Susan Greenhalgh and Xiying Wang
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current issues, has been further marginal-
ized; the top journal on women’s and
gender studies now prioritizes articles
on historical issues and cultural critiques
rather than discussions o contemporary
aairs. The women’s federation, for its
part, has turned its focus to “family
values,” emphasizing women’s roles as
mothers, wives, and daughters—a far
cry from the egalitarian Mao-era slogans,
such as “Women hold up hal the sky.”
In the meantime, on some measures,
the situation facing China’s women (not
to mention people o nonnormative
genders and sexualities) has become
grimmer. On the World Economic
Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index,
China fell from 63rd out o 115 coun-
tries in 2006 to 103rd out o 149 coun-
tries in 2018. The term “feminism,”
once a battle cry, has become a pejora-
tive. The Chinese mass media depict
feminists as the most undesirable
women in society, and feminist writings
are routinely attacked and censored
online. In this climate, feminist scholars
and activists have little choice but to bide
their time, strategically deploying safer
terms—“gender perspective,” “gender
equality,” “gender mainstreaming”—to
advance the cause until the political envi-
ronment changes and feminism (or
something similar) becomes a politically
safe and supported project again.∂the young, college-educated women she
proÃles are a privileged group, she
nonetheless uses their experiences to
stand in for those o “all Chinese women”
or even “all women.” This neglects a
fundamental insight o feminist thought:
that women’s identities are multiple
and overlapping and that such intersec-
tionality can produce meaningful
divisions based on race, ethnicity, class,
age, and sexual orientation, among others.
Women often form political alliances
across such divisions, but the multiplicity
o their identities must be recognized, and
individuals must be allowed to deÃne and
articulate their own identities.
O course, shared experiences and a
common purpose can serve to justify
collective action. Without such claims,
there would be little basis for joint
action. But although a worldwide femi-
nist uprising against the forces o
patriarchy may sound like an admirable
goal, it relies on assumptions that have
little merit: that sexism and misogyny
take similar forms everywhere, for
example, or that women everywhere
face common obstacles. That is why
most Western feminists gave up on the
idea o a global struggle decades ago.
What, then, are the prospects for
the Ãght for gender equality in China?
The state’s crackdown on the Feminist
Five deepened the divides between
overtly state-aligned feminists (such as
those aliated with the All-China
Women’s Federation), gender-studies
scholars, and younger feminists. Some
senior gender experts have blamed the
Feminist Five for making their work
more dicult, as the topic o women’s
rights has become politically sensitive
and less legitimate since 2015. Gender
studies, especially sociological work on