Chinese feminism faces globalization

EDITEDBY

EDWARD BEAUCHAMP

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

MODERN EDUCATION, TEXTBOOI<S, AND IMAGE OF THE NATION Politics and Modernization and Nationalism i n ltorean Education:

THE

1880-1910 Yoonmi Lee PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRATIZATION I N CHINA Thomas G. Lum THEUNICNOWN CULTURAL REVOLUTION Educational Reforms and Their Impact on China's Rural Development, 1966-1976 Dongping Han MAO'S PREY The History o f Chen Renbing, Liberal Intellectual Jeanette Ford Fernandez

THEROOTS OF JAPAN'S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES Anny Wong THEORIGINS OF THE BILATERAL OI
Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Sharon Wesoky

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Published in 2002 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. Copyright O 2002 by Sharon Wesoky All rights reserved. N o part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wesoky, Sharon R., 1969Chinese feminism faces globalization I Sharon R. Wesoky. p. cm. - (East Asian) Includes index. ISBN 0-415-93225-4 1. Women's rights-China. 2. Feminism-China. I. Title. 11. Series.

Printed on acid-free, 250 year-life paper Manufactured in the United States of America

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

for Mooyi Scheibel

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Contents

Acknowledgments Preface PART I SYMBIOSIS AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Chapter O n e State Legitimacy, Social Organization, and Concepts of Symbiosis Chapter T w o Social Movements and Globalization PART I1 THE BEIJINGWOMEN'SMOVEMENT Chapter Three The Politics of Beijing Women's Organizing in the 1990s Chapter Four Beijing Activists: The Emergence of Feminist Identities PART 111 THE EMERGENCE OF A SYMBIOTIC WOMEN'SMOVEMENT IN THE 1990s: OPPORTUNITIES, MOBILIZATION, AND FRAMING Chapter Five Political and Economic Opportunities Chapter Six The Emergence of NGOs in the Women's Movement Chapter Seven Framing in the Chinese Women's Movement PART IV CONCLUSIONS Chapter Eight Conclusions

Bibliography Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Contents LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 Types of corporatism Table 2.1 Contradictions of globalization Table 5.1 Beijing women's groups and their dates of founding Table 5.2 Beijing women's groups' years of founding and types of supervisory work units (guakao danwei) Table 5.3 Article topics in Marriage and Family magazine

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 5.1 Foundings of groups in Beijing Figure 5.2 Supervisory units of Beijing groups and their years of founding Figure 5.3 Foundings of groups nationwide. Figure 5.4 Supervisory units of groups nationwide and their years of founding Figure 5.5 Recipients of reproductive health program grants in China Figure 7.1 Number of articles with terms "reproductive health," "sexual harassment," or "domestic violence" in title. Figure 7.2 Total number of articles with terms "reproductive health," "sexual harassment," and "domestic violence" in title Figure 7.3 Number of articles with terms "human rights," "gender," "prostitution," or "homosexuality" in title Figure 7.4 Total number of articles with terms "human rights," "gender," "prostitution," and "homosexuality" in title

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Acknowledgments

Like any good social movement, a book is a collective endeavor, even if one person gets all the credit. Many have helped along the way on this project as well. First, I must thank my advisors at Cornell who assisted me with the dissertation, all in important ways. Vivienne Shue always encouraged me to think about Chinese politics in novel ways, and also helped with contacts for field research in Beijing. Mary Fainsod IZatzenstein provided me with innumerable suggestions relating to feminism in diverse contexts as well as social movements in general. I was very grateful to spend time with Vivienne in Taiwan, and with Mary at the NGO Forum on Women. Sidney Tarrow, to some extent, began my interest in this topic with his seminar on social movements, and throughout the process he has always been a helpful influence, challenging me in particular to sort out social movement theory in a way suited to this particular case. Additionally, I am grateful to Anna Marie Smith for agreeing to step in as an additional reader, and for suggesting various elements of state theory that helped the final version greatly. Various grants have funded this work at different stages, including a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and travel grant; a Mellon pre-dissertation fellowship; travel grants from the Einaudi Center for International Studies, the International Development and Women Program, and the Program on Gender and Global Change, all from Cornell University; the H u Shih Memorial Award, also from Cornell University; a Mellon dissertation completion fellowship; and faculty development funding from Allegheny College. In China, Professor Sha Lianxiang of the Women's Studies Center at the Chinese People's University graciously provided me with a host institution. Shen Yuan, of the Sociology Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, provided indispensable assistance in a number of ways both practical and intellectual. My research assistant Lu Hong (and occasionally, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Acknowledgments

when she was unavailable, her sister Lu Ping) was a tireless note-taker and transcript-typist on demand, while also pursuing her own Master's degree studies, and she also became a very good friend. Without their notes I would still be trying to decipher interview tapes. In follow-up interviews, Du Yan and Zhang Jin provided similar invaluable assistance. I am grateful beyond words to the numerous women's movement activists who appear anonymously on the following pages. Here, however, I can thank just a few of them by name: Guo Jianmei, Luo Xiaolu, Liu Bohong, Feng Yuan, Liu Fang, Ge Youli, Le Ping, Zang Jian, Xie Lihua, Wang Xingjuan, Qi Wenying, Song Damin, Shang Shaohua, Liang Min, Li Chunling, Sun Xiaomei, Xiong Lei, Lin Kemei, Chen Yiyun, and Deng Chunli. These women, and many others, graciously and openly offered their time and opinions for very little in return. I am very glad to have had the chance to get to know such wonderful Chinese women. Many friends in China also helped much-including our neighbors in Shangdi both Chinese and foreign. Back in the United States, several friends have provided support in forms both intellectual and personal, especially including Patty Hipsher, Ann-Marie Szymanski, Elizabeth Remick, Elizabeth Nishiura, Kathy Purnell, Rebecca Matthews, Zhang Wu, Andrea Stein, Leslie Horowitz, Kathy Uglow, Nita McKinley, and Linda Shafer. The Department of Political Science at Allegheny College has been a supportive environment for my work. Additionally, the Dean of Allegheny College, Lloyd Michaels, kindly funded the indexing process-and Linda Mauro helped out with that as well. My parents, Carolyn and Howard, have always been encouraging of my varied pursuits-I will always be grateful for all the blessings of their love and support. Others whose support has been always welcome include Jon and Ellen Wesoky, and Evelyn and Bernard Lewis. Stephen Unger was always encouraging and will be deeply missed. Additionally, I am very grateful to the Fitch family for welcoming me and making me feel like one of their own. Last, I would like to express my deep gratitude and love to my husband, Jim. He came into my life as this project was just underway, and accompanied me to China for a yearlong fieldwork trip, which was a sanity-preserver for me and a wonderful adventure for both of us. I look forward to sharing many more adventures with him. This book is dedicated in loving memory to my grandmother, Edith Schwartz Scheibel, who was always one of my very best friends, and whose spirit as a vibrant, fun, independent woman who lived as a widow for almost 30 years has continually provided me with inspiration, and will continue to do so in the years to come.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Preface

A casual observer could be forgiven for concluding that China is a country afflicted with schizophrenia induced by the simultaneity of authoritarianism and globalization. Headlines about the repression of yet another religious sect or alternative political party co-exist side by side with ones about the proliferation of the Internet and satellite television. Yet it is possible to try to reconcile these perspectives and come to a clearer diagnosis of what characterizes contemporary Chinese society and politics. This book is one study that attempts to do so, examining the emergence of women's nongovernmental activism in Beijing in the 1990s, while also allowing for the continued presence of a supervisory and even in some cases repressive party-state. The following pages especially examine the ways in which state and social forces engaged in a persistent learning process to come to forms of mutual accommodation, allowing for the emergence of a new women's movement in China around the time of the convening of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995. This movement featured new forms of organization as well as new issues addressed by an increasing number of women identifying themselves as "feminists." While examining "civil society" and "corporatist" models to explain such emergences, the book is ultimately an appeal that we find contextually-specific models that allow for the coexistence of the rule of law and repression, and to understand Chinese state-society relations as they are in the process of emerging and transforming.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER ONE

State Legitimacy, Social Organization, and Concepts of Symbiosis

During the visit of United States President Bill Clinton to China in June 1998, his wife, Hillary Clinton, met with various leading voices of the Beijing women's movement. They included Xie Lihua, founder of the magazine Rural Women Knowing All; Liu Bohong, a researcher of the AllChina Women's Federation (ACWF, or Fulian) who was also a leading force in the Chinese publication of the American feminist book Our Bodies, Ourselves by a non-governmental group; and Ge Youli, who works for the United Nations Development Program and is also active in women's non-governmental organizations (Rosenthal 1998). In a gathering that obviously received the blessing of the Chinese authorities, Mrs. Clinton was treated to a frank, open, lively discussion of the problems facing women in contemporary China, including domestic violence, illiteracy, and rural poverty, and the ways that these women as well as other activists are seeking to resolve them. Such openness was an unprecedented opportunity for the Chinese women's movement and its newly independent voices (Laris 1998). In many ways, this event provides a stark contrast with the events that transpired at the Asia-Pacific region N G O Forum Preparatory Meeting in Manila in November 1993, less than five years earlier. At this meeting, the representatives of various non-governmental organizations gathered to deliberate issues that would be discussed in a larger arena at the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) in Beijing in September 1995. The participants included two groups of representatives from China. A man stood up. "I represent Chinese women," he began his speech. He was taunted off the floor. He was a delegate from the ACWF, which is one of China's government-funded and Communist Party-supported "mass organizations." He received an unpleasant reception for two reasons: his gender, and his organizational affiliation. There was, however, another Chinese delegation at the conference. It received funding and support from foreign Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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foundations and consisted of women attending the Preparatory Meeting in an independent capacity. Women from this delegation rose after this man departed and noted that there were other Chinese women present, representatives of women who were voluntarily doing the work of a Chinese women's movement. Shortly after this event, the Women's Federation began to refer to itself as a "non-governmental organization," and by the time of the FWCW almost two years later it was commonly referred to, by those both inside and outside of the organization, as "China's largest women's NGO."' Some of the representatives of the latter, independent delegation in Manila are the same women who, nearly five years later, would appear in front of Hillary Clinton to tell her of the situation of Chinese women. How did such a transformation occur? H o w did such women, and their critiques of the status of women in Communist China, come to have such officiallevel recognition? How did potential conflict become, over time, a cooperative relationship? In short, how did a quasi-autonomous women's movement emerge in the China of the 1990s? In this book, I will discuss the reasons for the transformation in the Chinese women's movement from one entirely dominated by the state, to one with significant measures of organizational and discursive autonomy. I will argue that, along with domestic political structures and organizational forms, the intersection of the Chinese women's movement and the Chinese state with the international system needs to be considered to fully account for these developments. In other words, there needs to be attention not only to the domestic, or endogenous factors usually employed to explain social movement emergence, but also to international, or exogenous reasons for the appearance and development of domestic-level social movements. Additionally, I will show why such a movement, existing as it does within the continuing circumstances of a non-democratic political system, may be most usefully regarded as a symbiotic social movement, a term I will more fully define below. In the remainder of this chapter, I will look at what it means to be a "symbiotic social movement," and the relevance of this concept to the contemporary Chinese context. In particular, I will argue that "symbiosis" is an appropriate term to use to describe some aspects of contemporary statesociety relations in China today, and in particular as a way of explaining the paradoxical emergence of a women's movement that has elements of both autonomy and dependence on the Chinese state. To this end, I will first very briefly look at the idea of how social movements in the Chinese context might be conceptualized. Second, I will examine questions of Chinese party-state legitimacy and hegemony, especially relevant in the post-Tiananmen 1990s, when the women's movement emerged in full force. Third, I will examine some alternative notions of how state-society relations in China might be understood. These include ideas of civil socieCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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ty, corporatism, concertation, and views of the "velvet prison." I will then discuss why "symbiosis" is a useful and constructive term to depict the Chinese women's movement and its relations to the Chinese state.2 Finally, I will briefly discuss the research process and outline the remaining chapters of the book.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN THE CHINESE CONTEXT The question of what a social movement might look like in China is a relatively new one. The post-Mao era has seen an extensive widening of the latitude permitted by the party-state for relatively independent social activities, including a broad range of permissible popular culture, leisure activities and mass media (Link, Madsen, and Pickowicz 198910; Lull 1991; Wang 1995; Zha 1995); increased academic freedom including new forms of scholarly organizations (see, e.g., Bonnin and Chevrier 1996; Side1 1995); and generally increased autonomy for at least some types of nonstate social organization. And this increased social autonomy has even occasionally had political reverberations, most infamously in the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square but also in other, less well-known instances of intellectual and popular dissent. Despite the violent outcome of the Tiananmen Square protests, China specialists in the early 1990s engaged in a vigorous debate over whether 1989 was a manifestation of the emergence of some institutionalized form of social autonomy in contemporary China-of civil ~ o c i e t y While .~ many argued against such a development, it is certainly evident that new social forms have rapidly been emerging in post-Mao, and now post-Deng, China. Along with discussions of "civil society" in China, there have also been occasional attempts to theorize what interest-group politics look like in that context (Falkenheim 1987), as well as even occasional attempts to apply social movement theory to particular events like Tiananmen Square (Calhoun 1994a), or to Chinese elite-mass politics in general (Liu 1996). The 1998 Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies featured a panel on "Social Movements and the Evolution of Rights Consciousness in Contemporary China", which asserted that even after the repression of the 1989 protests, "new protest forms have continued to evolve." These forms admittedly do not overtly have the purpose of "protecting human rightsindeed, its controversial nature assures that the term is consciously avoided-but their character is a significant indicator of rights awareness and claims" (Woodman 1998, p. 66). However, many of the phenomena examined on this panel might be more fruitfully regarded as individuals rallying to demand satisfaction of their own demands and interests rather than as "social movements" per se. These included protesters calling to be returned to their native cities following being "sent down" to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution (Gong Xiaoxia 1998), or wanting remuneration for land expropriated due to construction of dams (Jing Jun 1998).4 Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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And an emergent "gay rights movement" (Wan Yanhai 1998) is arguably still too overly subject to government repression, as well as too isolated in its organizational manifestations, to be accurately termed a "social movement." Are there phenomena in China today that may be more accurately examined using the framework of social movement theory? Defining what constitutes a "social movement" in this context might be a useful first step. Views of what constitutes a "social movement" have generally tended to focus on its lasting relationship to some target, usually one that it opposes in some way. For instance, Sidney Tarrow defines movements as "collective challenges by people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents, and authorities" (Tarrow 1994). Similarly, Dieter Rucht finds that I n a very restrictive sense, a social movement consists of two kinds of components: (1)networks of groups and organizations prepared to mobilize for protest actions to promote (or resist) social change (which is the ultimate goal of social movements); and (2)individuals who attend protest activities or contribute resources without necessarily being attached to movement groups or organizations (Rucht 1996, p. 186, emphasis added).

While Tarrow and Rucht have somewhat different emphases in their respective definitions, both include a central place for contention. Some analysts, however, focus on a different dimension of Rucht's definition-that of "social change." In discussing his own definition, Tarrow finds that "collective challenges" can come in forms that diverge from conventionally-perceived manifestations of protest, "particularly in repressive systems," where social movements can take on the form of "discursive communities." In such a case, association with a particular movement may be more through symbolic politics and personal behavior than through explicit confrontation with the state (Tarrow 1994, p. 4). Such a "discursive community" has particularly been identified as relevant to identity-oriented "new social movements," which one analyst has defined as "purposive collective actions whose outcome, in victory as in defeat, transforms the values and institutions of society" (Castells 1997, p. 3 ) . The women's movement in all contexts epitomizes just such a movement. Jane Mansbridge responds to the question "What is the Feminist Movement?" with the answer that it is "a set of changing, contested aspirations and understandings that provide conscious goals, cognitive backing, and emotional support for each individual's evolving feminist identity," and that personal accountability to the movement is "an accountability through identity" (Mansbridge 1995, pp. 27-29). Such a discursively-oriented view of women's movements has been seen as relevant for cases as diverse as the radical feminist movement in Columbus, Ohio (Whittier 1995) and the contemporary Russian women's movement (Waters and Posadskaya 1995). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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What has been occurring in Beijing in the 1990s is the formation of an incipient independent women's movement.' It even features some of the characteristics salient to Tarrow's definition-including "people with common purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction." In fact, the movement is definitely sustained in a way that some of the "movements" discussed in the 1998 AAS panel were not. And the Chinese women's movement even sometimes features "collective challenges'' to "elites, opponents, and authorities." While such "challenges" are more in the form of polite policy recommendations than confrontational demonstrations or contentious politics vis-2-vis the Chinese state or the Communist Party, the movement nonetheless does seek to engage the state in its actions. The movement, however, can even more strikingly be observed in its discursive aspects. It contains a variety of organizations engaged in diverse activities, including personal consciousness-raising, social assistance, education, and research. Such a focus on questions of individual identity and local-level social change typifies women's movements, as I have already noted.6 Concentrating on such social movement forms is particularly relevant in non-democratic contexts, where wider mobilization may not be tolerated but such low-level, relatively routine collective action and activism may be acceptable. Until recently, social movement theory has tended to emphasize domestic-level movements in democratic contexts (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 199613, p. xiii; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 1997, p. 47). While the former characteristic-a stress on domestic-level movements, has been recently corrected due to the recent, keen interest in "transnational" social movements, there has still been a relative paucity of studies on social movements in non-democratic contexts. Where such studies exist, they are often focused on the relationship of movements to the failure or success of democratization, and their role in the democratization process. This is evident in the Latin American case, where there is no shortage of studies of social movements, but they are almost always discussed in relation to questions of democracy (e.g., Escobar and Alvarez 1992; Schneider 1995). This includes studies of the women's movement in the Latin American context (Alvarez 1990; Jaquette 1989). Alternatively, many studies of social movements in the formerly communist Eastern Europe and Soviet Union often do not employ typical social movement theoretical frameworks in their analyses (Alexeyeva 1985; Kennedy 1991; Long 1996).' There are, however, some exceptions. One analysis of Poland's Solidarity movement by noted French social theorist Alain Touraine and his colleagues looks at the movement as a social movement, and note its nature as a "self-limiting movement," or one which was "articulating radical criticism of the regime and of the state of Polish society but admitting at the same time that the international situation makes it impossible for it to overthrow Communist rule, since this would be intolerable to the Soviet Union'' (Touraine et al. 1983; see also Staniszkis 1984). However, such a Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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treatment also emphasizes the position of a social movement vis-2-vis democratic aspirations, or at least anti-statist intentions. Some of the essays in a book on social movements in Gorbachev's Soviet Union (Sedaitis and Butterfield 1991) utilize social movement theory's concepts. And one essay in the book, by Andrew Arato, even seeks to critique Western social movement theory and modify it for the Soviet context. He notes a number of shortcomings in the Western paradigm when applied to the Soviet Union. First, it tends to underemphasize the importance of movements' roles in "building new identities, transforming political cultures, and engaging in symbolic forms of self-expression7'-the types of "discursive communities'' discussed above. Second, "contemporary resource mobilization and political conflict paradigms on the whole do not distinguish between movements seeking to establish a new social formation and movements acting within the existing one'' (Arato 1991, pp. 203-204), precisely the same shortcoming in some of the treatments of Latin American and Polish movements that I have discussed. What about situations of social movements that exist in stable non-democratic contexts, and which are not seeking to challenge the overall political order? It is my contention that the contemporary Chinese women's movement is a genuine manifestation of a "social movement,'' but that it is not oppositional to the established political order, including one-party rule. It is different from the "self-limiting" movement form of Solidarity, for it is not overtly challenging the state, the Party, or the political system, and it indeed is limited by the state (rather than being "self-limiting") and has largely arisen within, rather than as an alternative to, communist institution^.^ I term this movement a symbiotic social movement, and I will more fully focus on the nature of such a movement later in this chapter.

LEGITIMACY OF T H E CHINESE PARTY-STATE Even before the student-led protests in 1989 which culminated in their government-ordered June 4th suppression, the Chinese party-state was dealing with legitimation issues. After the disruptions of the Cultural Revolution, the state turned to a course of economic reform that was highly successful in its economic goals but which of course deviated greatly from typical Communist Party ideologies. Despite the reforms in the economic sphere, the party-state has been unwilling to pursue widespread political reform or to tolerate the emergence of alternative, oppositional political forces. This was made particularly apparent in the outcome of the Tiananmen protests. Indeed, Joseph Esherick and Jeffrey Wasserstrom argue that it was the absence of institutionalized channels for popular political participation that led citizens of Beijing as well as other cities to have no other resource to turn to but mass protest (Esherick and Wasserstrom 1994, p. 59). While Esherick and Wasserstrom claim that Party leaders suppress "any hint of pluralism" as a means of preserving Party legitimacy, this book adopts a different approach, instead asserting that some elements of what Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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may be described as a limited pluralism have come to exist, but also that such pluralism is illusory in two respects. First, it emerges only "symbiotically" with the party-state, and thus not in total autonomy from that partystate. Of course, it is thus not true pluralism, but it still features an emergent multiplicity of voices and organizations dealing with certain social issues. Second, the party-state allows such development as a means of preserving or even maintaining its legitimacy, and concomitantly, its power over Chinese society. H o w might we more generally understand the "legitimacy crisis" of the Chinese state and its connection to the relationship between that state and social organizations? Theories regarding the state and its relation to society might be useful here. Bob Jessop, in State Theory: Putting Capitalist States in their Place, claims that The core of the state apparatus comprises a distinct ensemble of institutions and organizations whose socially accepted function is to define and enforce collectively binding decisions on the members of a society in the name of their common interest or general will.

He also qualifies this definition by looking a number of aspects which are necessary to bear in mind while researching the state, including but not limited to ideas that the state is never wholly separate from society, that state forms vary according to the social formation, that state legitimation practices also vary, and that the "common interest or general will is always asymmetrical, marginalizing or defining some interests at the same time as it privileges others" (Jessop 1990, pp. 341-342). Throughout the book, Jessop usefully views the state as a "social relation," and asserts that "its legitimacy depends on linking state interests and actions to those of society" (Jessop 1990, p. 363). In this sense, he asserts that "state projects" secure the "(relative) unity of the state" (Jessop 1990, p. 347). Such "state projects" are linked throughout the book to ideas of a given state's particular "hegemonic project." For Jessop, the Gramscian concept of hegemony is particularly linked to the ways in which a given state can secure the conditions for "capital accumulation," in particular by how the state relates through varied forms of "material concessions, symbolic rewards and repression" with "different social forces," as a means of articulating and supporting its "hegemonic project" (Jessop 1990, p. 207). One important aspect of this project is the support of various "non-class forces" (Jessop 1990, p. 217), through a "pluralization of social forces rather than their polarization around a basic class cleavage" (Jessop 1990, p. 181). In this way, the state exercises "strategic selectivity," through which "particular forms of state privilege some strategies over others, privilege the access of some forces over others, some interests over others, some time horizons over others, some coalition possibilities over others" (Jessop 1990, pp. 9-10). In this way, the state manages to deal with the "general problem" of its "potential role of unifying a society divided into classes" (Jessop 1990, p. 8). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Perhaps ironically, this is a problem that would seem to particularly confound the contemporary Chinese regime, led as it is by the Chinese Communist Party. The causes of the Chinese state's "legitimacy crisis" are usually seen as they are described by X.L. Ding, as "generated jointly by Mao's cultural revolutionary policy and the post-Mao reform program" (Ding 1994a, p. 4). This reform program both contradicts communist ideology in its marketizing practices, and it promotes the emergence of potentially counter-regime economic and social forces. Ding seeks to promote an understanding of the legitimation of the Chinese Communist regime that regards it "both negatively-keeping power or securing political survival, and positively-using power or achieving socioeconomic objectives" (Ding 1994a, p. 3). Thus, Chinese regime legitimacy is connected not only to its keeping power, but possibly to the increasing of its power. While there is little doubt that counterdiscourses or a "counterelite" (Ding 1994a) has emerged in post-Mao China, there are questions as to their effects on state power and legitimacy. Some regard these discourses as ultimately negative for the fate of the Chinese party-state. For instance, Ding notes that they resulted in "the deepening of the regime's legitimacy crisis and the acceleration of political instability" in the late 1980s. This could even lead to the collapse of Communist rule in China (Ding 1994a, pp. 4, 35). Others examine the hypothesis regarding whether the expanded existence of "autonomous, self-regulating organizations" might "undermine the existing authoritarian political order" and cause a decline in "the control capacity of state institutions" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 10, 25). But these same authors also look at how the state has attempted to control some organizations and has repressed others. Others also assert the possibility that the Chinese state is still very much in control. For instance, Vivienne Shue argues that "a species of state strengthening" could be occurring simultaneously with the flowering of social associations (Shue 1994, p. 83). Geremie BarmC (1999) looks at how the world of various forms of cultural expression in post-Mao China have continued to exist in a "velvet prison" where artists themselves engage in "progressive censorship" and where "the state is able to domesticate the artist because the artist has already made the state his home" (Haraszti 1987 [1983], p. 5). Barme examines the continuing bargain between artist and state in China and finds it to be quite comparable to Haraszti's idea of the "velvet prison" formulated in Hungary prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Art, despite its great potential for expressions of dissidence, in this context serves the same purpose as depicted by Haraszti for "post-Stalinist artv-"to strengthen social integration" under the leadership of the socialist state (Haraszti 1987 [1983], p. 99). The post-Mao Chinese state has partially sought to deal with (potentially) oppositional forces by altering the terms on which it is judged by them, moving to shift its "basis for legitimacy...to performance-based criCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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teria and, in particular, to the management of the economy" (Saich 1994a, p. 263). Yet economic changes have themselves created some of the Party's difficulties by opening the Chinese economy to the outside which has, among other things, enabled Chinese citizens to realize, in comparing "the performance of communist systems with that of noncommunist systems," that the former "could only dream" of what the latter had accomplished (Ding 1994a, p. 198). The creation of a "socialist market economy" through integration with the global economy has led to the possible dilemma faced by all states and economies experiencing globalization processes-a general decline in "the state's effectiveness as a civil association" which leads to "a crisis of legitimacy" for all such states (Cerny 1995).9 Ironically, one way that the Chinese state has sought to confront its legitimacy crisis is by using its opening to the outside to promote a favorable international image. Women's issues are one means by which this has been attempted, both through passing a law on "women's rights" in 1992 as well as by hosting the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995." The party-state has also sought to increase its legitimacy through processes of "strategic selectivity" as depicted by Jessop. Certain social groups have been recognized by the state-for instance, X.L. Ding notes how "the Communist regime under Deng attempted to win support from different political and social groups by making various appeals to them" (Ding 1994a, p. 4). Similarly, Tony Saich finds that "the tacit recognition by the Party of the existence of other groups in society" is a manifestation of "an attempt to finesse self-regulated and autonomously defined political organizations by incorporating those groups that the Party leadership sees as important into the existing modified power structure and spaces" (Saich 1994a, p. 252). Thus, the Party is at least trying to maintain the legitimacy of its "hegemonic project," albeit in a form different from that practiced under Maoism. I will now turn to some of the differing theoretical ways that the state's "strategic selectivity" can be understood.

ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES T O STATE-SOCIETY RELATIONS I N CONTEMPORARY CHINA What are the ways in which we can understand the relationship between the state and social groups in contemporary China? This question has been debated at great length, given that the Chinese Communist Party still insists on a political monopoly, and has created various restrictions for different types of social organizations seeking to establish an autonomous existence. As I have already discussed above, one approach that has been commonly employed in recent years is that of "civil society," with scholars questioning whether it can be accurately said that China is in the process of developing such a society. Another, partially complementary view is that of "corporatism"-might the newly emerging relations between the Chinese state and social groups, such as women's organizations, be characterized as Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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"corporatist"? Relatedly, we may look at how state and society could be engaged in a situation of "concertation." Both corporatism and concertation are relevant to Mexican politics in this century, which will be briefly discussed by way of comparison. Finally, how might views of the "velvet prison" under state socialism help us understand the relationship between the Chinese party-state and groups seeking some measure of autonomy? Civil Society The origins of the debate over the existence of "civil society" in contemporary China particularly can be seen in relation to efforts to understand the social basis for the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square, but now are also particularly focused upon means of understanding the emergence of non-state social groups in post-Mao China, a process that has persisted even after the June 4th suppression of these protests. In this section I will briefly review some of this literature, particularly to demonstrate certain inadequacies when this concept is applied to the Chinese case. In the early 1990s, there was a rather vigorous debate among China specialists over China's historical legacies and contemporary prospects for developing "civil society."" A number of books on the subject have more recently been published, all with fairly ambivalent views regarding China's prospects for "civil society." Baogang He argues that China has developed what he terms a "semi-civil society" with potentially positive ramifications for China's democratization. But he also notes that "So far Chinese civil society is very weak, while the state is still much stronger, albeit increasingly less so" (He 1997, p. 162). Others are perhaps even more inconclusive in their findings. Gordon White, Jude Howell and Shang Xiaoyuan adopt a fairly complex view of the prospects for civil society in China, utilizing a "sociological" conception of civil society, which focuses more on an "intermediate associational realm" and tends to be a less stringent view of civil society than the political view, which is "virtually indistinguishable from a standard conception of a liberal democratic polity" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 3-4). Yet they ultimately conclude that Chinese civil society, even as conceptualized under this less rigorous definition is at best "embryonic and uneven." They look at the generally Western derivation of the idea of civil society, and find that their sociological conception of it is limited "as a description of Chinese society," because in China state and society are "intermingled and braided, blurring the distinction between them" (pp. 208-209). An edited volume by Timothy Brook and B. Michael Frolic (Brook and Frolic 199710) also has a generally pessimistic view regarding whether China has an emergent civil society, warning in its preface that "readers who pick up this volume expecting assurances that civil society is emerging in China either as a prelude to democracy or as a sign that democratic structures and processes are growing, will be disappointed" (Brook and Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Frolic 1997a, p. 6). Various essays in the book adopt fairly diverse viewpoints regarding the likely development of civil society in contemporary China. B. Michael Frolic feels that it "is more promising" to look at "the vision of the emergence of Chinese civil society, a sphere of activity marked by a growing degree of autonomy from state power" than to hope for "China's immediate democratization" (Frolic 1997, p. 46). He goes on to argue for a conception of civil society in China that diverges from concepts which have "a Western bias" (p. 54) instead looking at a version of civil society he terms "state-led," which is "created from the top down as an adjunct to state power." This form is regarded as "an 'Asian' type of political development, that is, a form of state corporatism or non-Western communitarianism that differs noticeably from the more conventional civil society of the West" (pp. 48-49). Frolic regards the components of this "state-led civil society" to be created "by the state," as well as "a part of" the state (pp. 56, 58). Yet this conception is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it argues that "civil society" can be "state-led," and indeed composed of groups created by the state. It thus tends to overextend the use of the concept of "civil society," which usually tends to place the initiative for group formation at the grassroots, rather than at the level of the state itself.12 Second, this view's argument that social groups are "a part of" the state would certainly be disputed by many of the groups in question. White, Howell, and Shang show that many Chinese themselves distinguish between state-level organizations like the Women's Federation and the AllChina Federation of Trade Unions, which are often seen as "lapdogs of the state," and true "popular organizations (minjian tuanti)." (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, p. 209). As I will depict in Chapter 6, women's movement activists are quite clear about their reasons for calling their organizations "non-governmental organizations" (NGOs-fei zhengfu zuzhi) or "popular organizations" (minjian zuzhi). One statement against utilizing the idea of "civil society" to accurately portray the relationship between new forms of social organization and the Chinese party-state is found in the work of X.L. Ding. Ding finds that ideas of "institutional parasitism" (Ding 1994a) or "institutional amphibiousness" (Ding 199413) were a better representation of what was occurring in China in the 1980s than were notions of "civil society." This was especially the case with respect to ideas of "civil society versus the state" which were often used to explain the demise of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989. Ding notes that the Western experience of civil society especially stresses "institutional autonomy vis-A-vis the state, either in the form of legally protected rights, or in the form of customarily protected freedom," and he instead notes the "indeterminacy of the nature and function of individual institutions" in state socialist systems like China (Ding 1994a, pp. 26, 10). Thus, at best models of civil society can be applied in incomplete Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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and often vague ways to the contemporary Chinese context, which leads to the question of what other models may be superior in explaining contemporary state-society relations in China. Corporatism

Many of the above-discussed books addressing the question of civil society in China (Brook and Frolic 199713; He 1997; White, Howell, and Shang 1996) also do examine whether emergent social forms might constitute "corporatism." Interestingly though not surprisingly, they are as inconclusive on this issue as they are on civil society, although most do assert that China is not clearly moving toward corporatist forms of interest group regulation. For instance, while White, Howell, and Shang note that the state effort after Tiananmen to regulate social organizations "resembles a more coherent notion of 'corporatism'," this endeavor exists simultaneously with a continuing situation in which the "incorporated" sector of social organizations coexists with a "'counterworld' of alternative organizations." Thus, for these authors, at best the efforts of the Chinese party-state constitute a "fragmented and fragmenting kind" of corporatism that is not a "conscious and coherent project" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 33,213). Baogang He also sees the emergence of "a structure in which state corporatism coexists with elements of civil society" (He 1997, p. 149). This is consistent with views positing that the organizations that are more officially-recognized by the party-state, like the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), constitute a form of "state corporatism" (Chan 1993; Unger and Chan 1995). One author has even argued that the current situation in China is one in which such state corporatist institutions, which "serve the state's purpose for social control and mobilization," are moving toward a condition more of "social representation," where unions have become "a representative of workers as a social group" (Zhang 1997, p. 124). Such discussions highlight the general conceptual ambiguity that seem to often characterize discussions of "corporatism." Definitions of the concept seem to have grown wider over time. The classic definition of the concept is found in the work of Philippe Schmitter: Corporatism can be defined as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organized into a limited number of singular, compulsory, noncompetitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for observing certain controls on their selection of leaders and articulation of demands and supports (Schmitter 1974).

He distinguished this from "monism," which was linked to state socialist societies like China under Mao. Corporatism is usually seen in terms of the state's relationship to the economy, with Schmitter's "functionally differenCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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tiated categories" especially connecting to the "function within the division of labor" of different social groups (Jessop 1990, p. 120). However, there have also been usages of "corporatism" which have extended the concept in a much wider way. For instance, a recent book on corporatism argues that "powerful interest groups tied to a strong state are precisely what corporatism is all about" (Wiarda 1997, p. ix). Such definitions lead to the question of the purpose of such incorporation-why, under corporatist systems, are interest groups so tied to the state? Many of the reasons are implicit in Schmitter's definition of the phenomenon. First, some scholars have particularly noted that corporatism features "a strong, directing state" interested in incorporating interest groups so as to "better integrate and organize state policy" (Wiarda 1997, p. 24). As I will note below, this desire can be for democratic or authoritarian reasons. In general, however, corporatism does feature the integration of groups into governmental policy-making in some way (Wiarda 1997, p. 7), and this is often especially tied to "economic intervention" (Jessop 1990, p. 128). To facilitate this process, under corporatism certain groups are "likely to have legitimate monopolies on the representation of functional interests." In other words, a "quasi-public, often monopolistic status" is conferred on interest groups. One way that this situation manifests itself, especially in what one author depicts as Confucian state corporatist systems, is that "usually the bureaucracy, rather than the organization or its members, appoints its director" (Zeigler 1988, pp. 19, 21, 124). When applied to contemporary Chinese state-society relations, and in particular its emerging women's movement, these aspects of corporatism are problematic for a number of reasons. First, groups are not tied to the government for reasons that are clearly related to the state desiring their influence in policy-making-instead, ties seem more geared toward a supervisory or even a surveillance function on the part of the party-state. While groups may sometimes gain a voice in policy-formation, this is not the purpose of their ties to the state through the system of guakao danwei, or supervisory work-units.13 Second, the effect of post-Mao and especially post-Tiananmen development of women's groups has been to cause a great decline in the "monopolistic status" enjoyed by the All-China Women's Federation in representing women's interests. While that organization remains by far the largest women's group in China, a diverse set of other women's organizations has proliferated in the 1990s, leading to a dispersal of groups representing women's interests. Third, the leaders of such groups often do have Communist Party membership status, but some group leaders are n o t Party members and so it is unlikely that they were appointed to such a position by the Party. Additionally, there is the problem of what type of corporatism we may discuss when assessing contemporary state-society relations in China. Often corporatism in the modern world is divided into two basic types, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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state corporatism and societal corporatism, some of the major differences of which can be found in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1---Types of corporatism STATECORPORATISM 1 SOCIETAL(NEO-)CORPORATISM

Exclusionary Unmobilized Authoritarian Source: (Wiarda 1997).

1

Inclusionary Participatory Democratic

Some scholars of China have noted that Asian societies contain aspects of state corporatism, but also that "societal corporatism is increasing at the grassroots" in China today (Frolic 1997, pp. 59-60). It would indeed seem that the Chinese situation is one in which elements of both types of corporatism are coexisting simultaneously. O n the one hand, it is undeniably the case that China is an authoritarian, not a democratic regime. O n the other hand, many of the new Chinese women's groups have a voluntary, grassroots, participatory sensibility that, despite their formal relationship to the Chinese party-state through their guakao danwei, does not fit easily into the state corporatist framework, with its emphasis on top-down organizations with a monopoly on interest representation. It would thus seem that Chinese social organization often falls between the interstices of these two approaches to corporati~m.'~ A further problem with utilizing corporatism as a model to understand contemporary development in China is the often seemingly unlimited definitional and geographical ways in which the concept is applied. One recent book on it has sought to show how it has "relevance for East Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa" as well as in Western Europe and Latin America where it is most commonly observed to exist (Wiarda 1997, p. 71). The same author even seeks to show the increasing pertinence of corporatism in the United States, that most pluralist of societies. Other authors have also especially sought to link corporatism to East Asian "Confucian" modes of governance, especially focusing on that culture's focus on unity and harmony (Wiarda 1997; Zeigler 1988). This may overextend the usage of the idea of corporatism. For instance, Jessop especially ties corporatism to the promotion of certain (capitalist) "accumulation strategies" and the incorporation of social groups into the state to promote those strategies (Jessop 1990, pp. 124-126). Yet, it would seem that the motives of the Chinese Communist party-state in seeking to subordinate social groups, while perhaps indirectly relating to the desired success of the marketizing reform program, are more related to that Party's generCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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a1 desire to hold onto a monopoly of political power and the general Chinese cultural fear of luan, or chaos. Thus, state-society relations in China may have a very different cultural basis than those underlying corporatist systems, which also are often seen as quite culturally specific in origin (e.g., see Grayson 1998; Stepan 1978; Wiarda 1997). In general, how useful can any concept be when it seems to be found present in systems as disparate as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Latin American authoritarian regimes like those of Peron and Vargas, postwar Sweden and Austria, Taiwan under the Guomindang, and even the United States (Wiarda 1997; Zeigler 1988)' Such a perspective would seem to ultimately conflate and obscure more than it clarifies and reveals. In the final analysis, it would seem to be most useful to attempt to understand state-society relations using a conceptual lens that may be more applicable to unique situations. One important aspect of this may be recognizing the difference between the actual incorporation of groups into the structures of state power-or corporatism- and the modes through which the state attempts to recognize, allow, and enable the formation of social groups with elements of autonomy. This may especially be the case in a context, like that of contemporary China, where the government, while seeking to maintain or even increase its power, is also concurrently withdrawing from certain aspects of social intervention. We will see in Chapter 5 that precisely one reason for the emergence of new forms of women's organizing in China in the 1980s and the 1990s is the less active role played by the Chinese state on women's issues in the post-Mao era, and how women's groups have partially emerged to fill that gap. In this respect, we may need different conceptual tools to understand how aspects of vertical integration between society and state, or "local corporatism," have been present in China both historically and in more recent years under Communist Party leadership, but have also coexisted with aspects of "auto-organization," which is more horizontal and voluntary in nature (Brook 1997, pp. 22-23). Concertation and the Case of Mexico One society which seems to be rarely compared to China but would seem to have at least some superficial similarities is Mexico. Both countries have been primarily governed by single parties with revolutionary legacies-in the case of Mexico, it is the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Both countries' ruling parties tend to have a fear of instability, which appears to be one reason for their reluctance to open the political system to more pluralism which would challenge the ruling party's general monopoly on power.15 Both countries' governments have also manifested a resistance to popular movements, both having violently repressed student movements-in the case of Mexico, in the Tlateloloco massacre of October 1968, in which "army and police units fired on several thousand unarmed Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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students, housewives, and office workers" who were "decrying the lack of freedom in their country" (Grayson 1998, p. 39), which sounds strikingly similar to the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. Both Mexico and China also embarked on courses of export-led economic growth beginning in the 1980s. And of course Mexico in the 20th century also had one of the most wellknown corporatist regimes. Under the presidency of General Lazaro Cirdenas (1934-1940), four sectors-peasant, labor, popular, and military sectors-were organized into umbrella, corporatist entities under PRI leadership (Grayson 1998, p. 20). This was largely a "top-down", state corporatist strategy intended to co-opt potential regime opposition. However, in recent years, it would seem that Mexico has been moving more toward a "neo-corporatist" or "societal corporatist" model. Alternative political parties have been permitted to contest and occasionally even win elections. Grassroots groups have emerged, especially in response to the crisis of the earthquakes of 1985, which are "committed to diversity, voluntary participation, and pluralism" and which thus differ from the "uniformity" and "authoritarianism" of the state corporatist model (Grayson 1998, p. 74). These groups looked more to "civil society" models of organization, and were appealing to Mexico's middle classes, who found corporatist institutions "denigrating" (Baer 1993, pp. 54-55). These new non-governmental organizations also received international recognition and legitimacy, which helped protect their existence (Quezada 1993, p. 124).16 One response that the Mexican party-state apparatus of the PRI has had to the development of non-governmental organizations is a policy of "concertation," which "involves the co-ordination of actions between federal and state government and the organized interests of sectors within civil society, for example, peasant organizations, neighborhood groups, and labor unions" (Harvey 199310, p. 200). This process often involves highlevel political involvement by the president with the ultimate aim of "coopting" or "depoliticizing" social groups (Harvey 1993a, p. 18; Harvey 199313, p. 200). This is often regarded as being within the framework of "neo-corporatism"-but also related to the PRI maintaining its "monopoly of power" (Harvey 1993a, p. 25). The strategy of concertation, among other things, has featured the signing of explicit contracts, known as convenios de concertacion, between social groups and the state, in which the state commits to the provision of certain social benefits and resources to local communities and groups. The contracts also of course contain a cost for groups-including their need to moderate their criticism of the state and often their political co-option (Haber 1993, pp. 228-229). Yet this is different from the Chinese situation, where groups need recognition from the state just to exist legally. In Mexico, groups' independent existence is not in question-but they may stand to gain more if they sign a convenio. Chinese women's groups more Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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often than not do not get material benefits from their guakao danwei, and in fact often rely on foreign funding sources to survive. Thus, even under concertation, many Mexican social groups continue to maintain close, corporatist ties to the Mexican party-state apparatus. Yet, such groups also seem to be increasingly "preoccupied by the question of electoral participation" (Haber 1993, p. 218). This is another difference from China, and an indicator of the move from state corporatist to societal corporatist forms in Mexico. Thus, while China's development has been more "interstitial" between state corporatist and societal corporatist forms, as I have shown above, Mexico's has seemingly featured a smoother evolution between these "species of the same genus" (Zeigler 1988, p. 17). Numerous authors looking at Mexico have described its transition to more pluralist political forms caused in part by Mexico's integration into the global economy (Grayson 1998, p. 161; Roett 1993, pp. 3-5). While China has been increasingly integrated into the global economy, no one would assert that its Communist Party is heading in a more pluralist direction like that of the PRI, both within the party (Dillon 1999a; Dillon 199913) and outside of it (Dillon 1 9 9 9 ~ )The . case of Mexico would therefore seem to indicate that state corporatist forms have ultimately contributed to that country's democratization, a pattern that has occurred elsewhere in Latin America, which is an end result far different from what seems to be occurring in China. While the PRI would seem to want to hold onto its monopoly of power, much like the CCP, it still has permitted the emergence of a political opposition as well as truly independent grassroots organizations, which could be leading Mexico toward societal corporatist forms of governance.

The "Velvet Prison" Another approach to understanding the relationship between the women's movement and the Chinese state can be found in Miklos Haraszti's idea of the "velvet prison." China scholars such as Geremie Barme (1999) and Paul Pickowicz (1995) have noted the relevance of the late-socialist experience in Eastern Europe to contemporary China, and have especially found Haraszti's work to be helpful in this respect. In particular, they note that Haraszti's work finds that in a post-Stalinist era, party-states no longer needed to rely on overt coercion of their artists to maintain their dominance over cultural production, but indeed achieved a level of "totalizing and hegemonic culture" that caused artists to produce "an art of complicity that legitimized and perpetuated the hegemony of the state" (Pickowicz 1995, pp. 194-195). Artists even were able to engage in certain circumscribed critiques, mostly occurring "between the lines" of their work, but which really constituted "self-censorship" which "well suits the state" (Haraszti 1987 [1983], pp. 144-147). In return for such complicity, artists are able to make a living as employees of that same state. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Thus, within the velvet prison most artists merely reinforce the state's "hegemonic project," and those who do not are either the "Nai've Hero" who ends up "ostracized by the artistic community," or the "Maverick Artist" who "aims to be a poor artist in order to remain a free one." Ultimately, for the artist in the velvet prison, "Our strategy is to keep within state culture, to write along rather than between safe lines. The state is more our partner than its opponents are" (Haraszti 1987 [1983], pp. 150-153, 157). For Haraszti, artists within the state socialist system are thus largely co-opted into serving the interests of legitimizing the regime, and the regime creates a structure whereby they "voluntarily" cede to this situation. Yet, there still are certain differences from this predicament in the conditions of the Chinese women's movement. First, many women's groups are not financially supported by the Chinese party-state, but must instead struggle to find their own funds, an effort that occupies much of their time and energy. Often, they depend on grants from foreign foundations to continue their work. Additionally, while the "velvet prison" concept is an almost wholly pessimistic approach to how artists relate to the party-state under state socialism, the women's movement in China today does have a significant critical component, one that has been relatively successful in adding new issues and new organizational forms to a movement that up until the 1980s was thoroughly dominated by the state. While the partystate to some extent does rely on the "self-censorship" of social organizations vis-A-vis their discourses and activities, organizations are also able to create new avenues for social participation and even, in some cases, social critique.

CONCEPTS OF "SYMBIOSIS" At the beginning of The Velvet Prison, Mikl6s Haraszti notes that "This book is about the aesthetics of censorship, the symbiotic relationship between artists and the modern socialist state" (Haraszti 1987 [1983], pp. 5-6). Not surprisingly, given his usage of Haraszti's model, Geremie Barme also refers to the relationship between "political purges" and "commercial gambits" in "official, state-funded culture in China" as in the 1980s becoming "increasingly intertwined in a symbiotic relationship that enmeshed cultural practitioners of all persuasions" (BarmC 1999, p. xiii). Thus, both Haraszti and BarmC observe aspects of "symbiosis" in statesociety relations in state socialist systems. Barme also notes that Haraszti discusses a form of "parasitic innovation," whereby artists end up borrowing from the West but still end up supporting the state socialist regime (Haraszti 1987 [1983], pp. 111-1 14). Such "parasitism" would seem to be to the advantage of the state, which is thus conceptually opposed to the forms of "institutional parasitism" posited by X.L. Ding in his work on post-Mao Chinese state-society relations. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Ding notes that organizations described as "independent" are actually in a "symbiotic relationship with the party-state structures," because they "depended, in greater of lesser degrees, on these official structures for legal or political protection and for personnel or material support." But this "institutional parasitism" goes beyond just groups benefiting from their state ties in material ways to their actual harming of state power and legitimacy, which will ultimately promote erosion of communist institutions "by those working within them" (Ding 1994a, pp. 27, 194). Thus for Ding the opposite relationship to that posited by Barme and Haraszti would seem to predominate-"parasitism" is at the expense of the state and to the benefit of potentially autonomous and oppositional social interests. Yet I assert that a notion of "symbiosis" rather than one of "parasitism" better depicts the relationship between the state and at least some social groups in post-Mao China, and especially in the 1990s. "Symbiosis," like "parasitism" is of course a term originating in the biological sciences. In its biological form, symbiosis often involves a relationship of mutual assistance between partners of unequal size and strength: Symbiosis is a permanent or long-lasting association between two or more different species of organisms. The partners of a symbiosis are called symbiont~and they may benefit from, be harmed by, or not be affected by the association (Ahmadjian and Paracer 1986, p. 1).

The partners often perform very different tasks for each other, but their mutual aim is survival, which may be promoted through their cooperation in nutritional aspects, but also in "physical" benefits such as "protection." In fact, biological symbiosis exists in a number of different types. First, commensalism is seen where one partner benefits and the other is neither harmed nor benefitted. Second, mutualism is where both symbionts benefit. Finally, parasitism, befitting its name, is where one "partner" benefits, usually in receiving nutrients, at the expense of its host organism (Ahmadjian and Paracer 1986, p. 2)." Thus, "symbiosis" is a concept that is wider than "parasitism," and may be thus used to illuminate multifaceted elements of social relations. The term "symbiosis" has been applied beyond biology to the humanities, for instance to describe literary endeavors (Cowart 1993). Perhaps most interestingly, the term has even been applied as a philosophical system by the Japanese architect and philosopher ICisho ICurokawa. This is particularly relevant for purposes of understanding state-society relations, and their particularistic patterns in Asia. ICurokawa himself especially emphasizes the uniquely Asian context for his philosophy, and it thus may be more useful in understanding social relations in that region than Western-derived concepts like "civil society" or "corporatism." ICurokawa theorizes "symbiosis" as a zone of "intermediary space", which can create "tentative understanding" between parties, but he sees it as different from "harmony, coexistence, or compromise". Symbiosis incorporates mutual Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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elements of opposition and understanding, tension and creativity, individuality and sharing. While "coexistence" features hostility, "harmony" comprises the absence of contention, and "compromise" involves passively sharing ground in a moratorium, "symbiosis" in ICurokawa's model consists of both competition and mutual tolerance. Ultimately, he feels that such a relationship can, among other things, "spark a level of creativity impossible for either party to achieve alone" (ICurokawa 1997, pp. 16-17). Thus, for ICurokawa, the mere idea of "symbiosis" incorporates a social notion into the mutual existence of potentially opposed constituents that is inherent to the biological usage of the term: "What I mean by 'symbiosis' is a relationship of mutual need-while competition, opposition, and struggle continue" (p. 76). ICurokawa's view of "symbiosis" looks at how these relationships might exist in a multiplicity of social settings.18 His observation that this kind of relationship does exist between "two essentially opposing-and mutually exclusive elements" is especially important for the purposes of viewing the Chinese women's movement as not just being an entity co-opted by the Chinese party-state for its own purposes. "Symbiosis" still allows for elements of "struggle," in ICurokawa's framework. This can include elements of "resistance" to existing and even hegemonic social and political orders. Some theorists do believe that such resistance can occur in close proximity to the state and perhaps even within the institutions of state power.19 With respect to the Chinese case, some observers note that "challenges from below" to state power will occur "at the local levels of the economy and polity rather than at the top" (Brook and Frolic 1997a, p. 14). A symbiotic relationship is also one that is not necessarily static, but which changes over time, including in response to changes in the environment external to the s y m b i o n t ~There . ~ ~ are elements of ICurokawa's theory that are also relevant in this respect, including his view that modernity leads to "the possibility that myriad unique individuals may flourish in symbiosis," diverse cultures distinctively adapting technologies, and what he sees as a "global paradigm shift" featuring numerous ways that the world is evolving toward aspects of cultural symbiosis, toward the emergence of "Asian civilization" into global significance, toward the shift from linear to more networked forms of organization stressing horizontal relationships, and toward a new emphasis on "life principles" (ICurokawa 1997, pp. 24-41). His stress on Asia's particular role in this paradigm shift includes looking at China's melding of socialism with market economics. China's increasing connections to global political norms as well as to the global economy are of relevance here, and the question of how the Chinese party-state and Chinese society deal with these connections, and the changes they have wrought, is an important part of the discussion regarding state-society relations in China. ICurokawa argues that "purebred" culture is in fact unstable, and that it is necessary for any society or culture to incorporate "heterogeneous eleCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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ments" to avoid "a path of decline" (Kurokawa 1997, pp. 83-87). Thus, in relation to "globalization" processes, the adaption on the part of the Chinese party-state to these processes, rather than its wholesale rejection of them, may be necessary to safeguard the survival of that party-state. The society-state relationship can be seen as "symbiotic" in this way. O n the one hand, social groups employ a "strategy" whereby they "deliberately 'blur' the demarcation between the state and associations, or 'sacrifice' their autonomy in order to survive and develop, or to change the structure or policy of the state from within" (He 1997, p. 8, emphasis added). On the other hand, not only do groups rely on at least the tolerance of the state for their survival, but the state can also benefit from recognizing some such groups, rather than eliminating them. In this sense, "symbiosis" would represent a number of aspects of the state-society relationship: (1)It would denote that both sides are engaged in the relationship as a means of ensuring their own survival.21 (2)It would denote that both sides may have something to gain from the relationship, that one side may gain and the other side may neither gain nor lose, or one side may gain and the other side may lose. This corresponds to the three types of biological symbiosis: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism, respectively. (3) It would denote that both sides are engaged in a kind of evolutionary learning process that allows their relationship to be one of mutual engagement, information-seeking, and adaptation to changing circumstances. (4) It would further thus emphasize that the relationship between state and social groups is one of a constant negotiation process, one in which neither side is inexorably "winning" or "losing" but engaging in a relationship which may involve conflict but may also involve mutual advancement. (5) It would also indicate that boundaries between the two sides are fluid and adaptable, rather than fixed and rigid. (6) It would allow us to understand how each side deals with its external environment. This especially includes how both state and society seek to address the paradoxes of globalization and how these affect their existence. In such a situation, social groups coexist with a state that seeks to ensure its own survival and perhaps even to increase its power. Social groups manage to some extent to independently organize and articulate opinions, or to "auto-organize," but only "through a judicious balance between cooperation and critique" (Brook 1997, p. 45). In other words, independent organizing and any manifestation of "civil society" that China is experiencing is "the result as much of accommodation with the state as of resistance to it" (Brook and Frolic 1997a, p. 7). At the same time, however, it would appear that such quasi-autonomous organizations are in some cases taking over Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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"functions formerly exercised by the state," thereby extending "the reach of the state" (Frolic 1997, p. 57). Such a process may help fill in the gaps created in state provision of services caused by integration into the globalizing economy (Cerny 1995), a perhaps especially important function given the role of such provision in the Asian statist model of governance that in locales like Singapore provides "support systems," as well as "moral legitimacy" for the state (Ong 1997, p. 185). This is a means through which "the party-state ...may in fact be the main beneficiary of the activities of a good many" of the new social associations (Shue 1994, p. 83). The existence of such services may, among other things, stem the tide of "regime delegitimation" posited by Ding as having occurred in the post-Mao era (Ding 1994a), especially making the rupture between socialist and marketizing social and economic forms less disruptive. An idea of a symbiotic relation between the state and social groups is one way that we can reconcile the apparent dilemmas of a state that seems to be both withdrawing from many elements of social life and one that also appears to desire more power in certain ways-in other words, explaining the paradox of the emergence of seemingly independent and active social groups with a continued Party monopoly on political power. In the following chapter, I will look at how this dilemma is reflected in different aspects of how the state, society, and culture all function in the context of a world that is, arguably, increasingly globalized in its interactions. The Chinese party-state's "hegemonic project," one positing an "alternative modernity" in the words of Aihwa Ong (1997),has shifted in response to globalization, but it has not dissolved.

