In the bars nestled in the alleys, in the salons and bookstores of Shanghai, women debate their place in a country where men make the laws.
Some wore wedding dresses to publicly take their vows of commitment to themselves. Others gathered to watch films made by women about women. Bookish people flocked to women’s bookstores to read titles like “The Destroyed Woman” and “Living a Feminist Life.”
Women in Shanghai, and some of China’s other largest cities, are negotiating the fragile conditions of public expression at a politically precarious moment. The ruling Chinese Communist Party has identified feminism as a threat to its authority. Women’s rights activists have been imprisoned. Concerns about harassment and violence against women are ignored or silenced altogether.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping has reduced the role of women in the workplace and in public office. There are no women among Mr. Xi’s inner circle or in the Politburo, the executive decision-making body. He invoked more traditional roles for women, as caregivers and mothers, in planning a new “culture of reproduction” to respond to a shrinking population.
But groups of women across China are quietly reclaiming their own identities. Many belong to a generation that grew up with more freedom than their mothers. The women of Shanghai, deeply shaken by a two-month Covid lockdown in 2022, are motivated by the need to build community.
“I think everyone in this city seems to have reached this point where they want to explore more about the power of women,” said Du Wen, the founder of Her, a bar that hosts lounge discussions.
Frustrated by the public’s increasingly narrow understanding of women, Nong He, a film and theater student, screened three documentaries about women made by Chinese female directors.
“I think we should give women more creative space,” Ms. He said. “We hope to hold 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. »
In quietly publicized events, women challenge misogynistic tropes in Chinese culture. “Why are lonely ghosts always women? a woman recently asked, referring to Chinese literature’s depiction of women being left homeless after death. They share advice for beginners in feminism. Start with the story, said Tang Shuang, owner of Paper Moon, which sells books by female authors. “It’s like the basement of the structure.”
There are few reliable statistics on gender-based violence and sexual harassment in China, but incidents of violence against women are more common, according to researchers and social workers. Stories have circulated widely online that women physically crippled or suddenly murdered for trying to leave their husbands, or savagely beaten for resisting unwanted male attention. The discovery of a woman chained in a doorless shack in the eastern province of Jiangsu has become one of the most debated topics online in years.
In each case, the reactions have been very controversial. Many people denounced the attackers and denounced sexism in society. Many others blamed the victims.
The way these discussions polarize society has angered Ms. Tang, an entrepreneur and former deputy editor-in-chief of Vogue China. Events in her own life also destabilized her. As her friends shared feelings of shame and worthlessness about not getting married, Ms. Tang searched for a framework to express how she felt.
“Then I discovered, you know, even myself, that I didn’t have very clear ideas 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 aimed at intellectually curious readers like herself.
The bookstore is divided into an academic section that features feminist history and social studies, as well as literature and poetry. There is space for biographies. “You need to have real stories to encourage women,” Ms. Tang said.
The anxiety of attracting the wrong kind of attention is always present.
When Ms. Tang opened her store, she put a sign on the door describing it as a feminist bookstore welcoming all genders, as well as pets. “But my friend warned me to take it down because, you know, I might cause trouble by using the word feminism.”
Wang Xia, the owner of Xin Chao Bookstore, chose to completely stay away from the “F” word. Instead, she described her bookstore as “woman-themed.” When she opened it in 2020, the store was a vast space with nooks for private conversations and six study rooms named after famous authors like Simone de Beauvoir.
Xin Chao Bookstore has served more than 50,000 people through online events, workshops and lectures, Ms. Wang said. It contained more than 20,000 books on art, literature and personal development – books about women and books for women. The store became so big that state media reported on it and the Shanghai government publicized the message. article on its website.
Still, Ms. Wang was careful to avoid making a political statement. “My ambition is not to develop feminism,” she says.
For Ms. Du, the founder of Her, women’s empowerment is at the heart of her motivation. She was spurred into action by the isolation of the pandemic: Shanghai ordered its residents to stay in their apartments under lock and key for two months, and her world shrank to the walls of her apartment.
For years, she dreamed of opening a place where she could elevate women’s voices, and now it feels more urgent than ever. After lockdown, she opened Her, a place where women could build friendships and discuss the social expectations society had placed on them.
In March, on International Women’s Day, she hosted an event called Marry Me, where women said their vows. The bar also hosted a lounge where women played the roles of mothers and daughters. Many young women described their reluctance to be treated the same as their mothers and said they did not know how to talk to them, Ms. Du said.
Officials met with Ms. Du and told her that as long as events in Her did not become too popular, there was a place for it in Shanghai, she said.
But in China, it is still possible that the authorities will take severe measures. “They never tell you clearly what is forbidden,” said Ms. Tang of Paper Moon.
Ms. Wang recently moved Xin Chao Bookstore to Shanghai Book City, a famous store with large atriums and long bookcase columns. A four-volume collection of Mr. Xi’s writings is prominently displayed in multiple languages.
The Cité du livre is immense. The space at Xin Chao Bookstore is not, Ms. Wang explained, made up of several shelves in and around a small room that could possibly hold only about 3,000 books.
“It’s a small city cell, a cultural cell,” Ms. Wang said.
However, it stands out in China.
“Not every town has a women’s bookstore,” she said. “Many cities do not have such cultural soil. »
Read you contributed to the research.
