“An important and much-needed introduction to this rich and fast-growing field. Hershatter has handled a daunting task with aplomb.” —Susan L. Glosser, author of Chinese Visions of Family and State, 1915–1953

This volume will look into some macro factors that have an impact on gender conceptualizations in China. First, China is a highly-centralized state with a one-party political system that is also an authoritarian strongman regime. Thus, policies (including those related to gender) from the center are promulgated centripetally to provinces, cities, towns, villages, and local areas effectively.In terms of policy-making, the Chinese government noted that they have strengthened the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) guide for women's work, enacted/upgraded rights protection law in the National People's Congress (NPC), actualized mechanisms for women's cause in the Chinese People's Political Conservative Conference (CPPCC), streamlined work systems for effective implementation of national gender equality policies, and augmented the Women's Federation as an intermediary between the Communist Party of China (CPC), the state, and all Chinese women.As productive forces, Chinese women in the socialist era were exemplary models of mothers and career women who treated family life and work as equally important priorities. They were upper middle class to high net worth individuals who showed their successes in juggling both as objects of moral suasion for other Chinese women in state-led publicity. Some of them were touted by the state as ideal modern Chinese women in state media, moral suasion campaigns, and/or propaganda.

These 21 dynamic articles by Chinese women scholars explore the limitations on women's lives in premodern China, detail their involvement in the great political movements of the 20th century and examine how new laws have improved women's status, yet have left them open to exploitation as China enters the global economy. With statistics and reports otherwise unavailable, they give a refreshing outlook on China's women that is breathtaking both for the problems it confronts and for the spirit of struggle it embodies.

This essential reference work provides an alphabetic listing, with an extensive "index," of studies on women in China from earliest times to the present day written in Western languages, primarily English, French, German, and Italian. Containing more than 2500 citations of books, chapters in books, and articles, especially those published in the last thirty years, and more than 100 titles of doctoral dissertations and Masters theses, it covers works written in the disciplines of anthropology and sociology; art and archaeology; demography; economics; education; fashion; film and media studies; history; interdisciplinary studies; law; literature; music; medicine, science, and technology; political science; and religion and philosophy. It also contains many citations of studies of women in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Shows that the feminist interventions of the Mao era (1949–1976) continue to influence contemporary Chinese women. This book traces how the legacy of the Maoist gender project is experienced or contested by particular Chinese women, remembered or forgotten in their lives, and highlighted or buried in their narratives. Xin Huang examines four women’s life stories: an urban woman who lived through the Mao era (1949–1976), a rural migrant worker, a lesbian artist who has close connections with transnational queer networks, and an urban woman who has lived abroad. The individual narratives are paired with analysis of the historical and social contexts in which each woman lives. Huang focuses on the shifting relationship between gender and class, fashion and shame in the Mao and post-Mao eras, queer desire and artwork, and contemporary transnational encounters. By rethinking the historical significance and contemporary relevance of one of the twentieth century’s major feminist interventions—socialist and Marxist women’s liberation during the Mao years—The Gender Legacy of the Mao Era provides insight into current struggles over gender equality in China and around the world.

This indispensable guide for students of both Chinese and women’s history synthesizes recent research on women in twentieth-century China. Written by a leading historian of China, it surveys more than 650 scholarly works, discussing Chinese women in the context of marriage, family, sexuality, labor, and national modernity. In the process, Hershatter offers keen analytic insights and judgments about the works themselves and the evolution of related academic fields. The result is both a practical bibliographic tool and a thoughtful reflection on how we approach the past.

In the process of helping women to help themselves, female activists have assumed a decisive role in negotiating social and political transformations in Chinese society. This is the first book that describes and analyzes the new phase of women's organizing in China, which started in the 1980s, and remains a vital force to the present day. The political and social changes taking place in contemporary Chinese society have, surprisingly, received scant attention. This volume enriches our understanding of the working of grassroots democracy in China by exploring women's popular organizing activities and their interaction with party-state institutions. By subjecting these activities to both empirical enquiry and theoretical scrutiny, a rigorous analysis of the exchange, dialogue, negotiation and transformation among and within three groups of political actors - popular women's groups, religious groups and the All China Women's Federation - is concisely presented to the reader.This book will be of tremendous interest to students of Chinese Studies, Political Science and Gender Studies alike.