RESEARCH AND OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS Between June 1995 and June 1996 I interviewed approximately 50 women's movement participants in a variety of movement sectors in Beijing-women's studies scholars at universities and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, women's activists in NGOs, women's magazine and newspaper journalists, and Women's Federation cadres. The emphasis was particularly on the former two sectors, and I interviewed leaders, members, and volunteers from all major Beijing NGOs and university women's studies centers, as well as a number of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. All interviewees except one were female.22Interviews varied in length from a half hour to four hours-the average length was about two hours each. Some interviews also featured follow-up meetings, some of which occurred several times. Interviews were conducted primarily in Chinese. About half of the interviews were tape recorded-in the other half a Chinese assistant took notes and typed up transcripts in Chinese. Other than the presence of that assistant, most interviews took place in the sole company of the interviewee. Many interviews took place in the office of the person being interviewed. Some occurred in interviewees' Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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homes, and several took place in public places like parks or restaurants. In a few cases during the course of the interview we moved to a locale where the informant felt more comfortable speaking. Most interviews followed a set schedule of questions addressing issues relating to organizational aspects of women's groups, their relationship to the state, and personal information about the interviewee and her interest in the women's movement. Some interviewees were more interested in having unstructured conversations and in these cases I discarded the pre-determined questions, because these conversations were always very fruitful. In addition to formal interviews, I also had a number of informal conversations with various activists and concerned women, and information from these conversations is also included where relevant. All uncited material in the text comes from these interviews and conversations. In addition to the interviews, I attended meetings of a number of women's groups, including the Women's Hotline, the China Capital Women Journalists' Association, and the East Meets West Translation Group. I also attended a conference in Beijing in June 1995 on "Chinese Women and Feminist Thought" as well as many of the Chinese-sponsored workshops at the N G O Forum on Women. Finally, I collected a wide variety of print materials relating to the Chinese women's movement. These included women's magazines and newspapers, scholarly journals, books, pamphlets of women's groups, and internal newsletters of women's groups. I particularly concentrated on obtaining as many of the publications of the various NGOs as I could find, as well as finding the leading works on women's studies coming out during this period. The following chapters draw upon both interviews and written sources. In Chapter 2, "Social Movements and Globalization," I examine ideas regarding the effects of globalization on political, social, and cultural spheres, especially those connecting to social movements and state efforts at containment of them. I assert that globalization is a contradictory process, with both "global" and "local" effects. Part 11, on the Beijing women's movement, addresses the organizational and individual components of this movement. Chapter 3, "The Politics of the Beijing Movement in the 1 9 9 0 ~ ~examines " various aspects of the women's movement as it has developed in this decade, particularly focusing on the different activities and discourses of groups considered "nongovernmental," and why it is accurate to term them a "movement." Chapter 4 examines the identities of individual activists. I classify them into four types: Compulsory, Accidental, Voluntary, and Career Activists. I then turn to their reasons for women's activism, and its effects on their own lives. Finally, I examine the role that "feminism" has played in Communist China, and the emergence during the 1990s of women's movement activists willing to identify themselves as "feminists." Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Part I11 situates the Beijing movement in relation to social movement theory, and especially looks at it in the context of the opportunities provided by the Fourth World Conference on Women, convened in Beijing in September 1995. In Chapter 5, I look at the political and economic opportunities, both endogenous and exogenous, of the Chinese women's movement in the post-Mao period. I show that attention to exogenous as well as endogenous influences is necessary in order to fully explain the flowering of new forms of women's organizing in the 1990s in China, and especially in Beijing. The political opportunity of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the economic opportunity of the Ford Foundation's willingness to fund independent women's activities provided crucial reasons for the emergence of the women's movement in the 1990s. In Chapter 6, I look at the organizational features of this movement. I examine "local" types of organizational attributes, such as the need for all social groups to have a "supervisory work unit," as well as the wide networks existing among Chinese women's movement activists. I also look at international influences on local organizational forms, in particular the rapid expansion of groups identifying themselves as "NGOs." I discuss what this means in the Chinese context and I assert that, even though its Chinese form has differences from its Western counterparts, the term is still a meaningful one in contemporary China. In Chapter 7, I look at "framing" in the women's movement. First, I look at the ways in which a women's "collective identity" has been enhanced during the 1990s, and how international influences have been a part of that emergence. Then I examine how elite women's movement organizers are seeking to spread their discourses to a wider segment of the Chinese population. Finally, I look at some of the new discourses of this movement, and in particular the increasing acceptance of women's issues that were introduced from abroad. These include reproductive health, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. In the conclusion, I re-examine the implications of a symbiotic understanding of social movement emergence in contemporary China. I argue that "symbiosis" is a useful way of understanding the mutualistic interactions between a state still seeking political hegemony and new social forms emerging in part due to the pressures as well as the inspirations provided by globalization processes.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

State Legitimacy, Social Organization, and Symbiosis

This account is a reconstruction based on interviews with two Chinese women's movement activists and a foreigner close to the movement, all of whom were in Manila as part of the independent delegation. In Chapter 2, I will look at elements of social movement theory and ideas of globalization, and ways in which ideas of "symbiosis" can be utilized to further understanding of social movements and globalization in certain contexts. One useful review of some of this literature is found in Gu Xin (199311994). I will further discuss the applicability of notions of civil society to China later in this chapter. Similarly, Li and O'Brien (1996 ) note that the "policy-based resistance" that they find to be occurring in Chinese villages to be "mindful and circumscribed, local and parochial, rather than national and autonomous." But they also do argue that such resistance has the potential to be regarded as the "early stirrings of rights consciousness in the Chinese countryside" which "may lead to new identities and heightened expectations" (pp. 54-55). Naihua Zhang and Wu Xu (1995) also argue for the existence of a women's movement in China. See also, for example, Katzenstein (1987, p. 3); and Mohanty (1991, p. 33). Whittier (1995) is a detailed study that looks at feminism as a local-level phenomenon.

'

Sperling (1997) utilizes social movement theory to analyze the contemporary Russian women's movement, but this is more for its contemporary, post-communist manifestations than for its forms during the rule of the Communist Party. This is one of its significant differences from the labor movement, which of course Solidarity was an example of as well. In the following chapter I will further discuss some of the implications of globalization for state-society relations. lo For some of the news releases regarding this law and clearly connecting it to China's international image, see Xinhua (1992a; 1992b; 1992c; 1992d) and Wang Rong (1992). l1 For arguments on the relevance of concepts of public sphere and civil society to China historically, see Rankin (1993), Rowe (1990), and Rowe (1993). For arguments favorably assessing China's contemporary prospects for civil society, see Gold (1990), McCormick, Su, and Xiao (1992), and Whyte (1992). Among others, X.L. Ding (1994a; 1994b) has written with a more critical approach regarding the applicability of ideas of "civil society" to China.

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l2 Even in their already relaxed "sociological conception" of civil society, White, Howell, and Shang note that groups in civil society "are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or extend their interests or values" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, p. 3). l3 I will discuss this phenomenon at greater length in Chapter 6. l4 White, Howell, and Shang note that Chinese "civil society" contains an "inter-

stitial sector" that does not fit neatly into the "caged sector" of "mass organizations" or the "incorporated sector" of new social organizations, and that this interstitial sector especially includes "unofficial workers' and women's organizations" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 10-1 1). l5 For the Mexican case, see, e.g., Harvey (1993a). l6 I will show in later chapters how international recognition has also helped to

preserve the safety of Chinese women's organizations. l 7 Perhaps children's literature demonstrates the issue of unequal-sized partners best, with titles about symbiosis such as Big Friend, Little Friend (Sussman and James 1989). Biological examples include the giant sea anemone, which stings and eats fish, and the damselfish, which escapes this fate through helping the anemone get food. In turn, the anemone provides the damselfish with a safe home (Wright 1994, pp. 2-3).

I h o k a w a , BarmC, and Ding are not the only authors to observe the presence of "symbiosis" in Asian social relations. Peter Berger (1986, p. 158) has noted that a government-business "symbiosis" is "specifically East Asian." l9 Jessop looks at the disagreement between Foucault, who believed that "microrevolts" could only succeed if "their supporters refused to be incorporated into the state" and Poulantzas, who felt that "it is impossible to locate oneself outside (state) power" (Jessop 1990, p. 229).

20 "Terms such as mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism are used to conveniently categorize associations. But many relationships are not static and there may be frequent transitions from one type to another. Symbiotic associations may change because of environmental factors or internal influences caused by the development of the symbionts" (Ahmadjian and Paracer 1986, p. 2). 21 In this respect, it is significant that the Chinese party-state passed the Management Regulations on the Registration of Social Organizations in October 1989, after the events in Tiananmen Square. Such regulations require, in some fairly nebulous ways, for all social groups to register with a guakao danwei, or supervisory work unit (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 103-106). It would seem that this law's intent was seeking a way to manage the perhaps unstoppable tide of social organizing, without forbidding it entirely.

22 I provide more personal information on interviewees in Chapter 4, on activist identities. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER TWO

Social Movements and Globalization

In the previous chapter, I briefly showed how some scholars feel that globalization processes can lead to declines in state legitimacy, as well as how IZisho IZurokawa feels that "symbiosis" is one way that participants in social relationships may adapt to changes in their external environment like those created by globalization. In subsequent chapters I will show how international factors were centrally important in inspiring an expansion in Chinese women's movement activism, as well as the Chinese party-state's ultimate willingness to tolerate much of that expansion. In this chapter, I will look at some components of social movement theory, as well as some theories of globalization. In particular, I will focus upon some aspects of both sets of theory that are particularly relevant to ideas of (1)a symbiotic social movement in a non-democratic context such as China, and (2)the potential effects and contradictions of globalization processes for such a movement. Such attention is necessary for a number of reasons. First, examining the implications of globalization at the level of local social movements enables us to assess how globalization processes affect the potentialities for local social movements, to see how the ambiguities of these processes are played out at the level of individuals and groups, and to consider how the processes interact with a state that, particularly in nondemocratic contexts such as contemporary China, is seeking to capture the benefits of globalization while deflecting the costs to its own hegemony. These ambiguities of the globalization process, as theorized by numerous analysts, are summarized in the following table, the contents of which I will discuss below at greater length.

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Table 2.1---Contradictions of globalization "GLOBAL" "LOCAL" LEVELOF AKALYSIS Effects on state Decline Statism Relativism Effects on culture Hybridity Effects on society Global civil society Suppression1 symbiosis

At all three levels of analysis, there are greatly diverging views as to the effects of the globalization process. To understand these contradictions, it is first necessary to define what is meant here by "globalization"-specifically, economic, social, and cultural processes and structures that transcend national boundaries, and require such cross-border analysis in order to be fully understood. This conception thus not only includes the international political economy, but also transborder social and cultural flows. Globalization implies that there is an abstract process occurring that is beyond the control of individual nation-states. This differs somewhat from the concept of "transnationalism," which can be viewed as a smaller-scale, more direct relationship across one or more national borders.' While there is consensus on the increasing relevance of processes of globalization and transnationalism for politics, society, and culture in the contemporary era, there is less agreement on the actual effects of such processes at these levels of analysis. For purposes of analytic simplicity, I here differentiate between "global" and "local" perspectives. The "global" paradigm points to the universalizing tendencies of globalization processes. Thus, at the level of the state, globalization is regarded as ultimately leading to a decline in the capacity of the nation-state to meet the needs of its citizens; at the level of culture, cultural "hybrids" or "cosmopolitans" whose identities are not just rooted in their national cultures are becoming increasingly commonplace; at the level of society, a "global civil society" is emerging which features increasing citizen participation and transnational actions which often serve to fill in for the receding nation-state. Alternatively, the "local" paradigm looks at the ways in which processes of globalization are adapted for local-level contexts, and how diversity is maintained. Thus, at the state level, globalization is seen to be compatible with the continued presence of a strong state; and at the cultural level, continuing cultural diversity and even relativism is seen as viable and necessary. As will be seen, discourses emanating from some Asian states are particularly salient in these areas. The "local" perspective on societal-level effects has to this point not been clearly analyzed but would seem to possibly indicate possibilities for suppression or for symbiosis with respect to new social forms and their relationship to the state. Second, "transnational social movements" are a currently popular topic of analysis in studies of comparative politics and international relations Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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(e.g., Smith 1995; Smith, Chatfield, and Pagnucco 1997; Tarrow 1998). Some of the analytical tools found in discussions of globalization processes would be useful in analyses of social movements at the transnational level, for these tools seek to assess the domestic-level implications of these processes, a matter that tends to be overlooked in many analyses of "transnational social movements." Thus, while this literature has begun to fill in some of the questions left unanswered by the largely domestic-oriented social movements literature, it still tends to be unsatisfying in many of its claims and conclusions. Attention to the local-level effects on social movements of globalization would be valuable in all of the areas addressed by social movement theory. The three typical levels of analysis of social movement analysis, "political opportunities," "framing processes," and "mobilizing structures," correspond with the levels of state, culture, and society in theorizing about globalization. When connecting analyses of globalization to social movement theory in this way, the question thus arises of how transnational ties influence or alter each of these variables in domestic contexts. A vital part of the explanation for the development of the Chinese women's movement in the 1990s connects to processes of globalization, and attention to these processes is generally an important amendment to promote in social movement theory. International influences can alter multiple aspects of social movement emergence and development. In later chapters, I will focus upon endogenous and exogenous aspects of political opportunity structures, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings. While I admit that the internal or external origins of such factors can often be difficult to separate-and in fact an argument that stresses the international origins of domestic political outcomes resists such a separation-this can still be a useful exercise in that it enables us to go further towards proving that in some cases it is the exogenous influences that have determining force. In the following sections, I will look at recent social movement theorizing on political, social, and cultural levels, and how these theories might be supplemented by analyses of globalization's effects at these same levels.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES As social movement theorist Doug McAdam has noted on more than one occasion (1996; 1998), that now-orthodox term of social movement parlance, "political opportunity structure," has its origins in an observation made by Michael Lipsky that "We are accustomed to describing communist political systems as 'experiencing a thaw' or 'going through a process of retrenchment.' Should it not at least be an open question of whether the American political system experiences such stages and fluctuations?" (Lipsky 1970, p. 14). A few years after Lipsky posed this question, Peter Eisinger employed the term "structure of political opportunities" to Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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describe this phenomenon in American urban politics (Eisinger 1973). Since that time, "political opportunity structure" (POS) has achieved wide acceptance as a valuable means of analyzing social movement emergence and development, and generally has become viewed to be one of the three central building-blocks of the political process approach to social movement analysis, along with "mobilizing structures" and "framing processes" (McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996a). For McAdam, the political process approach views "the timing and fate of movements as largely dependent upon the opportunities afforded insurgents by the shifting institutional structure and ideological disposition of those in power" (McAdam 1996, p. 23). These "opportunities" are usually defined in terms of the political opportunity structure, which Sidney Tarrow defines as "consistent-but not necessarily formal or permanent-dimensions of the political environment that provide incentives for people to undertake collective action by affecting their expectations for success or failure" (Tarrow 1994, p. 85). McAdam, as well as others, stresses POS to be "those features of institutional politics which simultaneously facilitate and constrain collective action" (McAdam 1998, emphasis added). However, such a focus tends to divert attention away from movements where "access to power" is not a central movement goal. While some analysts emphasize "static differences between states" in assessing political opportunity structures, others focus on "changing opportunities within states" (Tarrow 1996, pp. 60-61). Tarrow particularly seeks to focus upon such intra-state changes in political opportunity, although he also notes the importance of "more stable structural elements-like the strength or weakness of the state, the forms of repression employed by it and the nature of the party system" (Tarrow 1994, p. 81). In recent years, however, it has been pointed out that such changes can also vary within states for different social movements-what Tarrow refers to as "group-specific opportunities" and "infranational variation" (Tarrow 1996). In other words, it can be argued that elements of POS, such as the state's inclination to repress a given movement, might vary for different types of movements. Thus, movements employing different strategies vis-Avis the state innately have different "opportunity structures" for their emergence and development. Vincent Boudreau argues that "Genuine movement opportunity, therefore, represents the concrete possibilities a social structure contains for movement advance in light of the movement's own social demands and capacities" (Boudreau 1996, p. 176). The POS varies, then, with respect to any given movement's goals and strategies. If a movement does not pose an explicit threat to state power, for instance, such a movement could be more acceptable to that given state, even if the state has been known to repress other movements. This has indeed been the case with the Chinese women's movement in the 1990s. A women's movement may be more oriented toward social than political Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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change, and so its challenges may face more in the direction of society and individuals than the state. Ironically, the concept whose initial inspiration was provided to Lipsky by thinking about opening and closing within communist systems has rarely been applied to non-democratic or communist systems. Some usages of the concept of POS do, however, point out that there can be differences in how social movements mobilize in different political systems. Tarrow notes that "repressive states depress collective action of a conventional and a confrontational sort, but leave themselves open to unobtrusive mobilization; a signal for solidarity that becomes a resource when opportunities arise" (Tarrow 1994, p. 93). Women's movements are perhaps particularly suited to just such organizational forms (Katzenstein 1990). The role that generalized signs from the political system play in social movement emergence is evident, for instance, in the formation of numerous social movements in the Soviet Union of the late 1980s, even prior to the first competitive elections there. Such signs in that case resulted from Gorbachev's advocacy of a policy of glasnost, or openness, which led to the ability of social actors to openly express discontent, and to the founding of social movements which were "outside the official process of political participation" but nonetheless had important political and social effects (Butterfield and Sedaitis 1991, pp. 2-3). Another study of Russian social movements notes that "identity-framing" of the pro-democratic movement was a central activity when overt opposition was not yet possible (Zdravomyslova 1996)-in other words, some types of social movement activity were more viable than others given the opportunities existent. And in his study of the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, Anthony Oberschall (1996) points out the importance of certain components of the POS, such as lack of domestic legitimacy and international opportunities, to overcome even low capacity to mobilize in nondemocratic contexts. "Economic Opportunity"

An additional recent modification to ideas of political opportunity structure is the concept of "economic opportunity." In her work on the contemporary Russian women's movement, Valerie Sperling argues that there needs to be attention not only to the political opportunity structure but also to other aspects of "opportunity" in understanding social movement emergence in such a post-Leninist context, one of which is "economic opportunity" (Sperling 1997). Some social movement theorists also do argue for the need to separate a movement's political opportunities from its other resources (Rucht 1996, p. 188; McAdam 1996, p. 26). The general contribution of these perspectives is the argument that there is a need, at least in some cases, to widen the concept of political opportunity structure to embrace other aspects of "opportunity" facilitating social movement emergence. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Such attention to the particular and possibly essential contribution of "economic opportunities" to social movements is an amendment to ideas of POS that I will pursue with respect to the Chinese women's movement. Valerie Sperling has a two-level definition of the concept of "economic opportunity structure" that is quite useful in this respect. The first level is "the occurrence of rapid, fundamental economic changes in society that may inspire or depress organizing," for example, increasing women's unemployment, which creates the contradictory trends of the need for women's mobilization but also increasing poverty deterring organizing. The second level is "local infrastructural conditions that facilitate or limit the possibilities for social movement organizing," such as communications costs and cost of outreach techniques (Sperling 1997, p. 17). While one contribution of POS theories is to show the reasons that even groups lacking extensive resources of their own are sometimes able to mobilize for collective action (see Tarrow 1994), the question is still left open as to what strategies are available to such groups, and if such strategies are available in non-democratic contexts in particular. While it may be possible, especially in the heat of a protest cycle's peak, to get many people to participate in demonstrations without possessing great financial means, there are other types of action which may require resources more economic in nature. Groups seeking, for instance, to resolve social problems or to conduct research may need very different types of resources than those seeking to protest against the government. Globalization Processes and Movement Opportunities Another issue facing theories of political opportunity structure can be found in Tarrow's discussion of "changing opportunities within states" (Tarrow 1996, pp. 60-61, emphasis added). H o w can this be linked to contending views regarding the effects of globalization on the nation-state? On the one hand, numerous analysts, including some in the field of international relations, argue that globalization processes have led to the decline of the nation-state as a useful and functional "civil association" (Cerny 1995). O n the other hand, recent decades have also seen the emergence of alternative discourses, particularly in East Asia, positing the potential effectiveness of a strong state in a global capitalist environment. Each of these polar positions have important implications for how we think about the relationship between globalization and the political opportunities presented to social movements. Views of the declining nation-state in the context of globalization tend to treat this phenomenon as the outgrowth both of the effects of the global capitalist economy on state capacity and state autonomy, as well as of the concomitant development of forms of organization to fill that gap. This is seen in particular in views that the global economy has led to a decrease in the ability of the nation-state to fulfill its citizens' needs (e.g., Cerny Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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1995). Numerous authors note that this decline in the nation-state's effectiveness has led to the emergence of alternative forms of ~ r g a n i z a t i o n . ~ Ronnie Lipschutz terms these developments "state incompetence and social competence" (1992, p. 407), and sees them as one cause of the emergence of a "global civil society," a historical process arising from the conjunction of three changes: first, the 'fading away' of anarchy among states and its replacement by a different type of norm-governed global system rooted in the global capitalist consumer culture; second, at the functional, micro-level, the inability of states to deal with certain social welfare problems resulting in increasing efforts by non-state actors to address them; and, third, the crumbling of old forms of political identity, centred on the state, and the growth of new forms of political and social identity that are challenging the Gramscian hegemony of statist world politics (Lipschutz 1992, p. 392).

In this way, we might say that some theorists of globalization tie its processes to widened "political opportunity structures" for social movements. Below I will discuss some of these possibilities. Others, however, do still see nation-states as quite salient even amidst globalizing tendencies. The view of the continuing relevance of states in the globalization process is developed by Andrew Hurrell and Ngaire Woods in their analysis of "Globalization and Inequality" (Hurrell and Woods 1995). These authors critique what they describe as the "liberal" view of globalization, which has many attributes in common with the view of the declining nation-state. Liberals tend to view globalization as an inexorable process whereby states are increasingly superseded in the international system by economic relationships, international organizations, and "international civil society." Hurrell and Woods argue that "inequality" among states, seen in terms of hierarchical relationships among states and the unevenness of the globalization process, matters in terms of how globalization is experienced by individual states. They examine factors such as state strength, international institutions and values, and transnational civil society to show the ways in which the effects of globalization vary across contexts. One way in which "globalization" is being "experienced," according to some students of the East Asian situation, is very different from the model espoused by the "liberal" viewpoint. Indeed, what I will here term the "statism" of the East Asian archetype is regarded by some as an alternative discourse, with hegemonic potential, to those universalistic doctrines emanating from the West (see Dirlik 1996; Ong 1996; Ong 1997; Ong and Nonini 1997a). In two recent essays anthropologist Aihwa Ong examines the role played by the East Asian "dragons" in creating an "alternative modernity": In Asia, state narratives insist that their modernity is an alternative to the West because from the viewpoint of Asian states, capitalism should strengthen state control, not undermine it. The major difference from modernities in the West thus lies in the way state biopolitics and economCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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ic competition are routinely recast as timeless cultural practices and values, and in the way events generated by the breaking down of national borders are managed through the institutionalization of Confucian moral economies, set off against Western liberal democracies. These hegemonic moves seek to instill cultural solidarity and control in the diverse populations while deflecting Western domination in the economic and political realms (Ong 1997, pp. 195-196).

