cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/54040926
From climbing gyms to specialty bookstores and entrepreneur clubs, several women-focused spaces have opened in China’s major cities. These places of solidarity offer women ways to push back against pressures to have children in a country where feminist activism is closely monitored.
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China’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest level since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
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The high cost of raising a child in the city, along with the issue of exorbitant rent, was often cited. The new generation also said they wanted more independence and free time.
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To try to reverse the demographic trend, the government under President Xi Jinping introduced a raft of measures aimed at curbing divorces – for example, the new divorce law eliminated the automatic 50/50 division of assets and, since 2021, has imposed a 30-day reflection period – and encouraging couples to have children, notably through an annual allowance for families until the child turns three. Yet these policies risk reinforcing among some young women the feeling that they were only demographic instruments.
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Going further – publicly opposing this family and pro-birth policy – is no longer an option. “Earlier waves of feminist discourse in China sought visibility,” wrote Lina Ma, an independent researcher based in New York who specializes in gender and social justice issues in China, in an article published on the news website The Diplomat on April 3. “Women posted openly about harassment, discrimination, and domestic violence, hoping to spark public debate and pressure institutions to respond.”
In 2021, however, this activism came to an abrupt halt due to digital and legal crackdowns. The social network Douban, a platform for discussing literature and cinema, suddenly deleted around 10 major feminist discussion groups, accusing them of “extremism” and of spreading “radical” political ideas.
Sophia Huang Xueqin, a journalist and a prominent #MeToo activist in China, who in 2018 published the testimony of a student who was sexually harassed by her former thesis supervisor, was arrested in Guangzhou in September 2021, on the eve of her departure for the United Kingdom to continue her studies. In 2024, she was sentenced to five years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power.”
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