175
Hong Fincher also fails to recognize
the internal diversity and contradictions
o a state made up o multiple bureauc-
racies, some o which push for women’s
social, economic, and political advance-
ment, and others that push against it.
She focuses on parts o the state that
have brutally harmed women, primarily
the security forces and the birth-planning
apparatus. She is right to fault the
abuses o such forces, which in the
latter case include the forcible imposi-
tion o often unwanted birth-control
measures, especially in the 1980s and
1990s. But Hong Fincher casts even
positive steps these state agencies have
taken in a negative light. For example,
she notes that the Birth Planning
Association has gathered nationwide
statistics on sexual harassment but
dismisses the eort because the associa-
tion is “nongovernmental.” In fact, it is
a party-led organization, and its eorts
show that some parts o the party-state
are actively seeking to assess and
address the problem o sexual harass-
ment and promote women’s status and
well-being.
HALF THE SKY?
Perhaps the best way to understand
Betraying Big Brother is as a political
tract, a feminist call to arms for women
everywhere to join together to Ãght the
patriarchy. This comes through most
clearly in the many instances when
Hong Fincher claims “sisterhood” with
the book’s subjects, women whose life
experiences are profoundly dierent
from her own. In a related misstep, she
sometimes treats the category “Chinese
women” as undierentiated, as though
all women living in China were o a
kind. Although she acknowledges that
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