A primary component of this view of modernity is the view that a strong state can maintain a central role while also promoting economic growth. In discussing this alternative hegemony, Ong especially examines "dominant imaginariesv-East Asian statist discourses, particularly those from Singapore and from mainland China (Ong 1997, p. 173). For example, Deng Xiaoping's "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" subscribes to the view that "market forces have been released for the strengthening of the nation." Ong notes how the mainland Chinese leadership especially looks to Singapore as a model for its own economic growth and political stability, finding that it has successfully blended capitalist economics with authoritarian politics. This East Asian statism is therefore fundamentally an effort to oversee the effects of globalization, to capture its profitable components while avoiding those aspects that challenge state hegemony. This view is also evident in the discussion by Christopher Hughes of how the Chinese state has reconstituted the Western notion of liberalism to better fit its own political interests (Hughes 1995). Hughes contests views of "international society" and the "socialization" of states to assert his viewpoint that rather than being "socialized" by this system, China has instead socialized it for its own needs. In this formulation, China has "anthropomorphized" itself to look at its own rights as an "individual" in a "society" of states, thus altering the liberal emphasis on the freedoms of individual persons. The stress on China's "nation-building" is consistent with the account of Ong, showing how China has searched for means to "modernize" without also "Westernizing." Hughes notes that even prodemocracy dissidents have had to frame their discourses in terms of "national salvation," evidence of cultural adaptation that may be a manifestation of discursive symbiosis. He in the end agrees with Ong that the Chinese model has elements that seriously repudiate the hegemony of Enlightenment universalist liberalism, and that it is important to account for the local adaptation of ideas that originate in the international system. Thus, the "globalization" perspective tends to focus on the demise of the nation-state and the corresponding increase in importance of non-state actors and forms of identity in the international system. O n the other hand, East Asian statist discourses assert the continuing and potentially even increasing role of the state in a model that also does feature economic success. How is this apparent contradiction mediated in political praxis? Ong notes the role played by the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Social Movements and Globalization subaltern groups who bear the main burden of Asian capitalist success [and] are almost never mentioned in dominant discourses of the Asian way. Though indispensable to capitalist success in the region, they are rendered invisible and speechless, an effect of the symbolic violence of triumphalist Chinese modernity (Ong 1997, p. 192).

What might we learn from listening to "subaltern counterpublics," as termed by Nancy Fraser (1992)' How are these groups influenced by, and how do they react to, globalization processes? H o w does their invisibility reflect continuing state power in the face of globalization, or, on the other hand, how do they express their positionality in a way that either subverts or supports the statist project? One area in which some subaltern groups are evident and thus amenable to study is that of social movements. Social movements are one important means of viewing how globalization is "experienced" by societal-level groups. And political opportunity structures provide one connection between the effects on the state of globalization and social movements. Globalization and transnationalism create a number of conditions which could alter the political opportunity structure of a given local-level social movement. Taking international forces into account is a modification in conventional, domestically-oriented approaches to political opportunity structure, and has begun to be discussed in analyses of domestic POS (e.g., McAdam 1998). In this context, an important question to ask is "how are domestic political actors' calculations affected by international influences?" I will here discuss two examples of the potential effects on domestic POS of globalization processes: (1) the various ways in which transnational ties can alter the relevance of the national state to a given social movement's tactics and aspirations; (2) the impact that greater availability of information has had on social movements' political opportunities. Numerous scholars of transnational social movements and related phenomena have noted the possibility for local-level social movements to bypass their own states and move their main arena of action to other states, international organizations, or even to other interested publics. Keck and Sikkink refer to this as the "boomerang pattern," whereby "domestic NGOs bypass their state and directly search out international allies to try to bring pressure on their states from outside" (Keck and Sikkink 1998, p. 12). Smith views this as a strategy to "exploit the vulnerabilities of states that are created by interdependencies" (Smith 1995, pp. 190,209). As discussed above, numerous analysts argue that the globalization process creates just such interdependencies. Thus, it can be argued that any state that is imbricated in the global economy or international society will also face an alteration of its political opportunity structure for local-level social movements. This is particularly the case for social movements in repressive, non-democratic societies who lack institutionalized domestic channels Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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within which to act. In the case of the Chinese women's movement in the 1990s, the increased attention to women's situation in China caused by the convening of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing led to the Chinese state correspondingly being less able or willing to repress women's organizing. In particular, this opening in the domestic-level POS in the 1990s due to an international cause led to a significant expansion in the numbers and variety of women's organizations in China, as I will show in Chapter 5. Second, the greater availability of information to a wider variety of actors due to globalization alters the political landscape upon which social movements operate. As noted above, numerous authors link declining state power to the end of the state's ability to monopolize information flows. Numerous social movement theorists also find this to be the case. For instance, Jackie Smith (1994) observes that transnational social movement organizations can provide global political information to their members and raise citizens' consciousness regarding international political processes. Keck and Sikkink (1998) note the importance of "information politics" to their view of transnational advocacy networks, finding that governments can no longer contain or control the circulation of information. With respect to the Chinese women's movement, both activists and the state learned from contact with the international women's movement, and this learning was part of the evolution of a more cooperative relationship between the movement and the state, as well as widely expanded discursive forms. As can thus be expected, elements of the literature on transnational social movements tend to reinforce the argument supporting state decline, finding that transnationalism can often create new opportunities for social movements. I assert that it is more important to assess the actual interactions between elites and subalterns, some of whom may be social movement participants. Transnationalism may alter political opportunities in such a way that social movements have greater latitude to promote their discourses, but it also may contribute to elites' efforts to subdue, suppress, contain, or alter such discourses in a manner more in line with their own interests. It is on this terrain that one important interaction between views of state decline and those supporting statist perspectives can be seen to be occurring.

FRAMING AND "GLOBAL CULTURE" "Framing" is defined by two of its most noted theorists as a process whereby movements "frame, or assign meaning to and interpret, relevant events and conditions in ways that are intended to mobilize potential adherents and constituents, to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists" (Snow and Benford 1988, p. 198). In Snow and Benford's definition, "framing" can be seen as fundamentally occurring on two levels. First, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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there is the level of attracting supporters to the movement, or "potential adherents and constituents." An important part of this is the creation of "collective identity" among movement participants. A second level of framing consists of the movement's efforts to spread its viewpoints to the population at large, as well as to influence the state in whatever ways it sees as pertinent to its goals-"to garner bystander support, and to demobilize antagonists." This is fundamentally related to the ways that movements adapt and change social, cultural, and political meanings in efforts to ameliorate social problems. The first aspect of framing, creating collective identity, is evident in Klandermans's view that protest is "socially constructed"-its meanings are formulated within social contexts, not by individuals in isolation (Klanderrnans 1992). Doug McAdam asserts that "expanding cultural opportunities" can be a "stimulus to action" for social movements. Such opportunities include "ideological or cultural contradictions" between values and social practices, "suddenly imposed grievances," "dramatizations of system vulnerability," and "the availability of master frames" (McAdam 1994, pp. 39-43). Many of the factors enumerated by McAdam were present for the Chinese women's movement, especially during the 1990s, and they connect to the expansion of both domestic and international movement frames. These included increasing gender inequalities under the postMao reforms contrasting with statist discourses on equality, and a new "master frame" provided by contact with the international women's movement through preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women. Such cultural contradictions can contribute to the type of "framing tasks" necessary to promote collective identity among potential movement supporters. In particular, the promotion of an "injustice framework" requires that movement participants view the problems they are addressing to be systemic, rather than individual-level (Klanderrnans 1988, pp. 177-179; Tarrow 1994, pp. 122-123). Through such framing, movement participants connect problems to larger social causes and begin to construct a "collective identity." Taylor and Whittier define "collective identity" to be "the shared definition of a group that derives from members' common interests, experiences, and solidarity" (Taylor and Whittier 1995, p. 171). Such an identity on the part of the Chinese women's movement has been in the process of construction through the post-Mao period, and was particularly intensified during the 1990s. In particular, this has involved some women taking a much more active and subjective view of their generalized condition and means of ameliorating it. Movements also engage in a second level of framing-the "production of meaning for participants, antagonists, and observers." In particular, movements are agents in the adaption and innovation of cultural forms. There are a diversity of targets for such framing efforts as movements seek to "frame social problems and injustices in a way that convinces a wide and Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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diverse audience of the necessity for and utility of collective attempts to redress them." McCarthy and his colleagues, for instance, center upon media, public, governmental, and electoral arenas (McCarthy, Smith, and Zald 1996, pp. 291,293). Clearly in varying contexts, and for diverse types of movements, different aspects of these arenas will be much more pertinent than others. While the activist contingent of the Chinese women's movement consists of a rather small coterie of urban intellectual women, they seek to disseminate their views as well as their desire to provide assistance through diverse means, including mass media, personal counseling, and educational programs, as I will discuss in Chapter 7. As movements engage in such activities, they are faced with ultimately "strategic" choices as to how they will adopt and adapt existing cultural frameworks to their needs (Zald 1996). Such a strategy usually involves drawing upon existing cultural concepts in order to formulate movement strategies and ideologies. Tarrow notes that movements are "thus in a certain sense consumers of existing cultural meanings as well as producers of new ones." He shows that "Out of a cultural toolkit of possible symbols, movement entrepreneurs choose those that they hope will mediate among the cultural underpinnings of the groups they appeal to, the sources of official culture and the militants of their movements-and still reflect their own beliefs and aspirations" (Tarrow 1994, pp. 123, 122). At the same time, movements also participate in "processes through which culture is adapted, framed, and reframed through public discourse, persuasive communication, consciousness raising, political symbols, and icons" (Johnston and Klandermans 1995, p. 5). This is eminently conspicuous in the efforts of most women's movements to change underlying patriarchal social structures, and the Chinese women's movement is no exception-and this includes an expansion in the movement's "issue agenda7'(McCarthy, Smith, and Zald 1996, p. 293). The Chinese state has made both domestic and international commitments to improve women's status, and this has been employed by movement activists to justify their positions. This is similar to what Klandermans distinguishes as "reactive" vs. "proactive" demands on the part of movements. In this formulation, "reactive demands" are "changes that fit in with the dominant ideology in a society. They are based on claims that are legitimate for a group to make according to the dominant ideology." O n the other hand, "proactive demands involve changes that do not fit in with the dominant ideology. They involve rights, privileges, or means to which a group is not entitled according to the dominant ideology." Not surprisingly, reactive demands are easier "to legitimate" than proactive ones (Klandermans 1988, p. 182). In a non-democratic context, a social movement may find that it can engage in a cooperative relationship with the state on some issues, and this may particularly apply to "reactive demands." This is evident with respect to women's issues in China, which Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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the state itself has addressed through the years of communist rule, and makes them therefore potentially distinct from even more "sensitive" subjects such as democratization, and also makes them detachable from questions of democratic rule and rights. Ultimately, through such processes, even a non-mobilizational social movement can have an impact on the culture in a non-democratic state. And by doing so, it can contribute to reshaping social and even political relationships over the long term. Doug McAdam observes that often social movements' most significant effects occur in their "cultural consequences"-for instance by creating "transformative ideologies," "new collective identities," and even changes in "the culture and practices of mainstream institutions in society" (McAdam 1994, pp. 48-51). Other observers note similarly expansive effects on culture of social movements (Johnston and Klandermans 1995, p. 9; Zald 1996, p. 270). Such changes may contribute to solving social dilemmas and making even non-democratic societies more equitable. For instance, the "naming" of numerous women's problems, including domestic violence and sexual harassment, has occurred in new ways in the China of the 1990s, and with their naming comes the enhanced potential for their resolution. Globalization of Culture and Framing Such issues have largely been introduced to the Chinese setting through transnational diffusion of ideas. A common observation about culture is that it seems to be simultaneously experiencing both homogenization and heterogenization worldwide-for instance, in a noted article on the subject, anthropologist Arjun Appadurai finds that culture is both being homogenized across national borders-a process that is often described in terms of "Americanization" or "commoditization"-but it is also increasingly heterogeneous-a fact evident in Appadurai's belief that cross-cultural exchanges are "indigenized" into local conditions (Appadurai 1990, p. 295). In fact, there is a general consensus on this latter fact-that "global culture" is not any sort of uniform phenomenon. Yet there are clear areas in which the contemporary transborder portability of culture alters the ways in which we should think about social movements. Cultural transmigration is an important component of globalization, as discussed above with reference to its effects on the state. Appadurai's perspective on "global cultural flow7' is useful in that it elaborates the channels through which the process occurs. He identifies five "landscapes" of the process: (1)ethnoscapes, or the movement of people; (2) technoscapes, or mobile technology; (3) finanscapes, or the movement of global capital; (4) mediascapes, or the cross-border transmission of various mass media forms of communication; and, (5) ideoscapes, which tend to be "directly political" by relating to state power and those forces attempting to counter state power (Appadurai 1990, pp. 296-300). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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This transnational diffusion of culture has also led some to posit the existence of cultural "cosmopolitans" or "hybrids" (Hannerz 1990; Werbner 1997). Yet there are critics of these formulations. "Cosmopolitanism" is viewed as merely the province of local elites (Friedman 1997), cultural homogenization is regarded as just a reflection of the global homogeneity of capitalism (Friedman 1990, p. 311), and culture relies on long-term processes of historical continuity that are largely absent at a worldwide or transnational level (Smith 1990). Thus, some view culture as continuing to largely be the province of the nation-state or smaller units of identity. In the contemporary world, cultural diversity and uniqueness are often used as reasons to justify similarly diverse practices. This sort of cultural relativism is employed by different agents for varying reasons. Here, I will particularly discuss how relativism is an integral part of the statist discourses discussed in the previous section. Appadurai notes how many states are caught in a dilemma between being open to the world economy or being closed to it-the former option, with its connections to related forms of media and technology, leading to the risk of new "cravings" on the part of the populace and even "revolt." He notes that the state itself is the "arbiter of this repatriation of difference" which occurs through the localization of global cultural forms (Appadurai 1990, p. 307, emphasis in original). This process is evident in the case of China and in the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. Economic success in the region is linked not to the absorption of global capitalist ideas, but to local culture, which ostensibly is such that it can support a thriving capitalist economy without a corresponding democratic form of governance. In China, discourses on "Han exceptionalism" and the positive morality of Confucianism are being utilized to promote economic development without corresponding political openings. Additionally, historians are looking for capitalist roots in Asian traditions as an alternative to viewing it as largely a Western import (Ong 1996, pp. 67-69, 78). Thus, the Chinese are seeking to construct their cultural heritage as a discourse alternative to the dominance of Western concepts in the international system. Ong views this strategy as "an amalgam of indigenous ideas, Western concepts, and self-Orientalizing representations" utilized by Asian leaders to create alternative systems of power (Ong 1997, p. 195). One area in which this discourse on cultural relativism is commonly used by Asian states is in the area of human rights. Ong notes that this has become "the core issue in articulations of Asian cultural difference from the West" (Ong 1997, p. 189). The attitude of some Asian states towards human rights corresponds to their generally discouraging view on democracy. Christopher Hughes notes with regard to the Bangkok Declaration on Human Rights, issued "to clarify a common position for Asian states" at the Vienna Conference on Human Rights in 1993, that, while it "does not reject the idea of human rights altogether," it does set "an agenda in which Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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cultural diversity, economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as respect for national sovereignty, are paramount" (Hughes 1995, p. 442). These state-level discourses are examples of what Appadurai finds to be the use by some states of the threat of "commoditization" or "homogenization" as a means of obscuring their own "hegemonic strategies" (Appadurai 1990, p. 296). This raises the question as to the legitimacy of the use of "relativism" by states as a discursive strategy. Increasingly, culture is regarded not as an immutable, essentialist construction, but rather as a product of power relationships and social interactions. In relation to the case of East Asian usages of cultural relativism, both Arif Dirlik (1996) and Aihwa Ong (1997) seem to agree with Appadurai's view that the claims for unique Confucian values are more related to state power interests than to real cultural essences. In this sense, Confucian culture is utilized more as a force to legitimize particular economic and political policies than as a real argument supporting historical continuity. Elites construct the narratives of what constitutes local "culture" to support their own interests (see Nonini and Ong 1997, p. 15). This argument is similar to those made by some feminists supportive of women's human rights, who ask that the power relationships in which "culture" is immersed are understood before cultural relativist arguments are accepted (see, for example, Mayer 1995; Rao 1995). Thus, claims for "cultural integrity" can often be seen as more related to particularistic state interests than to cultural preservation in the face of Western cultural imperialism. When discussing the issue of culture from the standpoint of globalization, it therefore is important to assess power relationships and actual local conditions of given cultural practices. This context-specific approach to the global/local question on culture thus returns us to the idea of "subalterns" discussed in the previous section. Attributing agency to those impacted by the globalization process continues to be a vital analytical task. And understanding the particular context of a given relationship to cultural hybridity or to cultural relativism is of special significance. For instance, there are contexts in which utilizing discourses from outside one's own native culture can have liberatory potential in relation to the hegemonic aspirations of the state. Globalization is not always a force that colonizes local cultures. Appadurai argues for the existence of "imagined worlds" in addition to the "imagined communities" of the nation state (Anderson 1991), and finds that such "imagined worlds" can "contest and sometimes even subvert the 'imagined worlds' of the official mind and of the entrepreneurial mentality that surround them" (Appadurai 1990, p. 297). Ong and Nonini also find that "imaginaries" created in transnational settings can support or undermine identities treated by states. Such "guerrilla transnationalism" has a quality of "wildness, danger, and unpredictability that challenges and undermines modern imperial regimes of truth and power" (Nonini and Ong 1997, pp. 26, 19).3 Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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At the same time, localistic sensibilities can also have liberatory potential. When accounting for the subversive power and potential of global and/or local discourses, it is crucial to consider the localized manifestations of "global" cultural forms. For instance, numerous authors argue for the necessity of context-specific understandings of the absorption of elements of globalized culture. Appadurai notes that various "keywords" of transnational "ideoscapes" are actually constantly reinterpreted to suit local conditions, including what he views to be the "master-term" of these ideoscapes-"democracy" (Appadurai 1990, pp. 300-301). Ultimately, it may be most useful to view global cultural inputs and local cultural forms as engaged in a dialectical relationship which do have an impact upon local level identities, groups, and forms of resistance (for example, see Basch, Schiller, and Blanc 1994; Mitchell 1997; Nonini and Ong 1997, p. 16; Ong and Nonini 199713). Once again, the linkage to the social movement theoretical concept of "framing" should be evident. As I have already discussed, framing is a process whereby social movements both appropriate existing cultural forms and contribute to their reconstruction. The global transmigration of culture can influence and alter the ways in which social movements express their grievances and aspirations. There are trends toward both cosmopolitanism and relativism in local social movements' adopting and adapting of transnationally diffused cultural items. O n the surface, the literature on transnational social movements would seem to support the view that culture is a globalizing phenomenon. The mere assertion of the existence of social movements which are transnational in nature would seem to also point to the conclusion that there are emergent cross-cultural similarities in norms and sensibilities which would promote such an occurrence. However, for instance, Myra Marx Ferree and William Gamson (1995) find that German and American discourses on abortion are different due to different local circumstances, despite expectations of transnational convergence of such discourses. While the international women's movement helps support the emergence of local movements, ultimately these movements take diverse forms. This idea is evident in other studies as well. Keck and Sikkink note the "cultural negotiation" that must occur to ensure the success of the campaigns of transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink 1998, p. 6). Others note that social movement ideas need to resonate with the experiences of local communities in order to effectively be transmitted (McAdam and Rucht 1993; Smith 1995). We are thus led once again to the contradictions between cultural hybridity and cultural relativism, and to the argument that it is necessary to examine the localized ways in which social movements utilize ideas diffused transculturally. A paper by David Snow and Robert Benford (1995) is a significant contribution in this regard, by showing not only how transCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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mitters (or exporters) actively or passively diffuse social movement forms and discourses, but also how adopters (or importers) actively or passively select and adapt this information. Snow and Benford thus seek to move beyond the more simplistic approach of those advocating what they term the "homophily" principle-that diffusion is more likely to occur if greater similarity exists between transmitters and adopters-and find that a more rigorously social constructionist approach is necessary to understanding the means through which diffusion occur^.^ They thus introduce a notion of agency to ideas regarding the cross-cultural diffusion of social movement ideas. Understanding the ways in which such agency operates to not only appropriate transcultural social movement discourses, but to adapt them to local circumstances is thus of great significance. Social movements can be cultural hybrids, and can continue to use localized means of framing meanings as well. And in the case of symbiotic social movements, such negotiation processes can occur with, rather than against, the state. During the 1990s, the Chinese women's movement had greatly increased contact with the international women's movement, and through processes of adaptation and negotiation between the movement and the state, new issues were able to be introduced into the Chinese context that were previously taboo.

MOBILIZING STRUCTURES AND "GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY" Social movement theorists concur that "mobilizing structures" are not just conventional social movement organizations (SMOs) that mobilize participants for protest activities, but instead include a wide range of social settings. For instance, John D. McCarthy defines them as those agreed upon ways of engaging in collective action which include particular "tactical repertoires," particular "social movement organizational" forms. and "modular social movement re~ertoires."I also mean to include the range of everyday life micromobilization structural social locations that are not aimed primarily at movement mobilization, but where mobilization may be generated: these include family units, friendship networks, voluntary associations, work units, and elements of the state structure itself. (McCarthy 1996, pp. 141, 145).

Similarly, IZriesi looks at the role played by both informal social networks and "movement communities," as well as by formal organizations, in contributing to social movement mobilization (IZriesi 1996, p. 152). A wide diversity of "micromobilization contexts" are of importance in recruiting individuals into social movements. These include the "informal structures of everyday life," a "wide variety of social sites within people's daily rounds where informal and less formal ties between people can serve as solidarity and communication facilitating structures when and if they choose to go into dissent together" (McCarthy 1996, p. 143). And a particular emphasis has been on the role of pre-existing social networks in promoting social movement participation (McCarthy 1996, p. 143; Tarrow Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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1994, p. 150). McCarthy's inclusion of "elements of the state structure itself" as a potential micromobilization context is significant in the Chinese case, for a pre-existing women's organization, the All-China Women's Federation, has provided activists with some measure of network ties. Additionally, many Chinese activists mobilize on the basis of pre-existing work unit identities, particularly within universities, as I will depict in Chapter 6. Utilizing these ties means that the movement still has connections to the state within which these institutions operate. The Chinese context is also of importance to the type of movement that has emerged and its corresponding organizational forms. Icriesi (1996) looks at three types of "new social movements": instrumental, which involves struggles to obtain collective goods or to avoid collective "bads"; subcultural, which focus on collective identity issues especially within the group but also do deal in "authority-oriented action as well"; and countercultural, which are also identity-oriented but that identity mainly exists due to "conflictual interaction with authorities or third parties." The Chinese women's movement can be characterized by its largely subcultural emphasis. Kriesi also looks at the types of movement organization that exist, in line with the movement's orientation and whether or not its constituency actively participates, and characterizes "subcultural" movements as primarily having a constituency/client orientation, rather than one toward the authorities, and featuring either no direct participation of the constituency ("commercialization") or direct participation ("involution"). The former route, "commercialization," leads to primarily service-focused organizations, or "supportive organizations," which are non-mobilizational. The Chinese women's movement features a number of such groups, including a Women's Hotline and various legal-aid organizations. "Involution" leads more to "movement associations7'-self-help groups, voluntary associations, or clubs, which more actively mobilize members of the constituency of the movement. Such groups are also present in the Chinese women's movement-for instance there are groups of divorced or young women that meet to support one another, and also to perform outward-oriented activities. Kriesi notes that mobilization on the part of such "movement associations" is more oriented toward "consensus" than "action" mobilization, the latter of which more characterizes movements with an orientation toward the authorities. In the Chinese case, both supportive organizations and movement associations are often typically supplementing work the state might do, such as providing legal assistance.

