Gender Studies Programme

The Feminist Awakening in China

Speaker: Dr Leta Hong Fincher
(Journalist; Sociologist)

On the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global cause célèbre, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf, and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Feminist Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of university students, civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists and online warriors that is prompting an unprecedented awakening among China’s urban, educated women. This seminar aims to trace the rise of a new feminist consciousness now finding expression through the #MeToo movement, and to describe how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles.

Leta Hong Fincher has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Dissent Magazine, Ms. Magazine, BBC, CNN and others. She is the recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award for television feature reporting. Leta is the first American to receive a Ph.D. from Tsinghua University’s Department of Sociology. She has a master’s degree from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree with high honors from Harvard University. She is the author of Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (Zed 2014) and Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China (Verso 2018). Many news organizations have quoted her works on the subject of women and feminism in China.

Date: Wednesday 7 November 2018
Time: 5:00pm
Venue: CPD-2.16, 2/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

All are welcome. Please register online HERE

For enquires: genderst@hku.hk/39174182

For further information, please visit: https://genderstudies.hku.hk/events/the-feminist-awakening-in-china/