China’s Feminist FightJuly/August 2019 173in victimization. According to her, the
women’s early childhood experiences o
being mistreated and physically abused
set them on a path to feminist advocacy.
That was the case for one o the Ãve, Li
Tingting (who also goes by the name
Li Maizi), and Hong Fincher implies
that Li’s experience was typical. Yet
many o China’s young feminists, includ-
ing some featured in the book, were
not abused in their youth—far from it:
they were treasured as only daughters.
And Hong Fincher’s analysis sits uneas-
ily with the Ãndings o other specialists
on Chinese feminism. For example,
one o the authors o this review (Wang)
has conducted extensive interviews with
more than 20 victims o domestic
violence in China, many o whom had
also endured childhood abuse. These
women tended to normalize the abuse,
trivializing their suering by seeing it
as simply their fate. Neither theirthem o their distinctive personalities. By
framing the women only as courageous,
heroic activists, Hong Fincher’s book
obscures more complex feelings o frustra-
tion, conÁict, and uncertainty that also
motivated their actions. By hanging her
story on a great divide between the state
and society, the author also ignores ways
in which the two are mutually constituted.
These young women do not position
themselves outside o and in opposition to
the state. Instead, their ideas, their
dreams, their fears—their very identi-
ties—have been heavily inÁuenced since
childhood by the politics and practices
o the party-state.
One cost o ignoring this dynamic is
that Hong Fincher struggles to convinc-
ingly explain why her subjects turned to
gender-based activism in the Ãrst place
and came to identify as “feminists”—a
label that was, until recently, distinctly
unpopular in China. She Ãnds the answerTYRONE
SIU / REUTERS
Silenced: portraits of the Feminist Five at a protest in Hong Kong, April 2015