Toward a Chinese Feminism: A Personal Story

I was born a few years after the founding of the People’s Republic of China (1949) in Beijing and grew up an equal of everybody else—judged, at least, by one important criterion, gender equality. My sisters and many friends shared with me their sense of seldom experiencing discrimination for being female in those years, however partial or even, sometimes, false that sense might be.

I have two sisters and no brother. My parents (who are largely self-educated intellectuals among the Communist rank and file) were evidently not unhappy that they did not meet the traditional Chinese ideal of having a son; indeed, they were very proud of each of us. While we were Young Pioneers, whenever we sat at the dining table with them, we ...