Globalization and Society Recent years have seen increasing observations regarding the emergence of "global civil society." Some of the arguments surrounding this emergence are related to the previous discussions of the state and culture-for example, assertions regarding the decline of the state leading to the utility Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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of non-governmental organizations, social movements, and other actors to fill those lacunae, or addressing the interrelationship between globalizing culture and globalizing social forms. However, the local-level social implications of these developments have been largely untheorized. The phenomenon of "global civil society" is defined variously. Paul Wapner's definition finds it to be "that slice of associational life which exists above the individual and below the state, but also across national boundaries" (Wapner 1995, p. 313). There are numerous enthusiastic supporters of a "strong" view of the contemporary existence of "global civil society," and myriad scholars and activists optimistically herald the contemporary era as one of increasing global connections and citizen participation. In some cases, this has a universalistic tone similar to that found in other discussions of globalization-including the positing of universal causes for the emergence of identity-focused social movements (Melucci 1997), pervasive trends fostering anti-state sensibilities (O'Neill 1993), and cross-cultural heritages of citizen participation (Civicus 1994). Others are perhaps somewhat less optimistic about the scope of this new sphere of social engagement. While noting the increase in transnational societal contacts, some observers do not believe that a truly "global civil society" is in the process of emerging. M.J. Peterson views the term "international civil society" to be a more descriptive application of what is actually occurring, for this term denotes a set of "interlinked national civil societies." Usage of this term is intended to reflect the importance of transnational societal contacts, but also not to neglect the continuing importance of the state (Peterson 1992, pp. 376-380). In general, this "weaker" view admits to the increasing quantity and significance of transborder, societallevel activity, but does not view this as synonymous with a phenomenon that is truly "global" in extent. Whether ascribing to the stronger or the weaker view of the existence of "global civil society," the causes for its emergence are generally seen as integrally related to the phenomena discussed in the previous two sections-state incapacity and cultural transmigration. One supporter of the strong thesis makes an extensive argument about the growing inadequacies of nation-states to address the problems faced by humans as well as the distortions created by the market (Serrano 1994). A central cause of the emergence of "global civil society" is viewed to be the decline of the nationstate, and the rise of forms of action to take its place. It is commonly argued that state funding for social programs has declined due to global economic conditions, and that alternative organizations have stepped into the breach (see Ghils 1992; Lipschutz 1992). The second major cause of the emergence of "global civil society" is linked to the globalization of culture discussed in the preceding section. For instance, Paul Wapner connects the phenomenon's emergence not only to "the interpenetration of markets," but also to "the intermeshing of symCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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bolic meaning systems, and the proliferation of transnational collective endeavors" (Wapner 1995, p. 313). A view of its cultural bases links global civil society's more structural causes to the universalistic goals, ideologies, and discourses that some see underlying its existence. Although many of the treatments of "global civil society" tend to be rather centered in democratic countries, there have been some efforts to show the relevance of the phenomenon for non-democratic contexts. One very optimistic account of the effects of the globalization of technologies of communication argues that this process has led to the emergence of "people power" across the globe (O'Neill 1993). Another example can be found in Patricia Chilton's treatment (1995) of the regime changes in Eastern and Central Europe that began in 1989, linking the level of domestic civil society development in a given country to the linkages that such a civil society had to social movements in the West. More generally, Peterson argues that the information revolution has made it increasingly difficult for a state with totalitarian aspirations to monopolize the public sphere (Peterson 1992, pp. 375-376, 387). For some, this is consistent with Gramscian views of the interpenetration of state and civil society (Wapner 1995, pp. 338-339)-the interpenetration becoming exacerbated due to the effects of globalization on state hegemony. This is evident even in states such as China that seek to avoid such a quandary. Border-crossing economic and cultural forms spill over into how social identities are conceived. Aihwa Ong looks at the role of karaoke on China's eastern seaboard and its potential to improve one's connections (guanxi) as central to the creation of "transnational publics," and notes that the state is more interested in controlling political and social thought than sexual freedoms (Ong 1997, pp. 178-179). Elsewhere, Ong observes that this phenomenon represents "the privatized, individualistic ethics of Chinese subjects eager to participate in a modernity that is not bound by the interests of the state, but that seeks to cross borders into overseas Chinese communities" (Ong 1996, p. 77). The subversive potential of such border-crossing is also evident in the arguments of Mayfair Yang regarding the influence of the mass media in creating transnational subjectivities in China's coastal cities. Ultimately, Yang finds that the creation of such a "transnational imaginary world order" can lead to the creation of a "third space" beyond state confines. Such a "third space" challenges statemandated forms of identity, and creates new ones (Yang 1997a, pp. 288, 309). Thus, even in states that try to restrict the magnitude of societal autonomy, globalization may contribute to the creation of forms of resistance. Might we view these forms of resistance as just localized manifestations of "global civil society"? It would seem that in some cases they are intrinsically connected to transnationalized culture and society. Xiaomei Chen (1995), for instance, looks at the pro-Western television documentary He Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Shang (River Elegy), which is often seen as an important precursor to the 1989 pro-democracy protests, and its subversive nature in relation to a Chinese state with hegemonic aspirations. Also in pre-Tiananmen China, Western works on philosophy, literature, and other disciplines were enthusiastically read and debated, and various types of discussion group and think tank were formed. This "cultural frenzy" seemed, to one analyst, reminiscent of "the English literary public sphere of the eighteenth century," an important precursor to the larger public sphere famously theorized by Habermas. Yet, this same analyst also notes the lack of institutionalization of these organizations, and thus their ready suppression in the aftermath of June Fourth (Lee 1993, p. 174). This leads us once again to the question of the cross-cultural (not to mention cross-societal and cross-political systemic) applicability of a concept, such as "civil society," that is purely Western in origin. Can we really describe the phenomenon as "global civil society" when many argue that "civil society" is itself a concept that has particular normative and culturally-specific content? For instance, the "Asian" or "Confucian" qualities supported by leaders in some Asian countries support much different priorities than the conception of individual rights central to notions of civil society (see also Lee 1993, p. 173; Ong 1996, pp. 8 1-84). Others have critiqued the notion of "global civil society" from different perspectives. Keck and Sikkink (1998) favor a networks approach to transnational interactions, rather than the "strong" view of "global civil society." And Hurrell and Woods (1995),in their examination of the effects of inequality among states on the globalization process, note that what they describe as "transnational civil society" is itself an arena of power relationships. A further problem for concepts of "global civil society" is the fact that there are many regimes in the contemporary international political system that are quite eager to exert considerable control over their own "civil societies." Some observers of globalization argue that the central tension of the process lies in the increasing vulnerability of the state and society to outside forces, and the state's efforts to control that vulnerability (see, e.g., Appadurai 1990; Robertson 1992). As can be expected, one area where such state control is being exerted are some Asian states, where human rights are seen to detract from the stability created by state control, where social control is legitimized on the basis of "Asian values," and where capitalism is regarded as a means of increasing state power (Ong 1997). Thus, while some may view the "local" as an arena of resistance and liberatory promise, it also has other potentialities. Benjamin Lee notes the post-Tiananmen shift in China to "an alternative public created around economic interest and personal choice without any hope for a corresponding democratic political realization." (Lee 1993, p. 174). Some have thereCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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fore argued that the Chinese state's efforts to crush local resistance were successful even at a discursive level. Dirlik (1996),while noting the "promise" of the local, also finds that it has features of "predicament," particularly in its ability to be used, both by global capitalist and by local hegemonic forces, to create aspects of domination over the local economy or over certain social sectors. Marketing of capitalist products can be adapted to better fit local circumstances, or the appeal to the preservation of local culture can lead to the persistence of patriarchal or class-based oppressions. Thus, it is of central importance to examine the actual relationships between globalization and "civil society" at the local level. The ambiguities between the local and the global at the level of the social is why the sixth cell in Table 2.1 has two possibilities-suppression and symbiosis. While there are clear local responses to globalization's effects on the state and on culture, societal relationships are less evident. O n the one hand, local states do seek to restrict societies, even in the more challenging conditions treated by globalized economics and cultural relations. O n the other hand, these very conditions influence and even increase the forms of resistance available to subaltern groups in these societies, and thus limit state power to enforce its priorities. One area where these different trends can be seen to converge is that of social movements and their organizational forms. Until recently, views of "mobilizing structures" have been largely focused at the domestic level, looking at the ways in which particular national organizational contexts and cultures influence social movement forms and repertoires of action (see, e.g., McAdam, McCarthy, and Zald 1996a, pp. 3-4; McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 1997, pp. 26-28). Yet, as has already been discussed, the identity politics emphasis of many social movements with transnational elements means that there is less emphasis on the state in their efforts (e.g., Wapner 1995), and thus there is a need to assess the existence of organizational forms that go beyond those of the "national social movement." Some already have begun to assess the differential organizational forms prevalent among transnationally-oriented social movements. For instance, such movements tend to rely on more informal and flexible, less hierarchical forms of organization than older social movements (Breyman 1994). Garner (1994, p. 431) notes the existence of "multiple movement 'fragments'," which can include "organizations with professional staffs, grassroots organizations, impermanent ad hoc mobilizations, single-issue movements, parties and pressure groups, depending on political opportunities afforded by each 'host' nation." Keck and Sikkink (1998) note the small-scale activism, rather than mass mobilization, practiced by transnational advocacy networks. With respect to non-democratic contexts, where some types of organizing may be permitted but others not, it is important to account for such "fragments" and small-scale mobilizations in assessing the potential for domestic-level movement emergence as well as for linkages with movements in other countries. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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When looking at the diffusion of social movements from one country to another, the organizational contexts existing or emerging are also of great relevance. McAdam and Rucht (1993) argue that diffusion relies on processes of social construction of similarity to be a viable process, and thus that actual face-to-face relationships are superior means of diffusion than more indirect channels such as the mass media. Thus, there is a need for an organizational basis for transnational social movement emergence, and the mere transmission of ideas across borders is inadequate. Collective identities and collective action rest on a basis of social networks, and are less likely to exist sui generis. Such social networks, at the transnational level, are likely to have different forms in different contexts. Thus, it is of great importance to not only examine the existence of explicitly transnational social movement organizations, which some argue have greatly expanded in number and significance in recent years (Smith 1994), but also to assess the influence that transnational ties have on the organizational forms of local social movements. Studies of "transnational social movements" thus far have tended to focus on the former rather than the latter. Yet, to truly assess the local implications of views of "global civil society," the latter perspective needs to be addressed. National organizational repertoires can be expanded through transnational contacts. In the case of China, "NGO" forms of organizing have increased in popularity during this decade, as activists and the state have both learned that "NGO" does not necessarily have to constitute anti-governmental formations, and as NGOs and the state have come to coexist in a "symbiotic" relationship. While the Chinese state's response to some social movement formations has of course been "suppression," in other cases a relationship of "symbiosis" has arisen. CONCLUSIONS The ambiguities of globalization at state, cultural, and societal levels perhaps are self-evident in what Benjamin Barber has described as a new struggle between "Jihad vs. McWorld" in the contemporary world (Barber 1995). Studying how local, particular social movements adapt both to increasing transnational influences as well as to statist efforts to maintain hegemony is one way of understanding these transformations at a microlevel. In particular, the question of whether globalization is also promoting inexorable trends toward democratization, as some of the theorists of "global civil society" would seem to claim, might be better answered by looking at how both states and societies in repressive contexts confront the challenges of the changed environment provided by globalization, and how they may seek to symbiotically coexist. I will now turn to telling the tale of such a relationship-the case of the Chinese women's movement in the 1990s. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization NOTES These definitions are drawn from IZearney (1995). See, for example, Alger (1992), de Oliveira and Tandon (19941, Garner (19941, and Ghils (1992). All of these authors, in some form, link the declining nation-state to the increasing importance of NGOs, and even of a "global civil society," in international politics. I will further discuss this phenomenon below. Ong and Nonini, and the contributions to their edited volume, discuss this phenomenon particularly in relation to Chinese diaspora communities. For a discussion of these phenomena in relation to mainland Chinese cultural discourses, see Chen (1995). For instance, McAdam and Rucht (1993) note the importance of "collective identity" or "institutional equivalence" in successful cases of diffusion, finding that direct relational ties are more likely to generate such ideas of similarity than nonrelational linkages. They also note that social construction of similarity is an important factor, but Snow and Benford find that McAdam and Rucht treat such similarity more as a given than as an ongoing process of social negotiation.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

PART I1

The Beijing Women's Movement

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER THREE

The Politics of Beijing Women's Organizing in the 1990s

Women's organizing in Beijing at the end of the 20th century can only be understood in the context of events of the preceding century or so, and how this has affected women's hopes, expectations, and goals in the China of today. At the same time, it also can only be understood in the context of the post-Mao reform atmosphere in China, and how this environment has altered state policy and social practice with respect to treatment of women. Women's organizing emerges not only as a call to realize promises of gender equality, or "nannu pingdeng", frequently reiterated by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, but also as a response to clear backsliding in women's status under marketizing economic reforms. As a result, women activists are able to use the Party's own discourses on gender equality to usually implicitly and sometimes explicitly criticize the Party's achievement, or lack thereof, of its stated goals regarding gender relations. This is one way that the contemporary movement can be seen as "symbiotic" in its relationship with the party-state. This chapter will briefly outline the nature of women's organizing and women's movement politics in China today, focusing in particular on "nongovernmental" activists and organizations in Beijing. While the Chinese Communist Party inherited a legacy of women's organizing dating back to the early years of this century and reaching its height in the "May Fourth" movement of the 1920s, it also in the end co-opted this organizing under the leadership of its All-China Women's Federation (ACWF, or "Fulian"), and during the Mao period any independent organizing for women was forestalled. While the CCP made numerous promises to women, these are generally regarded to have been very incompletely fulfilled (see, e.g., Johnson 1983; Stacey 1983). Contemporary activists themselves have placed their activities in the context of being only the second major wave of Chinese women's studies in this century (Ding Juan 1992). At the same time, it has been noted that Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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the first wave of the 1920s and the 1930s was largely conducted not by women themselves, but by male intellectuals (Wang Zheng 1998, p. 8). What is seen as different in the contemporary manifestation is that women's studies is research conducted by women and for women. Significantly, most "women's studies" institutions in Beijing today, and elsewhere in China as well, do not confine themselves to abstract, theoretical research, but instead also conduct different types of activities that seek to promote women's rights and improve women's actual conditions. This chapter will first address a number of questions regarding the nature of contemporary women's organizing in China and especially in Beijing: *Is women's inequality merely a continuing phenomenon from the Maoist period or even before, or is it actually increasing under the reforms? *How is women's organizing influenced by the Marxist or the Maoist discourse on women that has been hegemonic in China since 1949? *What is the relationship of contemporary women's organizing to notions of state-led women's liberation prevalent under the Communist Party, especially during the Maoist period? *How have things changed in Chinese women's movement politics in the 1990s, especially with the emergence of "non-governmental" forms of activism? *What is the role played by "women's studies," the dominant form of women's organizing in China in the 1990s? *What is the relationship between Fulian and other, newer women's groups? *How is such organizing influenced by international discourses and norms on feminism and women's status? *What measures are supported and promoted by women's groups as a means of addressing women's inequality? After discussing some of the ways especially that prominent Beijing women's movement activists answer some of these questions, I will briefly examine three of the women's organizations active in Beijing, by way of exploring how they seek to address these questions through their activities and discourses.' CHINESE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT POLITICS Women's Inequality The post-Mao period has seen increasing acknowledgements, even on the part of the Chinese party-state, that women have not yet attained full Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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equality with men in Chinese society under the rule of the Communist Party.2 There is disagreement, however, as to the extent and the causes of this situation. Some analysts do tend to support views that Chinese women's inequality is the result of continuing historical and social legacies, rather than of Party policy or the reform program itself. Others, however, have begun to develop somewhat more critical perspectives, both on the level of the problems faced by women as well as their causes. A typical and more statist view on women's status can be found in some of the published results of a nationwide survey on Chinese women's status . ~ by the Women's Federatioq4 this survey conducted in the early 1 9 9 0 ~Led ultimately found, in the words of high-ranking Fulian official Guan Tao, that "the reform and opening-up program has led to great advances for Chinese women," and that women's status has generally improved since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. By comparing women's status cross-temporally, this study is able to argue that women's status has been raised over time, and still acknowledge the obvious fact that "when making comparisons with the status of men, we may find that women's social status is still quite low" (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1995, pp. viii, 11-12).j This may be seen as a way of admitting what is evident without even beginning to blame the state socialist system for women's persisting inequalities. Other state-level bodies have also tended to continue to stress women's accomplishments under the Communist Party-for instance, the Central Party School's Women's Studies Center looking at the successes of female political leadership in the Communist Party (Chen Ruisheng 1995). Yet, the clear problems that women have faced during the reform period have even caused leading Fulian cadres like Guan Tao to acknowledge the debate that has come to exist in contemporary China regarding the possibility that "the status of women has dropped regrettably" during this era (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1995, pp. vi-viii). In the 1980s, prior to the Tiananmen Square massacre and subsequent political clampdown, there were numerous debates and discussions regarding issues such as proposals for women to return to the home to help alleviate growing unemployment (see, e.g., Spakowski 1994; Xue Mingming and Sha Lianxiang 1995). Some Chinese women's studies scholars and activists have observed trends such as these and have particularly sought to study and find means of resolving, in the words of one scholar and N G O activist, "the new problems that women are collectively facing in social development since the reform and opening policy" (Ma Fengzhi 1995a). Tan Shen, a sociologist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, notes that reform has been a time "when women's problems were springing up one after the other" (Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 103). In a paper presented at an international conference on Chinese women and feminist theory, Tan argues that reform has generally brought "some major social problems," and that "women's Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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issues have arisen as a part of social problems." She looks at women being laid-off from urban employment, as well as gender differences in rural labor migration patterns, to assert that it is not that the reforms "have brought more troubles to women than benefits," but just that "women have not benefitted as much as men from the reforms." She concludes that "during the first 30 years [of Communist Party rule in China], there was a tendency to decrease gender distinctions or inequality, but during the last ten years it seems to be increasing." She locates the causes for this situation in, among other things, the reform-era's increasing "gap in wages between men and women" due to a "new system of gendered professions." She thus locates the causes of women's inequality under the reforms, which she views to be a manifestation of exacerbated "gender differentiation" (xingbie fenhua), in the process of reform itself (Tan Shen 1995a). The Fulian official Guan Tao has noted that reform will "sacrifice some people's interests," but still seeks to find ways to "eliminate sexual inequalities" within the new context of "market mechanisms" (Guan Tao 1995). This perspective may also be a fairly typical Fulian viewpointagain, recognizing the existence of inequalities, but also being unwilling to directly blame the marketizing reforms for making women's problems worse. The Fulian all-China study also engages in similar means of locating causes for inequalities. It seeks to differentiate between the fact that "any principles condoning inequality, so as to speak, are already obsolete following the establishment of laws on equality between the sexes" and that "failure to adhere to the principle of equality will produce a lack of equal opportunities." In other words, the Fulian perspective continues to be that inequality of the sexes in the socialist system "has little to do with the system itself" (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1995, pp. 7-8). Other views also tend to emphasize these types of explanations for women's inequality, ones that have been deployed all along by the Communist Party. For instance, a psychologist and leading figure at the Women's Hotline, Huang Hengyu, looks at women's mental health issues, including their high suicide rates, and finds some of their causes to lie in aspects of "traditional morality" like the "three obediences" and "the male is superior to the female" (Huang Hengyu 1995). Thus, it would seem that many observations regarding women's status in contemporary China do not deviate far from the typical explanations used by the Communist Party, and only in the most hesitant terms have women engaged in direct critiques of the reform program and its seemingly harsh effects on women. However, when discussing more specific issues, a slightly more critical perspective can sometimes be discerned. In particular, the issue of women's employment-and unemployment-under the reforms has been frequently discussed by women's movement activists. Some have even seen women's studies as especially emerging in the 1980s Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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because of "unemployment pressures due to the shift from planned economy to market economy" (Ding Juan 199513). Other N G O activists have also tended to focus on this issue. Wang Xingjuan, the founder of the Women's Hotline, has noted the emergence of many new "psychological pressures'' generated by the "intense shocks'' of the transformative reform process. She notes that of those being laid off from state-owned enterprises, 70 percent have been women, but also that very few calls to the Women's Hotline have been regarding this issue (Wang Xingjuan 1993, pp. 247-248). Another activist, Liu Bohong, has similarly studied the disproportionate number of women suffering unemployment, but noted that this may point to "the variety of women's problems hidden in the old system'' (Liu Bohong 1992, p. 310). While such a perspective can be seen primarily as a continuation of Chinese Communist discourses on the causes of women's problems, attention to this issue by N G O activists is evidence that they have been seeking new ways to discuss problems facing Chinese women in the contemporary era.6

The Marxist/Maoist Discourse on Women Under the Chinese Communist Party, the generally accepted wisdom came to be that socialism would also bring women's liberation, particularly through women's participation in the public sphere, both economically and politically. Despite the evident failures of Marxist and Maoist discourses on women's liberation in actual practice (e.g., Stacey 1983), the mere existence of these discourses-and the fact of their shortcomingshas ultimately provided a basis for the development of a widened discourse on women's issues in the post-Mao period. While women's movement activists have had to remain within certain theoretical and methodological boundaries in their work, they have been able to significantly widen the terrain of discourses on women's status. As Guan Tao, the Fulian official discussed above, wrote in a paper presented at the Women's Federation workshop on Women's Studies in China at the NGO Forum on Women in 1995, Marxist women's views and socialist principles of male-female equality are the ways that women's studies is influencing the leading thinking of policy-makers. Women's studies in the new era supports the government in a time of social transformation, producing all kinds of policies guaranteeing the development of women's political participation and the protection of women's rights - and interests. Women's studies first benefits from the Chinese Communist Party continuing to be a governing party that uses Marxist principles as a foundation, and it also benefits from our country persisting in the male-female equality principles of a socialist system (Guan Tao 1995).

Some women's organizations have, predictably, adhered more closely to Marxist principles in their approaches to their activities than others. Some, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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like the Women's Studies Center of the Central Party School, have especially focused on "Marxist theories of women's liberation" (Central Party School 1995). Yet such a state-level Marxist ideological perspective on "male-female equality" (nannu pingdeng) has been quite useful to women's movement activists as they point out continuing inequalities in post-Mao China, because they have been able to use it as a launching point for critiques that begin to transcend that same discourse. Wang Zheng, a Chinese scholar who has studied in the United States, notes that this same nannu pingdeng discourse "has become both the target of contemporary Chinese women's critique and a major source of their critical strength in the post-Mao era." Since this discourse has contributed to "the legitimacy of the party's rule by describing the party as the savior of Chinese women," it has "discursive power...over the state" (Wang Zheng 1998, pp. 9-12). In other words, women's movement activists are able to "frame" their demands in a "reactive" way, fitting in legitimately with the dominant state ideology (IClandermans 1988, p. 182). Activists also find other ways of making their work acceptable to the state. Many utilize "science" and "scientific" research methods as a means of legitimizing their work in the eyes of the state, a "strategy frequently used by Chinese intellectuals in their efforts to dismantle Maoist political discourse" (Wang Zheng 1998, p. 21). Instead of focusing on theoretical issues, some women's studies researchers focus more upon "academic research into concrete female problems and their origins." This is done especially through statistical research methods (Spakowski 1994, pp. 306, 309, 311). Focusing on real problems rather than theories can be actually seen as a strategy employed by researchers as a means of avoiding "sensitive" issues, but still finding ways to point out women's problems in very concrete ways that ultimately do transcend Marxist discourses. Some NGO analysts have begun looking explicitly at the multiple types of theory that may be used to illuminate women's problems such as domestic violence, including psychological, economic, feminist, and sociological perspectives (Tong Xin 1995a). In general, "women's studies" is seen partially as a way of breaking away from the previously hegemonic framework of class analysis, and in fact even Fulian has been engaged in efforts to find consistencies between Marxism and feminism (Wang Zheng 1998). Such efforts can be seen as a form of "discursive symbiosis," of finding the tentative understanding between different discursive forms that ICurokawa discussed in his conception of "symbiosis" (ICurokawa 1997). While women's studies scholars and activists have had to periodically "depoliticize" the content of their research to avert potential government suppression, through, for instance, avoiding "politically sensitive issues" in research and by pursuing "nonpolitical" activities, they ultimately have been able to begin to critique the "statist core" in MarxistIMaoist disCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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courses on women as well as the "male standard" through which "equality" is defined in those discourses (Wang Zheng 1998, pp. 32, 13, 39). Relationship to State-Led Liberation

This of course leads to the question of how the new, more autonomous forms of women's organizing are connected to an idea of women's liberation seen as occurring under the leadership of the Chinese Communist party-state. Some still see a centrally important role for the government in promoting advances in women's status (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1995, p. 1).Yet others with a more critical and independent eye have noted that during the Maoist period, no attention was paid to women's issues as specialized issues. This was because with the support of the state, there was no need for women themselves to strive for the various rights already given to them, and also because under the unified form of consciousness, "social issues" were negated as a concept (Tan Shen 1995a).

The new problems arising after the death of Mao and with the advent of reform indicated to many women that the previous methods of handling "women's issues" were not efficacious. The Women's Federation was actually an early advocate of researching women's problems, although within a "relatively narrow research range" in the 1980s (Spakowski 1994, p. 303). Such an "official push" from Fulian, however, "provided legitimacy for research on women," and facilitated space for the emergence of more "spontaneous activities" on the part of women scholars (Wang Zheng 1998, pp. 3, 7). This can be seen as evidence for a political symbiosis between women's activism at differing levels-the level of the party-state and at the grassroots, with each providing legitimacy to the other. One conclusion reached by some partisans of women's studies activism was that previous means of promoting women's liberation, including those advocating quotas for women's political participation, have been inadequate. According to the N G O leader Wang Xingjuan, women still face a situation that "At present, society does not yet possess a political environment of fair competition" for the advancement of female cadres. This unfair environment features, among other things, the "social bias" that "politics is a male matter," based in a "deep-rooted feudal perspective." While at one level attributing continuing gender inequalities to "feudalism" is a fairly standard Communist Party line on women's unequal status, Wang's emphasis on changing social attitudes rather than just political and social policy is something of a change. And, in addition to the need for societal-level change stressed by Wang, she also discusses the need for changes in women's own consciousness as a way of promoting improvements in women's political participation (Wang Xingjuan 1995f, pp. 394-399). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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This is one example of the ways in which women's movement activists highlight more social-level change than political change, as well as emphasizing the need for increased agency on the part of women themselves. This latter point is sometimes seen in the context of the history of women's organizing in China earlier in this century. Ding Juan, a Fulian researcher also active at the Women's Hotline, has looked at the legacy of the "confluence of Chinese native feminism with Western feminism" earlier in the 20th century, as well as how great attention was paid to "women's social rights" at this same time. She especially cites human rights, education, employment, political participation, association, and free marriage as issues that thinkers such as Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei, Qiu Jin, and Zhou Enlai all focused upon (Ding Juan 1995b).' She has also argued that the 1980s and 1990s have been the second "high tide of women's studies" in China, with the first being in the 1920s and the 1930s, during the May Fourth era (Ding Juan 1992, p. 192). Such a periodization of women's studies in China can be seen as obliquely critiquing the co-option of women's autonomous agency by the All-China Women's Federation, under CCP leadership, during the intervening years of the 1940s through the 1970s (Wang Zheng 1998, p. 15). There is an apparent desire on the part of women's activists to reclaim that agency. Many activists emphasize the role played by "volunteers" and by "popular organs" (minjian jigou) in promoting greater attention to women's problems and their r e s ~ l u t i o n . ~ And yet, this agency ultimately circles back to these more autonomous women's groups and activists desiring influence on state-level policy. At a Fulian-sponsored workshop at the N G O Forum on Women in 1995, a number of women's studies activists, both from Fulian and from other bodies, articulated a desire for women's studies to have a greater influence on policy-making. This may be regarded as an ironic though perhaps predictable outcome of decades of state-level emphasis on its own role in liberating women, but it may also reflect a desire on the part of activists to see a change in how that state formulates policy on women. Instead of typical top-down formulas, many activists have asserted the need for women's studies to influence policy in a way that is more bottom-up-with academic women articulating demands from the grassroots, the results of their research among women of all social strata in China. Guan Tao, at this panel, noted the many ways that women's studies had already influenced policy-making, including in the formulation of laws, the creation of "objectives for women's development" (All-China Women's Federation 1995), the promotion of "the public appearance and perfecting of reform measures for the protection of women's rights and interests," the impact on "the direction of public opinion about women,'' and the influence on the women's movement itself through the proliferating formation of non-governmental women's groups (Guan Tao 1995). Ding Juan, at the same panel, also noted that there was a need for a change in "policy-making circles' Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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habit of ignoring women's interests," and that one way that this could be accomplished was through the state giving greater support to women's studies (Ding Juan 1995a). Others outside of Fulian also noted the need for a wider influence for women's studies in other areas of government and society (Jin Yihong 1995; Tan Shen 199513). In a way, views of women's need for their own agency in liberation are not so far from some of the CCP's original formulations of women's liberation. Back in the 1950s' following "Liberation," women's own consciousness was also a focus of Communist discourses on women's liberation. Deng Yingchao, one of the early leaders of Fulian and the wife of Zhou Enlai, noted that "it is important that the full realization of [women's] rights must depend upon their own struggle and can never be bestowed upon them by others" (quoted in Croll 1978, p. 224; see also Croll 1995, pp. 77-78). Such early viewpoints are perhaps another reason why many contemporary women's movement discourses have successfully and symbiotically appropriated those originally formulated by agents of the party-state. Changes in the 1990s So what is different in the 1990s with the advent of new forms of women's organization? In general, since the early emergence of "women's studies" in the 1 9 8 0 ~and ~ since attention to questions of funu wenti ("women's issues" or "women's problems") began, the issues addressed by women's studies and women's activists has widened progressively. Fulian's early narrow research focus, particularly on marriage and family issues, now shows "a stunning variety in defining tasks and perspectives of women's studies" (Spakowski 1994, p. 306). Much of this expansion has been due to the influence both of international discourses and of non-governmental forms of organizing. Yet, the apparent adoption by the Women's Federation of many of these new issues indicates that they are also acceptable to the party-state. "Gender" is particularly a concept on the movement's expanding "issue agenda" that has been introduced from the West, but is receiving increasing attention and usage in Chinese analyses of women's status, including increasing recognition that "sex is biological and that gender roles are socially constructed" (Wu Qing 1995). Some have studied "gender as a stratification variable" and how it affects the division of labor and social roles more generally (Sha Lianxiang 1995). Another change in the 1990s is the increasingly accepted viewpoint that NGOs and women's movement activists are "forming a regulative power for the monitoring of women's status" (Tan Shen 1995a)-another way that grassroots activism seeks to have influence over higher policy.

