Auch wenn Xi das nicht passt ist der Feminismus in China nicht tot
Beijing is more stifling, but liberal thinking is common in the capital, too. One striking sign of it is meetings of women, particularly the young and well-educated, to discuss problems related to their sex.
Mr Xi has cracked down hard on feminist activism. Officials see it as a front for anti-party dissent. There has been barely any organised campaigning related to women’s issues since 2015 when five high-profile activists were detained just before International Women’s Day.
In 2018, in response to the #MeToo movement, Chinese women took to the internet to air their own grievances. But the government has moved to silence them, too. In June a prominent #MeToo activist was sentenced to five years in prison for subversion.
Online and offline, however, women still gather to encourage each other in their struggle against discrimination and abuse. Demand for feminist books shows how interest in this subject is surging.
The works of Ueno Chizuko, an honorary professor at the University of Tokyo, are among the most popular. In 2019 she spoke to new students about gender inequality in higher education.
She attacked expectations in Japan that girls be kawaii, or cute, and that women hide their academic achievement to avoid being seen by men as a threat.
Amid a campaign by Mr Xi to promote conservative family values, emphasising the role of women as mothers, Ms Ueno’s speech struck a chord among Chinese women.
It went viral on social media. A video of it has garnered more than 1m hits. Chinese publishers rushed to bring out translations of Ms Ueno’s books on feminism. More than 20 are now on sale.
They have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. “In recent years, feminist ideas have spread rapidly in China and have influenced many young people,” says Jiang Xue, a Chinese journalist who left China in 2022 after harassment by state-security police. “This inevitably includes thoughts about personal rights.”