In bars tucked away in alleys and in salons and bookstores in Shanghai, women debate their place in a country where men make the laws.
Some wore wedding gowns to publicly take a vow of devotion to themselves. Others gathered to watch films about women made by women. Book lovers flocked to women's bookstores to read titles like “The Woman Destroyed” and “Living a Feminist Life.”
Women in Shanghai and some of China's other largest cities are negotiating the fragile terms of public expression at a politically precarious moment. China's ruling Communist Party has identified feminism as a threat to its authority. Women rights activists have been put in prison. Concerns about harassment and violence against women are ignored or outright ignored silenced.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has done just that reduced the role of women in work and in public office. There are no female members in Mr Xi's inner circle, nor in the Politburo, the executive policymaking body. He has appealed to more traditional roles for women, as caregivers and mothers, in planning a new 'fertile culture' to tackle one shrink population.
But groups of women across China are quietly claiming their own identities. Many come from a generation that grew up with more freedom than their mothers. Women in Shanghai, deeply shaken by the two-month Covid lockdown in 2022, are driven by the need to build community.
“I think everyone living in this city seems to have reached the stage where they want to discover more about the power of women,” says Du Wen, the founder of Her, a bar where salon discussions take place.
Frustrated by the public's increasingly limited understanding of women, Nong He, a film and theater student, held a screening of three documentaries about women by female Chinese directors.
“I think we need to have a broader space for women to create,” Ms. He said. “We hope to host an event like this to let people know what our lives are like, what other women's lives are like, and with that understanding we can connect and help each other.”
At quietly announced events, women challenge misogynistic tropes in Chinese culture. “Why are lonely ghosts always female?” one woman recently asked, referring to Chinese literature's description of homeless women after death. They share tips for beginners in feminism. Start with the history, says Tang Shuang, the owner of Paper Moon, which sells books by female authors. “This is like the basement of the building.”
There are few reliable statistics on gender violence and sexual harassment in China, but according to researchers and social workers, incidents of violence against women have increased. Stories circulate widely online about women being physical mutilated or brutal murdered because they tried to leave their husbands, or because they were brutally beaten resist unwanted attention from men. The discovery of a woman chained in a doorless hut in eastern Jiangsu province became one of the events most discussed topics online in years.
In each case, reactions were very mixed. Many people denounced the attackers and called out sexism in society. Many others blamed the victims.
The way these discussions polarize society unnerved Ms. Tang, an entrepreneur and former deputy editor of Vogue China. Events in her own life also upset her. As friends shared feelings of shame and worthlessness for not being married, Ms. Tang searched for a framework to express what she felt.
“Then I found out, you know, even I don't have very clear thoughts about these things,” she said. “People want to talk, but they don't know what they're talking about.” Ms. Tang decided to open Paper Moon, a store for intellectually curious readers like herself.
The bookstore is divided into an academic section with feminist history and social studies, as well as literature and poetry. There is a space for biographies. “You need real stories to encourage women,” Ms. Tang said.
The fear of attracting the wrong attention is always present.
When Ms. Tang opened her store, she placed a sign in the door describing the store as a feminist bookstore where all genders and pets were welcome. “But my friend warned me to take it out because I might cause trouble by using the word feminism.”
Wang Xia, the owner of Xin Chao Bookstore, has chosen to stay away from the 'F' word altogether. Instead, she described her bookstore as having a “feminine theme.” When she opened the store in 2020, the store was a sprawling space with corners to encourage private conversations and six study rooms named after famous female authors like Simone de Beauvoir.
Xin Chao Bookstore served more than 50,000 people through events, workshops and online lectures, Ms. Wang said. There were more than 20,000 books on art, literature and self-improvement – books about women and books for women. The store became so prominent that state media wrote about it and the Shanghai government posted the notice article on its website.
Still, Ms. Wang was careful not to make a political statement. “My ambition is not to develop feminism,” she said.
For Ms. Du, the founder of Haar, empowering women is at the core of her motivation. The isolation of the pandemic pushed her into action: Shanghai ordered its residents to stay in their locked apartments for two months, and her world narrowed to the walls of her apartment.
For years, she dreamed of opening a place where she could elevate women's voices, and now it seemed more urgent than ever. Post-lockdown, she opened Her, a place where women could make friends and debate the social expectations society had placed on them.
On International Women's Day in March, Her organized an event called Marry Me, where women made vows to themselves. The bar also hosted a salon where women played the roles of mothers and daughters. Many younger women described their reluctance to be treated the same way as their mothers and said they did not know how to talk to them, Ms Du said.
Authorities met with Ms. Du and indicated that as long as the events at Her did not become too popular, there was a place for them in Shanghai, she said.
But in China there is always the possibility that officials will crack down. “They never tell you clearly what is forbidden,” said Ms. Tang of Paper Moon.
Ms. Wang recently moved the Xin Chao Bookstore to Shanghai Book City, a famous store with large atriums and long columns of bookcases. A four-volume collection of Mr. Xi's writings is prominently displayed in several languages.
Book City is huge. The space for the
“It is a small cell of the city, a cultural cell,” Ms. Wang said.
Yet it stands out in China.
“Not every town has a women's bookstore,” she said. “There are many cities that do not have such a cultural foundation.”
Li you contributed to research.