Feminism in China

Feminism isn't an official movement in China because the Communist Party is officially feminist. While the Party is run by a good old boy's club, in many ways it is feminist. There are increasing numbers of women in government, it is illegal to determine the gender of a baby before birth so parents won't try to get abortions because they want a son instead, and just like as in America women are numerically superior in colleges, which means employers hire more women whether they like to or not. 

Partly this is historical. Every reform movement in China going back over a hundred years has addressed women's concerns. I think this is because while in the West feminism, socialism, and 'modernism' grew up as separate issues, sometimes in conflict, when Asians went to Europe for education (Europe had the best universities until the Nazis kicked out or killed so many of their best intellectuals), they were exposed to all three reform movements at the same time, bundled them up as "Western" and brought them back as a package. This is one reason why the pre-Communist reform writers like Lu Xun and Ba Jin were more sympathetic towards women characters. Another reason is "Dreams of Red Mansions," considered by most Chinese to be their greatest novel, is mostly about women and their difficulties (even if sometimes the difficulties are each other).

And all of this leads to my experience in China. China is still run by the "good old boy's" network, but women can squeeze into leadership positions if they can hold their liquor and make friends. Many powerful Chinese men have ambitious daughters and want to see them do well, in part because they don't have a son. Women do well in school, and education has always been the main ladder in Chinese society.  But at the same time, just as in America, women are more likely to be too modest for self-promotion and more likely to take time off for family concerns. But even in the family, I've seen commercials that joke about women running the family and Chinese has two slang phrases for obedient husbands, one that visualizes a woman pulling her husband around by the ear and another about the husband kneeling before the bed.

My most recent example with the potential power of feminism in China was in a high school class. When they had a speech competition, they chose to give speeches by feminist politicians and actresses (One of them gave a speech by Hillary Clinton better than Clinton had) and pro-gay rights activists, and they gave these speeches in front of their parents and the school administration. Nanjing University also has a gay and lesbian student organization.

I had also asked my classes what sort of job they would most like their foreign teachers' to have before coming to China to teach (both classes were majority girls). One class was serious about the question and said lawyer or doctor or professor.  The other class said 'wizard,' 'Bill Gates' and 'spy.'  So we talked about James Bond as an ESL teacher, and then what would a female Bond be like, and then I said, "She'd be like the Black Widow from Avengers," and twenty-five young women broke out into applause. It looks like this next generation of women has found their icon.