In recent years, a small number of Chinese feminist activists — most of them outspoken, social media-savvy women in their 20s — have used creative campaigns to protest strains of male chauvinism that run through contemporary Chinese society. Since 2012, they’ve “occupied” men’s public toilets to protest unfairly sized female restrooms; donned faux blood-spattered wedding dresses to protest domestic violence; and shaved their heads to protest education inequality. [...]
“Another part of this is that the Communist Party has been for a long time very strongly promoting extremely traditional gender norms,” Fincher said. “You look at the propaganda, the state media, it’s strongly encouraging women to return to the home and have babies. The end of the One Child Policy is part of this as well. It’s an attempt to address these very severe demographic crises — the shrinking of the workforce, the aging of the population, falling birth rates.”
In China, women do enjoy a broad range of social and professional opportunities — more than 70% of women are in the workforce, about the same as the U.S. China has more female billionaires than any other country. Yet women remain scarce in leadership roles. In politics, only two women sit on the powerful 25-member Politburo; in business, only about 2% of Chinese women hold managerial roles.
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