betraying big brother the feminist awakening in china

I write about feminist resistance in the world’s largest authoritarian regime - China - but all across the world, we are seeing democracies come under assault by misogynistic autocrats like Duterte in the Philippines, Orban in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil, and other “strongman” rulers who are rolling back women’s rights as an integral part of their authoritarian repression. The oppression of women is a central feature of all authoritarian forms of control around the world, yet far too little attention is paid to the unique promise of women’s uprisings against autocratic governments. Which parts of feminism are most useful when challenging such huge patriarchal structures? Your most recent book, Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China, explores the detention and treatment of feminist activists in China, and ultimately suggests that the feminist movement is one of the most powerful tools with which to challenge China’s authoritarian regime. We talked to her about the oppression of women abroad and in the US, and the role gender equality plays in a healthy democracy. Hong Fincher will speak in the 2019 program track Next World Order. Her second book, “Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China,” was named one of the best books of 2018 by Vanity Fair, Newsweek, Bitch Media, among others. This year on International Women's Day (8 March) the Chinese government struck a big blow to the country's feminist movement when Sina Weibo – the Chinese equivalent of Twitter – shut down the popular Feminist Voices Facebook page.Leta Hong Fincher is a scholar and journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian. 'Even though there are tight constraints on social media there's still room to get your message across.'

It's constantly a cat-and-mouse game with internet censors. 'If one person's social media account is shut down… they find another person to post something. When the #MeToo movement swept the world at the end of 2017, Hong didn't think China's feminist activists would be about to seize on it, but #MeToo became a convenient hashtag.Ĭhina's feminist activists are innovative and continually coming up with different strategies to get around China's heavy and sophisticated internet censorship.īefore the censors caught on, women were using the emojis for rice and bunny – which when spoken aloud are pronounced “mi tu” – to tag content relating to sexual harassment or assault. Clockwise from top left: Li Tingting, Wu Rongrong, Zheng Churan, Wei Tingting, Wang Man Photo: Amnesty International / EyePress

Betraying big brother the feminist awakening in china