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Role of "Women's Studies" So far in this chapter, I have tended to use the terms "women's activism" and "women's studies" almost as synonyms. As I have already discussed, many women's studies scholars seek a greater role for their newly-developing field in policy-making. For instance, there are efforts on the part of women scholars studying employment issues to suggest "countermeasures" to women's job difficulties under reform (Liu Bohong 1992, p. 334). However, other scholars have noted numerous shortcomings in the policy influence of women's studies, including the need for greater channels of communication between women's studies and policy-making organs and the need for women's studies to be given a greater status by the government in its policy-making (Guan Tao 1995; see also Ding Juan 1995a). It is apparent that many women's studies organizations are attempting to fill this gap by engaging in more grassroots level activities. Women's studies in China truly is "both theory and social practice" (Wang Zheng 1998, p. 38), with leaders of some groups of the "voluntary" nature stressing that their "main purpose" is "to make studies on the problems of modern women and to offer services to them" (Wang Xingjuan 1995d). Such groups engage not only in research, but also in various types of social service work. This is evident in, for instance, publications of some universitylevel women's studies centers (e.g., Beijing University 1990s; Sha Lianxiang 1995), which depict their social service as well as their scholarly activities. Non-governmental organizations, among other things, have as their major activities the training of volunteers to provide social services-such training is one major component of the regularly-published newsletter of the Women's Hotline, and it integrates the research of the Women's Research Institute, of which the Hotline is a part, into this training (Women's Research Institute 1990s). At this level, we can see a certain convergence between the stated purpose for women's studies on the part of the Women's Federation and on the part of academic and non-governmental women's studies groups. The Fulian study on women's status notes that "The primary work of researchers who specialize in the study of women's issues is to monitor the condition of women, study the changing laws on the social status of women and work towards raising their social status" (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1995, p. xi). Such practically-minded research work is one way that the women's movement is able to legitimize its existence in a nondemocratic political climate-as discussed above, the usage of "scientific" methods gives activism more legitimacy. Relationships between Forms of Organizing That is not to say that "women's studies" has always been a non-controversial subject in China. The existence of and proper research topics for "women's studies" has provided the grounds for some important debates Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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within the Chinese women's movement. In the 1980s, the emergence of women's studies was not without conflict, with certain Fulian officials contesting its relevance to China as a society guided by Marxist ideology and class analysis. It is evident that "women's studies" is an import into China from the West and Japan, and entered China in the early 1980s, originally translated as funuxue, which literally does mean "women's studies.'' Some scholars advocated the establishment of funuxue in China, including a noted male scholar from the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, Deng Weizhi. Li Xiaojiang, a professor at Zhengzhou University in Henan province, also became interested in the subject quite early on. Meanwhile, certain Fulian officials, including the prominent leader Luo Qiong, disputed the relevance of funuxue to Chinese conditions. The primary question, not surprisingly, was whether a subject that derived from the Western experience and did not feature class as its central subject of analysis was appropriate in the Chinese context. Some felt that socialism was enough to solve women's problems, and that "gender" was not an appropriate category of analysis in a socialist society (Spakowski 1994, p. 307). Others felt, however, that "women's studies," increasingly translated as funu yanjiu (literally, "women's research"), was an interesting new "scientific" discipline that had interesting implications for China, and even was potentially quite compatible with existing Marxist women's theory (Wang Zheng 1998, pp. 5-6). Even when the idea of "women's studies'' began to receive some acceptance, there still was a question of its proper object of study. In particular, there have been debates over whether it encompasses "women's existence, history, and development," which has been the viewpoint of Li Xiaojiang, or whether it is a "a social science of studying women's problems.'' Fulian researcher and NGO activist Ding Juan has looked at some of these different perspectives and concluded that "the research object of women's studies should be women's problems" (Ding Juan 1992, p. 196). Thus, interestingly, "women's studies'' did move from an abstract theoretical pursuit to one aspiring to social relevance. The Women's Federation also did eventually come round to seeing the social importance of women's studies (Spakowski 1994; Wang Zheng 1998). There also have been debates over various substantive issues in women's studies, including those over proposals for women to return to the home to alleviate unemployment problems. While some authors supported women returning to the home, Fulian and other advocates of women's studies did continue to support women's full participation in society and the labor force, and rejected such proposals (Ding Juan 1992, pp. 192-193; Liu Bohong 1992, pp. 324-328; Spakowski 1994, pp. 300-302). This indicates that the relationship between the Women's Federation and other forms of women's organizing is not always a contentious one, but in fact features significant measures of c o ~ p e r a t i o nMany .~ groups collaborate on organizing conferences and workshops, and in general there is a fairly close netCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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work of women's organizations and activists in Beijing. Additionally, NGOs have been active in various types of activities with Fulian, including training Fulian cadres at various levels of the system.1° Wang Zheng argues that academic scholars and Fulian researchers have actually worked quite "closely to establish a Chinese women's studies," for a number of reasons. First, Fulian provides an important publishing and conference forum for academic scholars. Second, "women scholars have been treated as either equal partners or specialists by Women's Federation cadres." Third, women in both sets of institutions are usually of similar age and educational background. And, finally, "theoretical conflicts'' within women's studies have not occurred on a clear line between Fulian and academia (Wang Zheng 1998, pp. 15-16). In a number of aspects we can thus discern a "symbiotic" relationship between different components of women's activism and women's studies, including cooperation between groups and even non-governmental groups offering their knowledge and experience to Fulian in the form of training classes. Some Fulian researchers have explicitly called for more "cooperation" among various women's studies bodies at various levels, as well as between women's studies and other women's non-governmental organizations. They have even asserted that they should "utilize the joining of forces to exert influence on policy-making" (Ding Juan 1995a; see also Guan Tao 1995). Such language certainly sounds like that of a social movement in action. Influence of International Discourses As I have just discussed, "women's studies," the most important component of post-Mao women's organizing, is a term originating outside of China. Because of the need for at least superficial loyalty to Marxist ideology, the influence of international discourses has presented both challenges and opportunities to women's movement activists. To some extent, the Chinese women's movement, including the Women's Federation, is becoming an increasingly "hybrid" cultural entity. Much like "women's studies'' when first introduced to China, the term "feminism" itself has generally had fairly negative connotations in the Chinese context. Because of the socialist approach adopted to women's issues following Liberation in 1949, and because of China's political isolation from the West, "feminism became a sensitive issue.'' This was due at least in part to the fact that "Western culture was increasingly misunderstood" (Ding Juan 1995b). Such a view of why feminism was not accepted during the Mao era also provides justification for the apparent increasing interest in Western feminist thought in the post-Mao period, but also the interest in the "nativization" (bentuhua) of women's studies. In other words, Chinese women are interested both in conducting international comparative research, but also making it compatible with Chinese culture and conditions (Ding Juan 1995a). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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However, this is not at all different from women all over the world seeking to make their forms of "feminism" contingent on local conditions rather than merely uncritically importing Western versions of feminism (see, e.g., Basu 1995; Mohanty, Russo, and Torres 1991). Chinese women's movement activists are clearly interested in learning from the international women's movement. Part of this is the legitimating function provided to their activities by international norms and discourses regarding women's issues. Numerous activists discuss the role, for instance, of the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies in formulating their own goals for their activities, including those on women's political participation (Wang Xingjuan 1995f, p. 393), and rural girls' education and literacy (Zang Jian 1994). In general, it would seem that increased contact with the international women's movement, especially furthered due to preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women, did contribute to the development of substantially "new analytical tools" for women's studies and women's activism (Wang Zheng 1998, p. 24). Many of the non-governmental organizations especially include exchanges with international women's organizations as an important component of their planned activities (Jinglun Family Center 199?; Sha Lianxiang 1995, pp. 159-160). Proposed Measures

This leads to the final question-the measures proposed or pursued by women's groups in their new forms of organizing. I have already discussed the desire for many women's movement activists to have both policy-level and grassroots impact. The fact is that the great majority of activists are urban, intellectual women far different from average Chinese women, who are usually from rural areas and not particularly well-educated. Nonetheless, there are a number of ways that women activists seek to bridge this gap. First, there are efforts at various forms of publicity through mass and print media. Chinese television has carried programs discussing women's issues, including debates about women's employment (Liu Bohong 1992, p. 310). Various popular-level women's magazines sometimes feature the writings of various activists, including World Women's Vision, which has as its purpose the introduction of foreign women and the international women's movement to Chinese women, and Rural Women Knowing All, the first women's magazine intended for rural women. This latter publication is evidence of rural outreach, also conducted by a number of different groups and activists. A history professor from Beijing University's Women's Studies Center, for instance, has become involved in rural girls' literacy and education issues in northwestern China, focusing especially on how improving rural girls' education will ultimately improve their general social status (Zang Jian 1994). A similar approach has been adopted by the Women's Studies Center of People's University (Sha Lianxiang 1995, pp. 159-162). Additionally, there have also been efforts at Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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youth outreach, for instance through a newsletter published concurrently by the China-Canada Young Women's Project and World Women3 Vision (China-Canada Young Women's Project 1995), which introduced young women to feminism and to the Fourth World Conference on Women. Women's studies and women's activists also offer various solutions for alleviating particular problems faced by women. For instance, with respect to employment issues, certain proposals have been offered, some of which are consistent with hegemonic discourses, but others which offer a more critical perspective. Some of the former include the further development of the "productive forces" and "deepening of the reform of the economic system" through "exploring the flexible and diversely suited characteristics of women's employment." Some of the latter include calls upon the state to "ensure women's equal employment rights" through the actual "implementation" of administrative measures, many of which already exist on paper. Others support better social welfare provisions for women's childbirth compensation, housework, and local social services, as well as promoting "civilized and progressive views on women" throughout society (Liu Bohong 1992, pp. 334-337). While such proposals, not surprisingly, do not actually critique the nature of the reform program itself and its adverse effects on women, they do at least implicitly call for the state to better enforce its stated commitments to women as well as potentially to revive some of the social welfare provisions that have been dismantled during the reform years. Other proposals have also called for enhancements in "social assistance" to women. One, by a Beijing University professor and Women's Hotline volunteer, notes that the Hotline has provided an important "response to satisfy the general and specific needs of women who have problems and need help." However, it has certain limitations on its efficacy, including generally restricted access for rural women who lack easy access to telephone service, as well as few chances for follow-up conversations. She supports some actions to expand the Hotline's utility, including greater governmental financial support for non-governmental organizations helping women, the establishment of "specialized organizations" to provide "welfare services" to women, and "strengthening the crisis intervention abilities" of the Hotline through cooperation with public security and health departments (Ma Fengzhi 1995a). As can be seen, women's activists seek to engage and utilize the institutions of the state in their efforts. The same is true of other issues. With respect to mental health and women's relatively high suicide rates, psychology professor and Women's Hotline volunteer Huang Hengyu includes a number of suggestions in her "social support strategy for the mental health of Chinese women." These include promoting knowledge about mental health in "grassroots units" like factories and schools so that women "can correctly face or intervene in mental crises," as well as "establishing basic-level organizations of mental-health service" by turning localCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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level Fulian branches into "women's mental health consulting and health care organs" as well as promoting the training of local-level female mental health counselors. She also supported the expansion of the activities of the Women's Hotline to include "face-to-face consulting services" and lecture courses on mental health care (Huang Hengyu 1995). Such proposals, again, seek to utilize existing institutions, including the Women's Federation, in new and presumably more effective ways. With respect to newer issues on the women's movement agenda, a number of activists have become interested in studying and preventing domestic violence. Again, volunteers of the Women's Hotline have advocated a number of different proposals, including "women's legal protection," as well as "strengthening social control functions, and establishing legal prosecution mechanisms against domestic violence, as well as the founding of women's shelters" (Tong Xin 1995a). Sun Xiaomei has also proposed "exploring the setting up of 'women's shelters' and 'women's centers' in China," as well as increased attention from lawyers to this problem which is underspecified in legal codes. She also supports education and mediation measures "to avert the occurrence of violence" as well as publicizing the incidence of domestic violence so that "illegal acts of hurting women in families can be exposed and condemned" (Sun Xiaomei 1995). In this way, activists are extending attention to previously unaddressed issues facing Chinese women.12 BEIJING WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS In this section, I will look at three different women's organizations currently active in Beijing, each of which represents one of the three types of women's "popular" (minjian) organizations as discussed by NGO leader Wang Xingjuan in a presentation at the NGO Forum: professional women's organizations, voluntary women's organizations, and universitylevel women's organizations (Wang Xingjuan 1995d). As an example of a professional women's organization, I will look at the China Capital Women Journalists' Association. As a "voluntary" organization I will look at the Women's Research Institute/Women7sHotline. And at the university level I will look at the Women's Studies Center of People's University. The China Capital Women Journalists' Association Founded in 1986, the China Capital Women Journalists' Association typifies the "friendly societies" founded by professional women beginning in the 1980s. Their purpose, was, among other things, to assist women's career development through helping them establish the guanxi-connections-so vital in Chinese society (Honig and Hershatter 1988, pp. 320-321). The group's goals include a number of things, including aspiring to "eliminate all unfair and unequal treatment of women and women's Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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issues in the media"; to "remove all discriminating obstacles to women journalists, and support the pursuit of career development by women journalists and other professional women"; tonpromote gender-sensitive media in the country's efforts in building a modern, civilized society"; and to "advocate for women's rights and empowerment in the nation's political, economic, cultural, and social development" (China Capital Women Journalists' Association 199510). This organization has especially focused on how women are represented in the Chinese media-including newspapers, magazines, television and advertising. While this is not a surprising focus for the group, it is a fairly new approach to women's issues in China. At a meeting sponsored by the Association in March 1996, the formation of a "Women's Media Monitoring Network" was announced. In a report to the meeting, the network's preparatory group noted that in the Chinese mass media, "there still are not a few women's images that strengthen male-female inequality, strengthen traditional gender roles, and belittle women's dignity and value." The group especially noted that in the reform era, women are regarded as "objects, not as independent subjects," and that in advertising women are "often depicted as consumers but not as producers" (Women's Media Monitoring Network Preparatory Group 1996). Even prior to this meeting, beginning in 1992, the Association began conducting a yearly study of the front-page coverage of women in China's mainstream newspapers, looking at the front pages of December issues of ten important newspapers. In particular, they found that, while many papers had "womanless" front pages (lacking women in page one stories, women in page one photos, and female bylines), no papers had "menless" front pages (China Capital Women Journalists' Association 1995a). In other words, the Association has made continuing gender inequalities a central part of its agenda. While it does not explicitly critique Marxist perspectives on women's liberation, it has adopted an approach placing "gender" at the center. And the Association has pointed out the existence of "male-female equality" as both a "basic national policy" and a "human ideal" (Women's Media Monitoring Network Preparatory Group 1996). So while the Association has noted the consistency of its activities with stated government aspirations regarding gender relations, it also has asserted that "women in the median-in other words, its own membership-are "especially duty-bound to take such actions" in order to rectify the gender biases of the media. The group particularly seeks to promote the agency of female journalists-who compose one-third of all journalists in China-in promoting a better image for women in the media. The Association itself provides an inherent network for the pursuit of calls to "eliminate intentional and unintentional discrimination against and belittling of women by the media" in order to attain male-female equality (Women's Media Monitoring Network Preparatory Group 1996). The group also has ties to Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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the Women's Federation.13 Additionally, it has been clearly influenced by international norms and discourses. It has sponsored seminars for Asian women journalists (China Capital Women Journalists' Association 199513). It also has used the Chinese government's hosting of the Fourth World Conference on Women as a reason to call upon China to be the "first example" in promoting greater gender equality in the media. The Association has made a number of suggestions to reach this end, including the need to develop "editorial policies that are gender-sensitive and reflect gender equity," to foster greater "equality and diversity in the portrayal of men and women'' in the media, and to prepare guidelines for reporters and editors to use when writing stories to promote gender sensitivity. Additionally, the group seeks women's representation in the media in a variety of roles and not just on "women's issues'' (China Capital Women Journalists' Association 1995a). The Association pursues a number of activities to advance its aims, some of which are inspired by the FWCW. These include the points in the FWCW's Platform for Action regarding media issues, including the formation of media monitoring groups like the Network being formed by members of the Association (Women's Media Monitoring Network Preparatory Group 1996). Other ongoing activities have included training programs for women journalists, exchanging information regarding women's status with women in other professions, conducting trips to various localities for women journalists to view conditions there, and conducting surveys to improve women's status in the media (China Capital Women Journalists' Association 1995b). One of these is the above-discussed survey of newspaper front pages, in which, among other things, some of the surveyed editors-in-chief noted that the survey made them more aware of the need to expand and improve coverage of women in their newspapers (China Capital Women Journalists' Association 1995a). The Journalists' Association has also succeeded in other areas. A column in the newspaper Worker's Daily, written by an Association member, featured investigative reports and reader letters discussing the issue of women losing their jobs due to the expenses incurred by enterprises when women had children, leading to a debate through which "more and more people came to the notion that the cost of childbearing should be shared by female workers, their employers and society at large, rather than by female workers and their employers alone." This helped lead to the creation of programs in some cities where enterprises contribute to a city-wide "social reproduction fund," which they can then withdraw from to help offset costs of women employees having babies. Xiong Lei, a leader of the Association, noted that this program "is helping to check the tendency of gender preference or discrimination in employment" (Xiong Lei 1995). Such successes indicate that the Journalists' Association strategy of targeting the media can help to create changes in society advantageous to women's status. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization Women's Research Institute/Women's Hotline The Women's Research Institute (WRI), founded in 1988, and its Women's Hotline, founded in 1992, are among the most prominent and the most active of women's organizations in Beijing. This group truly epitomizes the combination of research work and activism that characterizes Chinese women's organizing in the 1990s. WRI was founded by retired Party cadre Wang Xingjuan with the desire "to help women adjust themselves to the changing times, build a new mental support system, and to become victors in social competition and promoters of social progress.'' And the Women's Hotline was a way for WRI to serve "society and women directly" (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 23). WRI was founded as a direct response to the changes affecting women under the reforms. It also notes in its publications its location on "the rich soil of socialist Chinese society" (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 1). At the same time, WRI and the Hotline are a manifestation of the voluntary agency of women in seeking to improve their own status. It often emphasizes its own basis in the work of volunteers, as well as its status as a non-governmental organization (e.g., M a Fengzhi 1995b; Wang Xingjuan 1995b). In particular, WRI has as its purpose "achieving women's complete liberation," and especially "to help women recognize their own rights, solve their problems, develop their own abilities, and not only adapt to but also succeed in the rapidly developing society'' (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 2). As noted, WRI finds its mission both in research and in social support functions. In its counseling of callers, an average of 1 5 per day, the Women's Hotline tends to adopt an individual psychological approach, rather than overtly feminist viewpoints. For instance, counselors are urged to be impartial with callers, and not to "easily side with women" (Women's Research Institute 1994a). Yet, the Hotline does nicely support WRI's more macro-level research activities, with Hotline calls being used as a source of research data on issues that women are facing. The Hotline has published statistics of its calls for research purposes (Women's Research Institute 1994b), as well as an inexpensively-priced book series detailing typical Hotline calls and counselor responses (Ding Juan et al. 1995; Ding Ning et al. 1995; Huang Hengyu et al. 1995; Le Ping et al. 1995). While most callers to the Hotline are urban women, some Hotline volunteers are seeking ways to make it more available to rural areas (Ma Fengzhi 199513). Even prior to the founding of the Hotline, WRI was conducting research on numerous "hot issues'' facing Chinese women in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its very first research project was on women's employment, and questioned how to handle the likely unemployment of especially large numbers of women as inefficient state-owned enterprises were closed. The research produced a number of proposals for how to handle the situation, including part-time employment and employment outside of state-owned Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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enterprises (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 5). Despite the potentially subversive nature of such a research project, its findings were quite compatible with the government's economic reforms and arguably do not really get at the roots of the problem, indicative of possible limits to its critical potential. WRI has also featured research projects on prostitution and female scientists. Another project that combined research with fund-raising for the Institute was the formation of training classes for female officials, a response particularly to the fact that the proportion of females in leading positions was in decline. WRI's training classes combined "research with education" in order to "study the work of government and the life of women in politics, discover the patterns of political activities, and help [women] improve the quality of their political participation" (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 8).14WRI has also featured work on relatively controversial issues such as domestic violence (Li Bing 1995; Tong Xin 1995b) and sexual harassment (Le Ping 1995). O n both of these issues, Hotline volunteers have urged greater legal and government intervention. Despite delving into such potentially "sensitive" issues, WRI seems to maintain a relatively good relationship with statist women's organs and branches of the government. Representatives from Fulian attended WRI's first meeting and WRI became a "group member" of the Women's Federation. Guan Tao, a Fulian official, "expressed her hopes that WRI would not only become an active theoretical resource, but also a new source of knowledge and information for the ACWF." Soon after this founding, WRI was able to find financial support for its first research project, the one on women's employment, due in part to the assistance of another high-ranking Fulian official, Kang Keqing. And, as noted, WRI has been active in training female officials. Such symbiosis between WRI and Fulian is also evident in other areas. For instance, in 1990, WRI established a Singles Weekend Club for educated men and women in Beijing. Along with being a social organization, The Club also advocates the legal rights of single men and women. Many unmarried people have been deprived of the right to housing due to their single state, despite their many years of employment. The Club invited Ms. Wu Qing, a representative of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress, to listen to the needs of these singles. Ms. Wu later reported back to the Housing Reform office under the Beijing Municipal government.

In this way, WRI was able to use its particularly good guanxi with Wu Qing, a People's Deputy, to promote change at the governmental level (Women's Research Institute 1995). It is in these and other ways that WRI is able to both promote social change and maintain its existence under the Communist party-state.

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Women's Studies Center, People's University Founded in 1993 under the leadership of sociology professor Sha Lianxiang, the Women's Studies Center at Chinese People's University has as its "founding purpose" a number of aims. These include "to protect women's rights and interests," "to raise Chinese women's role quality and social status," with the larger aim of advancing "the development of social progress and humanity's liberation" (Sha Lianxiang 1995, p. 159). While looking at general issues facing women, such as opposing the proposals to return women to the home (Yang Zhi 1995)' the Center has especially taken upon itself the need for greater women's activism in rural areas. In particular, the Center has sought to establish a rural women's school in Longju village in Hebei Province. Their reasons for this are directly related to the dislocations caused by economic reforms. In particular, as more and more men leave the village to find work in urban areas, women's lives also change in very significant ways, with them having to take responsibility for production outside of the home as well as maintaining the home. Despite these actual changes, "gender role perceptions and women's skills in the home and production remain the same" as before. Deng Chunli of the Center has noted that women lack production skills as well as some of the "life skills" needed for family management. This leads women to "suffer from the contradiction between desire and realityv-between their wishes for improved skills and the lack of opportunities for such improvements. Deng also notes women's general continuing lack of the "right and ability to make decisions in production" as well as their persistently lower incomes (Deng Chunli 1995). To rectify this situation, the Center has formed a "Women's Mobile School" to help deal with these issues and more generally to help women who "long to receive education and get rid of the yoke of poverty and backwardness" in order to attain a more comfortable standard of living under the economic reforms. In particular, the group seeks to teach female peasants production skills, more general educational content, and aspects relating to women's lives such as law and health. The ultimate aim is to "empower" rural women. The basis of these activities is the belief of the Center's researchers that "shortages of education resources are the factors behind the poverty and backwardness of most of China's rural women." For this reason, the People's University Women's Studies Center has also advocated that the government encourage intellectuals to do similar rural work, and that other universities establish similar rural women's schools (Deng Chunli 1995; Sha Lianxiang 1995, pp. 161-162). The Center does engage in other work as well, including research on various relevant topics. One project of a graduate student in the Center featured a survey on housework patterns in ten Chinese cities, finding that "career women are undertaking too much of the housework," but also that people believe that men should do more of it. The study's report then Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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focused on ways to realize this "new pattern" of thinking in actual practice, including education and socialization to "encourage males and females to be more complete beings, instead of typically/traditionally male or female,'' as well as mass media and social welfare provisions regarding housework (Lu Hong 1995). The Center has developed "consulting and social service work'' (Sha Lianxiang 1995, p. 1.59)' including the formation of a telephone consulting service "where women can seek advice from voluntary experts concerning issues such as marriage, family, employment, women's rights and interests, childbearing, birth control, mental health care, etc." (Chinese People's University 1994). The Center also promotes the teaching of women's studies courses at the university as well as promoting scholarly exchange activities with foreign and domestic women's groups. For instance, People's University's Women's Studies Center has co-sponsored a conference with the China Family Education Society, Wang Xingjuan's Women's Research Institute, and the China Marriage and Family Research Society which examined a number of controversial issues, including domestic violence, prostitution, and sexual harassment (Chinese People's University 1995a). And many of the same issues were discussed at the Center's NGO Forum workshop on "Chinese Marriage, Family, and Women's Roles," also co-sponsored with the China Marriage and Family Research Society (Chinese People's University 1995b). This latter organization is closely tied to the Women's Federation-indeed, it can be regarded as Fulian's earliest research organ, founded in 1981. In this way, much like the non-governmental Women's Research Institute, the People's University Women's Studies Center conducts its activities in often close and cooperative proximity to statist women's groups. CONCLUSIONS (Perhaps) ironically, in a socialist country, women's movement activists' approaches seem mostly to resemble Western liberal feminism, with perhaps the occasional glimmer of radical views, rather than socialist or Marxist feminism. They look especially to legal and some aspects of social change as means of alleviating women's problems, rather than desiring thoroughgoing political or economic systemic transformation. Yet, it would seem that what would be most subversive and dangerous for women's activists in China today would be their questioning of the government's marketizing reform program, which, while bringing women many new problems, has also brought these same activists new opportunities to try to address and find ways to resolve these problems, as well as to confront women's historical legacy of political, social, and economic inequality. This is perhaps not so different in some ways from the course of the emergence of women's movements in post-communist Eastern Europe. As Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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one observer of this latter context notes, "Whereas the Western women's movement grappled with the role of capitalism in women's oppression and looked to socialist theory for new insights, the reverse has often been the case in post-communism." At the same time, women "received extensive benefits from state socialism and an inheritance of a Marxist intellectual discourse" (Funk 1993, pp. 1-2). Also similarly, as the region was transitioning out of state socialism, many Eastern European women's groups initially formed as academic study groups (Einhorn 1993, p. 188). Women in China are working in many of these same intellectual and social contexts. And this similarity of context manifests itself in an ambivalence toward "feminism" in China as well as in much of formerly communist Eastern Europe. For instance, "feminism provokes a negative reaction among the majority of Soviet women. As a rule, they do not want to indenture themselves to feminism" (Lissyutkina 1993, p. 274). Such a resistance to feminism is also present in China, including among some of its most ardent women's movement activists. I now turn to the question of activist identities, and look at, among other things, the place of "feminism" in the Chinese movement.

