China’s Communist Party Wants Women to Stay in Their Place
Xi is alienating the one group that could help him with the nation’s demographic crisis.
China’s Communist Party wants women to stay in their place.
Photographer: Jade Gao/AFP/Getty Images
Ten years ago this month, a group of women known as China’s Feminist Five were arrested for raising awareness about sexual harassment. It’s just one example of how Chinese women have seen their role in public and political life diminished under President Xi Jinping’s rule.
After 37 days in detention on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” the Feminist Five were eventually released. But their fellow countrywomen are still battling for their rights, despite exhortations they’re meant to “hold up half the sky,” as Mao Zedong, the founding father of modern China once famously said.