaigning for the fundamental (and ideally not-too-politically sensitive) rights of Chinese women. Their protests called for equal access to academic and work opportunities, an end to the silence on violence against women in the home, exposing molestation on public transport and directing attention to criminal cases deemed too appalling to be covered in the news at all.
For the crimes of printing stickers, pasting posters and posing as bloody brides, Li Maizi (AKA Li Tingting), Wei Tingting, Zheng Churan, Wu Rongrong, and Wang Man were jailed, tortured and, eventually, after strong international pressure, released. They entered detention as unknown protesters and were reborn as icons of the cause. All are traumatised; all remain criminal suspects, subject to constant surveillance by the state.
Hong Fincher notes that this authoritarian backlash against feminism is a global phenomenon and we would all do well to notice its escalation. Indeed, the basic struggles of feminism in China remain relatable. Although the efforts to entice educated Han Chinese women to procreate are intensifying, insidious cultural calls to marriage and child-rearing are well-represented around the world. The described “double burden” of working motherhood has been earmarked for my next conversation about my decision to be childless.
“Being single is nothing to fear,” wrote activist Li Yuan; “Don’t rush into marriage just because you’re afraid to be ‘leftover’. Spending your entire life satisfying the demands of other people is a betrayal of yourself.” Although at times the writing struck me as clunky — “she realised her dream was to become a lesbian feminist activist” — the book is fascinating. Society itself is against these heroines working for equality at great personal risk. This is a country where political parties can be disbanded in a single speech and activists jailed and tortured for putting up posters warning about molestation on public transport. It feels hopeless at times but the author reminds us that the current hold on power is more fragile than it appears. There is hope yet for the rise of the legendary bird, Jingwei, symbol of the feminist movement in China, which endlessly toils to fill the sea.