NOTES This chapter is meant to be an overview of some of the issues and activities of women's movement organizing in Beijing. Many of these issues will be discussed in later chapters as well. O n some of the new and continuing problems facing women in the post-Mao era, see, for example Croll (19951, and Honig and Hershatter (1988). For more on the political context of this survey, see Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, I discuss why it is more accurate to consider Fulian a government or state-level body, despite its claims to be a "non-governmental organization." All quotes are taken from the book A Review of the Social Status of Women in China (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 19951, which is an English translation of Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping (1993).Viewing Chinese women's status as having greatly improved since 1949 is a very typical example of the regime legitimation tactic of "vertical comparison," whereby the party-state seeks to demonstrate how much better things are under its tutelage in "New China" than they were in "old China" (Ding 1994a, p. 21). The above-discussed Fulian study on women's status in China has a chapter on women's employment, but it does not look at women's employment discrimination. Instead it concentrates on other aspects of employment issues, such as job satisfaction (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1993; Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping

1995). 7 . .. Significantly, all these thinkers except for Qiu Jin were male. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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See, e.g., Wang Xingjuan (1993, p. 247); M a Fengzhi (1995a) . In Chapter 7, I will discuss how this increased sense of voluntarism has contributed to a similarly increasing sense of "collective identity" among activists. In Chapter 6 I look further at the issue of relationships between different women's organizations, including between NGOs and Fulian. lo A book on women's political participation edited by the Women's Research Institute's Wang Xingjuan is the product in part of that organization's efforts t o use training classes for cadres as a source for funds for the Institute's operation (Wang Xingjuan 1995f). The Jinglun Family Science Center's Chen Yiyun has also been active in training cadres in various localities.

In Chapters 5-7 I further discuss the importance of the international context for contemporary Chinese women's movement organizing. l2I will further discuss the issue of domestic violence in Chapter 7, on movement framing. l3 Chen Muhua, the head of Fulian, is prominently featured next to the head of the Journalists' Association, Li Qin, in a photo in the Association's brochure. l4 The results of a symposium on this subject are published in Wang Xingjuan (1995f), some of which are discussed earlier in this chapter.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER FOUR

Beijing Activists: The Emergence of Feminist Identities

In social movement theory, a common refrain has recently been that the collective action problem is more social in nature, rather than an individual-level dilemma as it traditionally has been regarded.' While there has been much attention to the "individual attributes" determining participation in collective action, such as "a strong attitudinal affinity with the goals of the movement or a well-articulated set of grievances consistent with the movement's ideology," there has also been an increasing concern for the role played by social position and network contacts in motivating individual social movement participation-for instance, the role played by "multiorganizational fields" in recruiting activists (Fernandez and McAdam 1989). However, this attention to the social basis of participation does not necessarily negate the importance of parallel attention to the traits and beliefs of individual activists. Even if "collective beliefs" and their "social construction" are central determinants of social movement participation and evolution (IZlandermans 1992), there still remains the question of how individuals become personally committed to such beliefs. What brings individuals to the networks and organizations where such socially constituted action can occur? Thomas Rochon, in a recent work, asserts that there is a "two-stage process of value generation and value diffusion" that is central to social movements' ultimate efforts to promote cultural change (Rochon 1998, p. 51). He notes that, while movements are the second stage in this process, the generation of "critical communities" is the first, and he notes the importance of individual experience as one basis for participation in such communities, along with the significance of "group solidarity." Examining the traits of individual activists enables us to understand personal motivations behind getting involved in the women's movement at a time when the conditions of Chinese society can be regarded as far more favorable toward individualistic pursuits than the commitments of social Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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movement participation, as well as to glean patterns behind individual involvement that might help us better understand its social features. Additionally, attention to individual activists' biographies can help us understand the ways that they themselves have been changed through participation in forms of collective action, and thus contributes to a general picture of how identities are changing in post-Mao and post-Deng China.2 While organizational and framing aspects of social movement analysis enable us to look at the more social components of identity, biographical elements allow for attention to personal aspects. Looking at the individual level can also be regarded as of particular value in the Chinese case due to the prominence of several key leaders. I divide Chinese women's movement participants into four different types: (1)Compulsory Activists, (2) Accidental Activists, (3) Voluntary Activists, and (4) Career Activists. "Compulsory Activist," while certainly something of an oxymoron, is nonetheless an accurate description of many of the Women's Federation cadres in China today-of which there are some 98,000 (Zhang and Xu 1995, p. 30). Most of them have been assigned the work following leaving school, and are therefore not necessarily personally committed to the cause of promoting women's liberation; by state fiat, that has regardless become their profession. "Accidental Activists" are part-time participants in women's movement activities, and they have come to such participation through paths not directly related to women's concerns. Instead, they are mostly psychologists or social workers who have ended up being volunteers in women's movement organizations. Their primary commitment usually continues to be to their principal vocation, rather than to women's movement activism. "Voluntary Activists" are not much different from Accidental Activists in some respects, such as their means of introduction to and level of participation in women's movement activities, except that in the course of their participation they have come to have a greater commitment to the cause of women's liberation. For some, it has become an important part of their worldview, although their full-time job remains one not directly relating to women's movement politics. Finally, "Career Activists" are women who, by fortune of job assignment or particular circumstances, have been able to embrace women's movement activism as their calling. Some of these women are in the Women's Federation, and have come to adopt the pursuits of their job as a larger part of their own identity. Others are in different work units or retired but have chosen to commit most of their time and energy to women's causes. Such activists are a small minority, but as can be expected they are crucial to the leadership and support of the movement. Many of these activists are involved in multiple women's organizations, one of which may be their full-time job, but others of which are purely voluntary. This phenomenon is indicative of their level of commitment to the women's r n ~ v e m e n t . ~ Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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This typology can be regarded more as a continuum than as rigid separation among types. In fact, there are some commonalities between Compulsory and Career Activists, the two ends of the continuum. Some participants may have begun as Compulsory Activists but gradually became more committed to the cause, making them closer to Career Activists. And all of the types blend together in some ways. Accidental Activists sometimes are more or less especially concerned about women's issues. For instance, some women's studies scholars, who are usually university professors, may be more interested in scholarly pursuits than practical research and activism. Meanwhile, some Voluntary Activists have come to adopt women's movement perspectives as a central component of their personal identity and commitments, and are thus closer to Career Activists in mentality. As I will show, this is especially revealed in the increasing willingness of some women's movement activists to identify themselves as "feminists," and the meanings they attach to such identities. Such "internal accountability" has been described as a defining feature of the feminist movement by Jane Mansbridge (1995). In this chapter, I will examine some of the key individual traits of Beijing women's movement activist^.^ First, I will look at some personal aspects of individual identities. Then, I will look at elements relating to activists' women's work, including their introduction to it, its internationally-oriented aspects, and their views of how it has changed their lives. Finally, I look at the relevance of "feminism" in the Chinese context and the ways that Chinese activists feel that this term is of relevance to their participation in the women's movement.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ACTIVISTS Some treatments of social movements see the relevance of "generations" to such movements largely in terms of the age of activists and what this indicates about their political belief systems (Rogers 1993). In her book Feminist Generations, Nancy Whittier looks at the importance of "political generation", or "when participants are politicized," which she notes has traditionally been regarded as a factor of age, but which she prefers to see as when people became active in the movement (Whittier 1995, pp. 15-17). In the case of the Beijing movement, this latter approach is somewhat problematic because of the novelty of the autonomous Beijing women's movement-most activists have only become part of the movement during the 1990s. However, this does not negate the pertinence of looking at the ages of women's movement activists. The average age of my informants was 47.' The youngest was 20, the oldest 67. There were three in their 20s, 9 in their 30s, 1 5 in their 40s, 10 in their 50s, and 8 in their 60s. Thus, out of the 45 activists considered, almost three-fourths were over the age of 40. Most activists, therefore, were not youthful idealists, but rather women brought Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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up during the Mao years or even prior to Liberation in 1949. Many came of age during the years of the Cultural Revolution. One activist, Xie Lihua, founder of Rural Women Knowing All, notes the effects of this period on her own activism as well as that of others, noting that "This generation is a special generation. We have a mission in our lives to fulfill our own values and also to do something to contribute to society" (Mufson 1998). A large proportion of activists were "sent-down youth" during the Cultural Revolution. The preponderance of such women in the movement is indicative of the continuing desire to somehow realize the ideals of the Maoist period-they persevere in trying to have a greater social impact in their lives. It in some cases is also reflective of their desire to see the realization of the gender equality that was promised during the Maoist era. Most activists are married, with marriage being such a prevailing norm in Chinese society that many activists answered "of course!" when asked if they were married. Most activists also asserted, sometimes with a laugh, that their husbands were "very supportive" of their women's work. Many of these women noted that their husbands were university professors-the implication being regarding their subsequent "high cultural levelv-and therefore were very understanding of their work. However, one psychology professor who is also a volunteer in a women's NGO-an Accidental Activist-noted that her husband sometimes felt frustration over her busy commitments outside of their home, and her ensuing lack of time to focus on domestic tasks. Another Accidental Activist, a social worker volunteering at the Women's Hotline, noted of her husband's view of her women's movement activities: "Originally he thought this was other people's business, and I shouldn't bother with it. Now he supports my helping other people, but he's still not too understanding." Other, more committed activists might encounter problems as well. A Voluntary Activist with an outspoken feminist identity noted that "Theoretically my husband can understand this work, but in going from theory to action he is not too comfortable." And a Career Activist, who works for a women's publication and also volunteers in some N G O activities, said that "Generally I can say that my husband is very supportive, but sometimes he feels I am too feminist. I don't say that I am, but he says I am too f e m i n i ~ t . " ~ While most activists are married, there are a few exceptions. Two of the most involved Career Activists that I interviewed, both of whom work for the Women's Federation but are also enthusiastic N G O activists, are unmarried. Both are also over the age of 40, an unusual state for women in China. And two Voluntary Activists were divorced, also a relatively unusual situation. One of these activists, a university professor, particularly noted the effects of the divorce on her thought and actions. She became active in women's activities due to her participation in one of the projects of the non-governmental Women's Research Institute, the Singles Weekend Club: Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Beijing Activists I started at the Hotline in 1992. I had been attending the Singles Weekend Club so I knew Wang Xingjuan. I liked to talk, not dance. I participated in the women's salon-organizing it and discussing topics. After organizing the Hotline, Wang Xingjuan said she hoped I would attend. This was after my divorce. I was one of the earliest volunteers, and we started training in August 1992.

She noted the effects of her divorce on her consciousness of her status as a woman: T h e Bvidges of Madison County has been a very popular book in ChinaI think that it is very much related to Chinese marriages. In the book she is not satisfied with her marriage. This relates to love and family problems in China-the ordinary family is not romantic, despite people having such ideals. In the movie, she chose her family. It is a contradiction-the family vs. the self. In China, divorce was not accepted in the past. Now it is accepted by more and more people. To marry, the danwei leader has to write a certification, and to divorce this is also needed. One leader said I should divorce, but my school leader said that was too simple. I told him he does not have the right to manage my own life. People asked me why, I said it was my business. They felt "you are very pitiful" and told me "you don't resemble a woman." I was very mad. I told journalists their publicity about this issue has a problem. When I divorced I had to renounce many rights. At the Hotline, I can educate myself. I can study women's issues and think about some things.7

Thus, in this woman's case, her change in marital situation played a direct role in her becoming a women's movement participant. While most activists' marital status reflects patterns in wider Chinese society, their educational level is a great deal higher than the average. In China in general, only a very small proportion of the population enters university, and even a smaller percentage of women do so-in 1990 women received only 20 percent of postgraduate degrees and 33 percent of undergraduate degrees (see also Bauer et al. 1992; Croll 1995, p. 133). Additionally, women constitute 70 percent of all illiterates in China (Croll 1995, p. 135). By contrast, all of the activists I interviewed save the secretary of one NGO had at least university-level educations. Ten of them had Master's degrees, two of these from abroad, and four others had doctorates, two of which were from the United States. Of course, this sample is obviously biased by the fact that many of these activists are themselves university teachers. However, these results include all activists, including Compulsory Activists working for the Women's Federation. This is a new phenomenon for Fulian, and in general its cadres and leaders are better educated than in the past8 For instance, one of my interviewees, a former journalist who became a leading cadre in the Beijing municipal Fulian as well as an NGO activist, was the first Beijing city Fulian leader who had been to university. In general, she noted that Fulian cadres are required to have a higher eduCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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cational level than in the past. And NGO activists are also much better educated than average Chinese women. However, this is characteristic of many social movement activists in different contexts (see, e.g., McAdam 1988, p. 15). Thomas Rochon focuses upon the role played by "critical communities" in value change in society. He notes that the members of a critical community are "people whose experiences, reading, and interaction with each other help them to develop a set of cultural values that is out of step with the larger society" (1998, p. 8). The preponderant role played by such elites has generally been paralleled in Chinese society, and intellectuals are a central part not only of the establishment but also of "counterelite" groupings (Ding 1994a).9Intellectuals play a particular role in the contemporary women's movement, but they also seek to disseminate their ideas to a broader public. Thus, even though the educational level of the women's movement is elite, their concerns spread to a much wider segment of the female population. PARTICIPATION IN THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT: CAUSES AND EFFECTS Women involved in the movement have become a part of it through various means. And their level of commitment and effects on their personal and professional lives has also varied greatly. In this section I will first discuss the various ways that women have become participants and activists in the movement. Second, I will look at international aspects of such participation-particularly the provision of expanded opportunities for international travel as well as effects of the Fourth World Conference on Women on individual activists. And third, I will look at the consequences of such work on activists' understanding of women's issues as well as on their own lives. Becoming Women's Movement Activists Activists have a diversity of reasons for becoming involved in women's movement activities-ranging from being assigned to the work, to being introduced by a friend, to intellectual interest, to having personally experienced the negative effects of being a woman in Chinese society. At the same time, to some extent the Chinese women's movement is unique in that it does not face an initial collective action problem-many of its leaders are already "professional" women's movement participants who work for Fulian and women's publications, as well as in universities that have women's studies centers. However, the more non-governmental side of the movement does require voluntary participation, and it is this phenomenon that requires more of an explanation. This is particularly the case because the majority of activists do not cite personal experiences of gender oppression to be their primary reason for movement participation. Although women sometimes discuss situations in Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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their lives related to their gender, their participation usually derives more from intellectual interest than feeling the effects of overt discrimination. Snow and Benford look at the role played by the "phenomenological life world of the targets of mobilization," asking "Does the framing strike a responsive chord with those individuals for whom it is intended?" They cite "empirical credibility," "experiential commensurability," and "narrative fidelity" to be the hallmarks of such responsiveness (Snow and Benford 1988, pp. 207-211). While many of the women's movement activists have not become involved due to personal experiences of gender oppression, at least not consciously ("experiential commensurability"), they have some connections to notions of "empirical credibility" and "narrative fidelity" due to their largely scholarly association with women's issues. Personal experience with the problem being confronted by the social movement is not a necessary prerequisite for social movement participation, as is evidenced in the Northern, white volunteers who participated in Freedom Summer (McAdam 198 8). At the same time, it is not coincidental that women's movement activists in China predominantly are women. As Rochon notes, "Identification with a group encourages a person to associate group interests with individual interests" (Rochon 1998, p. 134). To some extent, the Chinese case is characterized by a sense of "groupness" among women which has partly been cultivated by the state itself, due to its attention to women's issues throughout communist rule. While many women activists do not enter women's activism as a result of personally experienced discrimination, they do identify themselves on a gendered basis, and this identification generally becomes more salient as they participate in movement activities. Such an identity is perhaps least evolved in women who are Compulsory Activists. These are women who have, by and large, been assigned work in a women's organization, usually the Women's Federation or one of its publications. One Fulian cadre noted that "I have been at Fulian for 1 8 years" and identified the origins of her interest in women's issues as "from the first day of beginning work there." Such an "interest" is therefore perhaps not particularly deep. A journalist working as an editor at a women's magazine noted that her first interest came "After arriving at a women's publication, after holding the post of journalist at a magazine." She came to the magazine because it was short of personnel, but interestingly she noted that I originally came into contact with women's issues very early. My mother once worked at the All-China Women's Federation, and she liked this work. She started doing women's work in the 1930s' but she now has passed away. She influenced me, and made me pay attention to women's issues. That generation paid even more attention to women's liberation issues-she did women's work all her life.

Despite such an introduction to women's problems, this journalist noted that she herself was not especially interested in her work: Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization I don't especially like this work, I have been made to d o it, but I am also willing to do it. Still, I feel its scope is a little narrow-discussion of women's issues is narrow ...If I was younger and had capital, then I would do business or factory work, and decide everything by myself. I think Fulian work is talking a lot and doing little, I'm not particularly interested in women's work, but I am already doing it so it is all right.

Such an attitude is perhaps typical of Compulsory Activists' attitudes. While many of them have worked in women's organizations for many years, even since the immediate post-Mao period when Fulian was just being reconstituted after the Cultural Revolution, the work is their vocation but not their true interest. Accidental Activists have come to women's movement activities through more voluntary means, but they often are not specifically interested in or concerned about women's problems. Their participation in women's groups derives instead from other interests, usually academic ones, since many of these women are university professors. In some cases, they were introduced by friends who knew they were interested in psychological consulting work. A social worker who has worked at more than one Beijing "hotline" discussed how she became involved at the Women's Hotline: "In 1992, before the Women's Hotline was founded, as a result of a friend recommending it I joined. Before that I studied medicine, but medical school lacked close attention to human nature, and I also liked to do counseling." She went on to note that "I did not have an interest in women's issues." This fact was evident in that she was no longer at the Hotline due to various personal and professional conflicts that occurred. Another psychologist, this one a Ph.D teaching at a university, also became involved at the Women's Hotline for similar reasons: I have served as a volunteer there since the end of 1992 or the beginning of 1993. A teacher at our school introduced it to me, she is a good friend, and she also is a volunteer there, so then I went ...That teacher in my department is who introduced me to women's issues, but this is also mainly in consulting-I am concerned with women's psychological health issues.

Another Hotline volunteer, also a university professor, who began work at the Hotline to get social work experience noted that the work has affected her views of women's issues, saying that "my interest in women's issues came in 1993, after being at the Hotline. Before I did not think that there were particular women's problems, but I learned that women need our help." So some Accidental Activists can be viewed as beginning to develop more gender-specific consciousness as a result of their work in women's groups. Other Accidental Activists came to working on women's issues through more academic channels. For example, a sociologist heading a division on women's studies in her university department noted that she came Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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to studying women's studies through larger issues she found in her research: I started researching the quality of life. Because the quality of life has many spheres, when researching it I wanted to look at gender differentiation, so then I would be able to compare male-female differences. For instance in 1992, in a city in Liaoning Province, a heavy industry city that is seriously polluted ...I was part of a project researching that place's quality of life, and I distinguished between male and female impressions of the environment. O n basically all issues I compared the two sexes.

This scholar has used gender issues in much of her sociological research in recent years. A scholar in ACWF's Women's Institute of China shows her "accidental" path to women's movement participation by noting that In the past I didn't understand women's work. I originally taught in a university, and I didn't feel men and women were unequal. From 1979 to 1981, at that time Beijing Fulian was doing an investigation of women's aspects of marriage and family, and they invited me to attend. I agreed to attend, and I started to do more marriage and family research. In 1984, All-China Fulian transferred me to d o women's education work at the women's college. I went and discovered women have many problems needing a resolution. I did not begin this work because of individual impressions.

Some Accidental Activists have become more committed to the women's movement as they have participated in it. For instance, a noted legal scholar who was a founder of the Chinese Women Lawyer's Friendly Society noted that she initially was not a specialist in the Marriage Law, the earliest legal code affecting women's status in Communist China, but rather civil law. But Fulian called upon her legal expertise when they were drafting a revision of the Marriage Law in 1978, and in the early 1980s she began attending the All-China Marriage and Family Research Society as an outside expert, and in 1989 she became a key advisor in the drafting of the Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests. She noted that Up till now, there are some university teachers who have not sensed women's problems ....I am slowly becoming involved, by entering this I can sense that there exist not a few problems for women, previously I myself did not sense this.

She has even come to call herself a "women's cadre not receiving a salary." Another Accidental Activist who became active in women's issues because of being assigned to edit women's publications, first in the Beijing municipal Fulian and then in the ACWF, noted that through this work she gained a new perspective on an experience she had gone through more than a decade previously: In 1978, when I was attending university, I took the exam, and my score level was adequate to enter Beijing University. But at that time because my Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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child was two years old, the schools all didn't want me and said I was not good enough to attend. Because my score was relatively high, the person at Nankai University responsible for recruiting students called the authorities to ask for instructions, and the school said to choose from males whose scores were lower than mine. Then I felt very dissatisfied, and I wrote a letter to the higher education department reporting my own situation. At that time I hadn't become conscious that this was a women's problem, but I was very indignant. I only could go to Qinghai University, and I felt this was not equitable. After doing women's studies I understood. At that time, I didn't have consciousness of women's issues, but it deeply affected me. The universities did not want me because I am a woman, even though my scores were very high, and this is a women's issue.

This editor gained a greater comprehension of some of her own life experiences through her later women's work. To some extent, while often not citing particular episodes of feeling discrimination on the basis of their gender, some Voluntary Activists are more likely to link their activism to more personal experiences. I have already discussed the case of the Women's Hotline volunteer who became involved due to her divorce, which also helped to crystallize her thinking about women's problems. A young woman who was active in the East Meets West Translation Group discussed her marital problems at length with me. She felt that her husband did not support her women's group activities because "He is afraid I will want to be equal to him all the time." She had a successful career in a state corporation, while her husband was still pursuing graduate studies, and she was hoping to get the chance to attend graduate school in the United States. It was evident that this was as much out of a desire to escape her marriage as it was to get an American degree. She drew on her women's group activities as a source of emotional and psychological support-"If I go to the United States I will continue with women's activities so I can gather women around me." Another Voluntary Activist, an economist who was an active participant in her university's women's studies center, noted that I am interested in women from two respects. First, individually. After Mao, women's own social consciousness was stronger. After I got married, my husband and I both changed-we had disagreements in our opinion, and life contradictions. For instance, Chinese men don't like to do housework. Second, from researching women's issues. A friend introduced me to the women's studies center. She is a good friend, and our thinking is similar. I thought it was very interesting, doing rural women's work.

Another university professor described her change in perspective after being invited to write about women's issues for a magazine: "Before I thought I had individual problems, but now I know they are common problems. I discovered that the double burden, education, and work problems are common women's problems." Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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A few Voluntary Activists noted observations of their parents' situation to have affected their views of gender relations in contemporary China. A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences population researcher noted that "my earliest interest in women's issues was directly perceived, from my mother I saw women's status, and I felt men and women were not the same and that it was unfair." Others, while committed to their women's movement activities, do not cite personal experiences as a compelling reason for their interest in this type of endeavor. For instance, a literature professor who has done much work in her university women's studies center noted that "I am an exceptional case-I don't see myself as discriminated against in my family or my department. On the other hand, women are discriminated against in Chinese society." Another professor who was active in Beijing N G O activities and also advised Fulian in the lead-up to the FWCW said that I did not have a strong awareness of sexual discrimination when I was growing up. I had an intellectual family background and my parents never said "because you are a girl you can't d o things." I never sensed obstacles because of my sex. I was 1 3 in 1949 and I was enthusiastic about the revolution-I looked upon myself as a revolutionary. I had no personal experience of sex discrimination. I realized there was inequality in rural areas, but I thought urban areas were equal. I started to feel something was going wrong in the early 1980s-in 1982 or 1983. There was discussion of whether women should go back to the kitchen-and our girl graduates were having trouble getting jobs.

Other activists also noted their academic recognition of women's issues as the central reason for their heightened activism. A social psychologist who was the founder of her university's women's studies center in the 1990s noted her interest in this subject to be directly derived from her studies on the "nature of Chinese people,'' wherein she focused on "people's quality, among which women's quality is very important ...my first idea was wanting to raise the quality of women relating to their family and social status, and then the FWCW promoted my idea, and I even more felt like I should organize to promote women." She noted that her center was especially active in rural women's activities, because "we want to do social work, to do practical work for women." A historian working on various types of women-oriented research noted how her historical interest in women has also taken a more contemporary turn: In 1990 Chinese history started to be at an impasse. Doing research on ancient history had no funding ....If you entirely research history, then you are separated from modern society. I also am concerned with female children's education problems, particularly the northwest areas' Muslim girls. Once I brought students to Ningxia to do a women's oral history investigation, and after I returned I published it as a book.

