Abstract
The reservations many Chinese women intellectuals have about identifying with Western feminism and its value judgments and concerns are clearly illustrated in an interview published in 1988, wherein a diasporic Chinese intellectual posed questions about gender and feminism to three Chinese women writers.1 Though often regarded as feminist writers in the West, Wang Anyi and Dai Qing voiced responses that would appear nonfeminist, if not sometimes downright antifeminist. Dai Qing contended that the Chinese government had already given sexual equality to women and ensured equal employment opportunity; therefore, “Chinese women have no reason to be interested in feminism abroad” (Wang Zheng 1988, 133–134). In another interview made by two Westernized academics (1995), the female film director Huang Shuqing similarly regarded feminism as being unsuitable for China at the present historical juncture. Huang also argued that Chinese women already enjoy a high level of gender equality (Dai and Yang 1995, 802–803).
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© 2005 Marguerite Waller and Sylvia Marcos
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Wu, Y. (2005). Making Sense in Chinese “Feminism”/Women’s Studies. In: Waller, M., Marcos, S. (eds) Dialogue and Difference. Comparative Feminist Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-07883-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-07883-4_2
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