This activist was initially introduced to this work by a departmental colleague of hers who was a founder of their university's women's studies center. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Career Activists also have experienced diverse paths to activism. For instance, one Beijing municipal Fulian leader began as a journalist who in the course of her work was assigned to do some writing on women's issues. Later she was designated as a suitable Fulian leader. In the course of this process, however, she became very committed to women's issues and in the 1990s was increasingly active in N G O women's activities. In fact, she expressed frustration over the low work level of most of her Fulian colleagues. Other N G O activists also came to this work through previous, more official-level women's work. A lawyer in a women's legal N G O began her interest in women's issues while spending eight years working for the ACWF legal department. And a leader of another women's N G O had much experience on researching and writing on women's issues in her years as a cadre in various agencies, including as an editor at a Beijing women's magazine during the 1980s. Other Career Activists became involved through intellectually-based channels. One newspaper journalist was assigned to write on women's issues in her position at the People's Daily in the 1980s, due to one article she wrote on the topic while in graduate school. She lost her position at this newspaper in part due to her participation in the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, but an editor at China Women's News invited her to that newspaper. She noted that "At that time, I was not willing to deal with women's issues full time, and I also did not want to bring trouble to them." However, by 1994, "I felt that there were many things regarding women that I wanted to talk about, so I started at China Women's News." One reason for her increased interest at this time was that she had spent the previous year with her husband at an American university, where she attended some women's studies classes and purchased some American feminist books. When she returned to Beijing, she became active in Beijing women's NGOs as well as at the newspaper. Career Activists generally are more likely to be motivated by gender discrimination in society at large than by any personal experiences. One NGO head and women's studies researcher noted the effects on her gender consciousness of state-mandated liberation under the CCP: Before 1949 my mother was a housewife, but in 1950 she then became a teacher. She had six children, so my father then did housework. In the 1950s China had propaganda on a male-female equality movement and the law required women to have work, so in those years, the entire country's women were universally employed ...Therefore from when I was small I did not have concepts of women and men. So from childhood I therefore saw the practice of male-female equality, instead of just its story, and this was because of state intervention.

This activist felt that her NGO work was filling in some of the gaps left by the withdrawal of the state in the women's sphere in the post-Mao era. Another Career Activist noted that the new problems for women of the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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1980s also helped to generate her interest in women's studies, which led her to try to change her work unit after 23 years of serving in the army. Because she wanted to do women's studies, she decided to transfer to the Women's Federation: It took me four years to change my work unit. It is harder if your educational level is higher, and the army salary is higher too. Because all people have a poor impression of Fulian, they urged me not to go-even my family members opposed it. My main reason for going to Fulian was that when doing women's studies in any university or in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, these work units all think that women's problems are not scholarly problems, and women's studies has not entered the research mainstream. Many people did not understand why I was going to Fulian, I was only wanting to do women's studies, but where I went perplexed people. I like women's studies. Fulian is a women's organization, so there it is definitely the mainstream.

This activist, while working at Fulian as her full-time job, has also been involved in several of Beijing's non-governmental women's groups. She is thus a quintessential Career Activist. One trait does perhaps unite some activists that are more committed to their cause is a certain sense of idealism. This parallels Doug McAdam's observation that Freedom Summer volunteers were characterized by a "generalized optimism, idealism, and sense of potency that was the subjective heritage of their class and generation" (McAdam 1988, p. 44). Similarly, Chinese intellectuals, as I discussed above, have historically played an important role in social change as well as social stability. Some of my interviewees identified a sense of political idealism as a general motivating force behind their activities. One young participant in her university's women's studies center noted her desire to become a member of the Communist Party, admitting that partly she felt it would help her find good work, but she also asserted that "I believe in communism as an ideal, as the perfect society." A Career Activist at an opposite stage of her career, a retired cadre now leading a women's NGO, also expressed her view of communism as "the best society." Such a viewpoint of communism is certainly atypical in a contemporary environment mostly cynical about it. Two other activists, both university professors who are Voluntary women's movement activists, noted a somewhat more realistic attitude about communism. One is a Party member and one is not, but both of their views of the Party still derive from some of their own idealism and the Party's actual failures in the post-~Maoperiod: I a m a Party member. I am an idealist, and the CCP is the Party in power. I entered the Party in 1978 when I was in the countryside. My parents were both Party members. N o w the Party has many bad aspects-there are good and bad people in the Party. And now young people's thinking is not the same. I chose myself. When my students ask me if they should enter the Party, I tell them "you should go see for yourself." Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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I a m not a Party member. When I was labeled a Rightist in the late 1950s I was kicked out of the Youth League. In 1977, although the Party had wronged me I still thought it was a good Party, so I submitted my application, but it was ignored. Five years later the Party was eager to drag educated people into it so I just said I would think about it. In the late 1970s, the Party did not think I was good enough. In 1983, I was not interested. Now I would be embarrassed to be a Party member, because so many of them are corrupt.

All of these women, whether Party members or disillusioned and not willing to join for that reason, express some sense of idealism that now manifests itself through seeking to improve women's situation. International Contributors to Activism For many if not most activists, opportunities to travel abroad have been directly related to their participation in women's work. Out of 36 activists that I interviewed who have traveled abroad, 20 of them, more than half, had their first travel overseas for reasons directly relating to women's work. O n one level, this is not surprising, because until very recently Chinese have only been able to travel abroad for professional, not personal, purposes. So if women are full-time employees of some women-oriented institution, their foreign travel opportunities will naturally arise from their women's work. However, such travel has often been funded by the Ford Foundation and other foreign agencies. Of the 36 activists, 11 traveled to NGO preparatory conferences or other women-oriented conferences using foreign funding-including from the Ford Foundation, the UN Development Program, UNESCO, and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). For nine out of these 11 it was their first trip out of China. Such funding has particularly been important in providing overseas travel opportunities to N G O activists-particularly Voluntary and Career Activists who work or volunteer for small, resource-poor NGOs. Compulsory Activists are likely to have some overseas travel experience, and it might even relate to women's issues, since they might have traveled with a Fulian delegation. Accidental Activists have also had opportunities to travel abroad. One, a social worker who was a former volunteer with two women's NGOs, had travel opportunities due to her position in each of these organizations. She was even able to attend the UN Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, which ultimately left her with a negative view on women's work: In 1994 I went to the Cairo meeting. After attending Cairo, I was even less interested in women's issues and women's work. Many conference participants all told how they had been beaten by their husbands, so that was why people should initiate a women's movement, oppose violence, etc. I feel there were too many "distressed" people from women's groups, and Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Beijing Activists there was not enough objectivity, so this did not conform with my interests. I don't like this way, I like scholarly ways, at least you should first have "objectivity."

Such a view is perhaps not surprising for an Accidental Activist who was involved in women's issues because of interests separate from gender questions. Voluntary and Career Activists are more likely to have traveled abroad and had positive learning experiences. Many of these activists have had opportunities to travel abroad that directly relate to their interests in women's issues. Some activists' experiences have included going to Japan and Latin America to observe women's legal status and condition; going to Malaysia to learn about its women's laws and to Thailand to learn about issues of prostitution and abduction and selling of women; and visiting the United States to attend an international conference on domestic violence. One Career Activist who leads an NGO had her first trip overseas to attend the "Engendering China" conference at Harvard University in 1992. Other activists were able to attend NGO preparatory meetings in diverse locations around the world, including the Philippines, Argentina, Finland, and the United States. Much of this travel was with Ford Foundation and other international funding. Even activists who were working full-time for the Women's Federation often used Ford monies to travel to these meetings, and were thus able to have a more independent identity on these trips. A Fulian researcher who was on the China Organizing Committee for the N G O Forum attended the Latin American regional preparatory meeting in Argentina using CIDA funds, and noted that "Because we had never attended an N G O meeting before, we did not know how to convene an N G O Forum, but when we were there we understood." A university professor who volunteers in several women's NGOs also noted the learning experience provided by such travel: I attended the Vienna preparatory conference in March 1993-the Ford Foundation paid. Then I attended the Asia-Pacific in Manila in November. I was able to come back and help with the Women's Federation and make them aware of the issues. For example, sustainable development was not even in the vocabulary then, now Li Peng and Jiang Zemin talk about it. Also violence against women, women's rights as human rights, women and the environment, development issues, indigenous peoples. Before our exposure to Western and other women's views, Fulian knew even less than us. They just thought of women in terms of family.

In other words, activist participation in preparatory activities led to their desire and ability to spread their learning to others, including the Women's Federation and other state institutions. One N G O activist returned from the Manila preparatory conference and concluded that "It would not be an exaggeration to say the symposium became a milestone in my life and work" (quoted in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 94). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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And, as I will demonstrate in later chapters, the Fourth World Conference on Women was itself an important learning experience for activists as well. Along with learning about global women's problems, some activists noted that the conference affected their individual impressions of women's movement activism. One Voluntary Activist who participates in numerous N G O women's activities asserted that "My opinion of the conference is that it did not change the government, but it changed every person that attended it, it had a great individual influence." An editor of a women's magazine noted that "My particular impression of the women's conference was that women are really amazing, that women's strength is really great." And others noted how the conference created a sense of "women's consciousness" in them.

Personal Effects of Activism Through participation in women's movement activism, women's movement participants experienced varied types of personal change and development. Not surprisingly, all types of activists asserted that they had come to a more thorough understanding of women's issues as a result of their women's work. Some Compulsory Activists noted similar increases in awareness of the macro-level problems faced by women. For instance, a magazine editor observed that Originally, I understood the situation in the countryside and in factories only from what was around me, but now I understand the whole country's condition. Originally my understanding was perceptual and individual, but now for example I have an understanding of the entire nature of problems like prostitution and girls dropping out of school.

And a Fulian cadre noted a similar increase in awareness: I feel as a woman I may not be able to understand every women's issue, I maybe would only understand individual, family, and small group problems, but by working in Fulian I then can understand each aspect of problems in the whole country. I am relatively clear on the bitter as well as on the sweet. My knowledge is even more comprehensive and deepgoing.

More committed activists also note an increase in their understanding of women's issues as result of their participation in the movement. This process might be regarded as commensurate with Snow and Benford's notion of "empirical credibility" (Snow and Benford 1988)-by learning about women's issues through their work, activists can gain a greater appreciation for the social need for such activities. One Accidental Activist, a social worker volunteer at the Women's Hotline, felt that "I myself think that I am very equal, very independent, very capable. But at the Hotline I have discovered that there are people who need social assistance." Other activists have noted the effect that working at Fulian has had on their impressions of women's problems: Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Beijing Activists After arriving at the Fulian research institute, I had contact with women's issues and I felt this problem was very universal. I went to the FWCW and even more feel that this is a problem of the entire world. My direct perceptions were even deeper, because there was so much information at the FWCW. Chinese women's development also is faced with a lot of problems, the key is how to resolve them. Research is extremely important for this. Before, when I was in university studying law, I didn't feel women had problems, but after working at the ACWF, I was very interested. Psychologically I have a greater understanding of women, and I better understand women's problems. I stayed at Fulian for seven or eight years. Women's work really needs people to do it, and besides the more I did the more I was interested, and I wasn't willing to abandon it.

In particular, the latter activist developed a personal commitment to women's issues. I label both of these activists Career Activists, because of their involvement in N G O activities as well as Fulian. In fact, the latter activist transferred to work full-time in a women's legal NGO. Other Career Activists also noted their greatly increased awareness as a consequence of their work. One, a Fulian researcher who also is active in some Beijing NGOs, noted that "By doing this work I feel that there are many inequalities, I have women's 'eyes' now, my perceptions in seeing the world are not the same." Activists noted numerous such personal effects of their work. Such individual consequences such as dealing with stress, exhaustion, financial woes, a surfeit of problems to address, and other difficulties are ultimately indicative of the level of personal commitment to this work that exists for many activists. In general, activists that are voluntarily involved are more likely than Compulsory Activists to more acutely feel both the pressures and the satisfactions of such work. Compulsory Activists are less likely to feel tension caused by such work, because of their lack of personal investment in it, but they are also less likely to feel satisfaction from the work. One such activist, a Fulian cadre, noted that "I haven't found any difficulties with this work. This mainly is because the state pays attention to it, and we can progress relatively smoothly." This view contrasts with the views of many N G O activists, who lack such state-level financial and moral support for their efforts. Women's movement activists deal with a very wide range of problems. The extent of women's problems in contemporary China means that many women identified their large workload as a major cause of pressures from doing this type of work. Even Accidental and Voluntary Activists, who are not pursuing women's movement activities full-time, have noted the stress and exhaustion they often feel. For instance, one Accidental Activist who was more interested in social work in general than in women's issues, felt that "My work leaves for no distinctions between day and night, there is no free Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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time. It is too stressful, and most weekends I cannot be with my family." Others also noted that they felt constantly busy and tired. When asked whether women's work caused her any stresses, one Voluntary Activist, a history professor who does both historical and contemporary research on women's issues, answered Of course. Because the university doesn't have women's studies as a formal discipline, women's studies are your own interest and hobby, and it is very difficult to have projects that are funded. So I do women's studies outside of my own work, and I am busier than before. Both my time and energy are strained, and I am particularly busy and tired, and feeling that there is not enough time to d o many things. Also there are stresses about funding, there is no help.

The latter difficulty noted by this activist-funding shortages-was another common challenge noted, especially by NGO activists. One N G O leader commented that "The difficulties of this work are funding and personnelmany people want to do this research, but they have no choice but to do it only part-time. First of all they must strive for their own subsistence and for their family, and they only have a little time to do women's work." As I have noted, Career Activists, who are able to pursue women's movement activities full-time, are in a minority among activists. A young secretary working in an N G O noted the difficulties engendered by working in that type of organization in China: I feel I cannot say that there are no difficulties in doing this work, because this kind of organization doesn't have general guarantees, does not have any welfare treatment, etc. N o w I haven't married yet, and I don't have children, so that helps. China has assigned housing, and I cannot be assigned any housing-this is a problem of the state social welfare mechanism if you are not in a formal work unit. My group's leader has housing from her formal work unit, and the other full-time workers here are all retired, so their housing, insurance, etc. all come from their past work units. However there are feelings of self-achievement from working here.

This lack of formalized resources is a common dilemma for groups attempting to be independent in the Chinese context, and is a major reason why so many women's movement activists are only able to pursue the work part-time. One professor who is a leader in her university's women's studies center compared her situation as a Voluntary Activist to the challenges faced by a well-known Beijing Career Activist, Wang Xingjuan, the leader of the Women's Research Institute and the Women's Hotline: I am a teacher. This is my interest and I have no problems doing this work. My family supports me and is understanding. Wang Xingjuan has had a lot of difficulties, such as financial problems-to sell books she needs the help of her family members. Usually women have problems doing this sort

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Beijing Activists of work. People think it is not of much importance-"why spend time doing that?"

would you

In Reflections a n d Resonance, Wang Xingjuan has herself noted the difficulties of doing this kind of work in China's contemporary environment: According to some people, I a m a big fool. You've worked hard all your life; you should be happily retired. Instead you create trouble for yourself. You want to start something. That's fine if it's just something to keep you busy. But at a time when society's hottest activity is making money, you choose women's studies. Women's studies and women's activities cost money. The women's offices d o not have money. So you finance them out of your own pocket, or you run around asking for funds, like a high-class beggar. Yes, I'm a big fool. But that is my own choice. I do it of my own volition and I have no regrets (quoted in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 11).

In other words, the overall social environment provides normative and financial obstacles to pursuing such work. Another Career Activist, a lawyer working for a women's NGO after working for Fulian for a number of years, noted similar problems deriving from lack of social recognition: In Chinese viewpoints, women's work is really not good to do. In society, ideas about male-female inequality are very serious, so when you are doing women's work there are people in society who don't understand it and don't support it. Now my difficulties are even greater; I had formal work at a magazine office, but recently I prepared to resign. I don't have even more energy to d o that, plus this work that I'm willing to do. The biggest problem is throwing away the iron rice bowl, I must support myself and struggle to get funds myself. I feel that women's work is very laborious and tiring, but society's recompense for it is not enough; society's recognition and support does not resemble what I hoped it would be. So now it is my own struggle. NGOs are particularly very difficult, it is an existence in a narrow space.

Activists face a conflict between their personal interest in and desire to do this work, and the lack of social appreciation that accompanies it. However, the work also does feature important measures of personal satisfaction for committed women, particularly Voluntary and Career Activists, which in large part explains their willingness to do it despite its costs. Many noted that they are personally very interested in the work, and some activists have observed that as their personal awareness of women's issues has increased, so too has their satisfaction with the work. One Fulian researcher who transferred to Fulian from a more prestigious state-level work unit remarked on this phenomenon: The satisfaction of this work is that I now see people and my work from the general perspective of the gender point of view. My "salary" is now only one-third of my previous salary. But in spirit I am a very wealthy person, you cannot financially measure the gains of "empowerment." I have Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization only been doing specialized women's research for three years, but these are favorable circumstances that are valuable and very cherished.

A Voluntary Activist who works for an international agency and has an open feminist identity found two major satisfactions in her NGO volunteering, first, "I understand myself better, it has brought an intellectual satisfaction," and second, "I have met particularly good friends by doing this, people with common purposes. This has a lot of meaning-my friends support me. I have met good friends doing women's work, so I am very satisfied." Others also noted the pleasure that derives from finding others with similar interests. For instance, one Career Activist, a newspaper journalist, noted the gratification she received from this aspect of her work: "The most satisfying thing about this work is that some of my readers who I don't know have written me letters, and we have formed contacts. Most of them are women, and they are also concerned with my articles and our newspaper. I am very happy with this." Other activists noted that women's work has changed some of their own relationships, especially their marital relationship. One CASS researcher noted that before she had not considered the issue of housework from "a social point of view-that it is a traditional gender norm. Although I am an intellectual woman I hadn't altered this tradition. Women's liberation first of all is self-liberation. Everyone should do housework, so my husband also has started to do some of it." The above-mentioned newspaper journalist similarly commented on the change in her home's division of labor: In my relationship with my husband, before I felt because my own work was busy it hindered me doing the housework, and I felt guilty. But now I feel he also should d o it, the housework is something that should be shared.

Even a Compulsory Activist, a Beijing municipal Women's Federation cadre, felt that her women's work "has promoted marital equality-I discuss these issues with my husband and daughter." And along with improving personal relationships, being a women's movement activist has been cited by some to be a relatively free sphere of activity, with this being another fulfilling aspect of such work. In Chapter 6, I note that "freedom" is regarded to be a trait of NGOs in China, and some activists have also commented on the personal effects of this characteristic. One high-ranking Fulian cadre who is also active in a number of women's NGOs and is thus a quintessential Career Activist felt that "The most satisfying thing about it is that it is relatively relaxed-there is no one supervising (guan) you." A friend of this cadre, a journalist who is active in some of the same NGOs, noted that "There is a liberal environment to do women's work-there is no government managing you, and you are not involved in the power struggle." However, this relatively tolerant atmosphere for doing women's work has evolved through a learning process on the part of both activists and the state, as I will now discuss with respect to Copyright 2002 conceptions by Sharon Wesoky of "feminism" in the Chinese movement.

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"FEMINISM" AND FEMINIST IDENTITIES IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA Throughout this book, I generally avoid using the term "feminist movement" to describe the Chinese women's movement, and I generally also refrain from terming activists "feminists." This is because "feminism" has a rather complex history and meaning in the Chinese context, one which is of course wrapped up in its Western origins, but also in its connotations under the primarily state-led women's movement. However, the 1990s in particular have also witnessed a widening in the discussion not only of "feminism," but also in its application to the Chinese situation and movement. "Feminism" has begun to receive greater acceptance among many women's movement activists, and some are even openly declaring themselves to be "feminists." This section will examine some of these transformations. "Feminism" in the Chinese Context In communist-era China, even among the women's movement community, "feminism" as both term and ideology has strongly, and primarily negatively, been associated with the West. Feminism was an important part of the May Fourth Movement in the 1920s, along with the more general support of its intellectual leaders for modernizing and Westernizing China, but with the emergence in the war years of the 1930s and 1940s of communism as the dominant political ideology in China, "feminism" was subordinated to other revolutionary imperatives. A number of studies of women's issues in Maoist China all generally concur on the fact that the stated communist claim to value gender equality was almost consistently secondary to other needs of the Party, in particular the need to ensure the support of male peasants.1° Thus, for example, the famous example of the woman writer Ding Ling being criticized for her "narrow feminist" demands in the 1940s. In the 1950s, after the establishment of the People's Republic, the campaign to enforce a new marriage law focused strongly on the creation of happy families and free marriages, and activists who focused on its women's rights implications were criticized as being "feminist" (Stacey 1983, p. 179). In general, this led in the Maoist period to what Elisabeth Croll describes as "the term feminism [becoming] much more a term of abuse referring to those who exclusively pursue women's interests ...It refers to those who survey or describe women's oppression but stop short of an explanation which requires a class analysis and class struggle" (Croll 1978, p. 3). To some extent, avoidance of "feminism" persisted into the postMao era, even amidst the expanded interest in women's studies that began in the 1980s. For instance, Tani Barlow, in an analysis of the expansion in independent discourses on women and the emergence of more critical Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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"subject positions" for women in the 1980s, notes the choices of terminology used both by herself and in the discourses she is analyzing: Why not simply call these nuxing critics feminists? Because a word for "feminist" (nuquanzhuyij exists in Chinese but does not appear in these texts. The nuxing critique of funu positioned itself between feminism in other countries and Fulian officialdom through an exposition of problems, a discourse I call simply nuxingist. There are three explanations for the absence of feminism in this discourse, listed here in what I judge to be their ascending order or importance. First, theorists did not wish to provoke charges of bourgeois feminism, and thus preferred to keep western feminism to their right as a means of centering their own "Chinese" project within a sphere of women's politics. Second, they had access to feminism through the May Fourth period. Third, the issues that theorists raised as a consequence of taking nuxing positions had experiential roots in personal identity, and since the rhetoric of liberation had long been part of contemporary life, no one needed to go outside China for intellectual ammunition (Barlow 1994, p. 447).

Others have also noted the reluctance of Chinese activists to embrace "feminism" as part of their project, in part also finding the reason that by distancing themselves from feminism, they have perhaps adopted "an unconscious strategy for avoiding political suspicion" (Zhang and Xu 1995, p. 37). However, in the late 1980s, there began to be increased attention to feminism in Chinese scholarly publications." Even during the Latent Period of 1989-1992, there was explicit attention to "feminist" questions in some publications. This included introductions to the various schools of thought in Western feminism, including liberal, radical, and socialist feminisms (Huang Yufu 1991; Shi Zhiwei 1988); to the history of Western feminist thought, including its history in China in the early 20th century (Sheke Xinxi 1989); to feminist critiques of Western political theory, including the theorists Susan Moller Okin, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Carole Pateman (Wang Li 1988); and to Western feminist criticism such as that of Elaine Showalter (Lu Daofu 1989). Additionally, various authors specifically addressed issues of socialist feminism, thereby showing how the Marxist concepts that are more familiar in the Chinese context are related to feminist thinking. For instance, a scholar from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote on the question of the use of socialism or Marxism in Western feminism (Li Ming 1989; Li Ming 1991); and others also wrote similar introductions to this topic (Liu Meng 1993; Zhou Lanju 1989). Interest in feminism was heightened in the lead-up to the FWCW. Several books on the topic were published in China during this period. These included an edited volume written by members of the Americanbased Chinese Society for Women's Studies and published in Chinese in Beijing (Bao Xiaolan 1995),12and a book on the American feminist movement written by a Chinese scholar now teaching in the United States (Wang Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Zheng 1995). Chen Yiyun, a Beijing NGO leader, in 1992 wrote an article in Collection of Women's Studies introducing the various schools of thought in Western feminism and the ways that they address concrete issues facing the women's movement. She looks at diversity in Western feminism as deriving in part from class and racial differences in Western society and their subsequent effects on ideology, thus utilizing the more accepted category of class analysis to introduce Western feminism. She particularly favorably regards socialist feminism, and notes that "the trend of the Western socialist women's movement, can thrive and progressively develop strength with the thriving Third World women's movement" (Chen Yiyun 1992, p. 48). In this way, she begins to link Western feminism to the Chinese socialist and Third World context. This move was even reflected by Chinese authors discussing their own feminist identities in print. For instance, an article in the popular women's magazine Nuxing Yanjiu (WomenS Studies) in 1995 looked at how "perhaps up until now 'feminism' still has not been regarded as a conventional term possessing positive meaning in its usage" in China, and went on to note what "feminism" really means. The author noted that "first of all, feminism opposes unfair treatment of women in the existing culture," and how its introduction to China in the early 20th century is a vital reason for women's advances in China during this century. She notes that the current "mission of 'external' feminism ('wairniande' nuquanzhuyi)" is fighting the many problems women face in contemporary Chinese society, including employment discrimination, sexual harassment, domestic violence, and other issues. She also looks at "internal" feminism ('lirniande' nuquanzhuyi) and its important role in promoting "women's own internal maturation and development." She concludes by declaring that, if a person asks if she is a feminist in an earnest manner, she will answer that she has not decided yet, but if someone asks the question in a derogatory or cynical way, she will answer "Yes I am, moreover, I am an internal and an external feminist" (Wang Youqin 1995). An article in the similarly popular-level Shijie Funu Bolan (World Women's Vision) discusses a friend of the author who, despite her high level of education, "fears most that other people will say that she is a feminist (nuquanzhuyizhe)." The author is critical of this attitude, and feels that "genuine feminism is an enterprise, it is something in which every woman should undertake work" (Shen Yi 1995). Such greater acceptance of "feminism" is also becoming evident among many activists in the Beijing women's movement during the 1990s.13 Activists' Introductions to Feminism

Not surprisingly, Compulsory and Accidental Activists are generally less interested in and familiar with Western feminism than Voluntary and Career Activists, who are more likely to have the time and inclination to study this issue. Some Compulsory Activists had read some materials on feminism but were not particularly interested in it; one Beijing Fulian cadre Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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noted that she had never read any Western feminist books. Some Accidental Activists have not particularly read feminist works because they regard them to be tangential to their main interests in other subjects, such as medicine or social work. However, one Accidental Activist, through her volunteering at the Women's Hotline, noted her rising interest in the subject: "I want to learn some more about it. I want to understand feminist perspectives in order to do women's work-it is an important approach." A great many activists were introduced to feminist thought in the 1980s through reading new translations of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, which were published in Chinese in 1986 and 1988 respectively (Zhang Lihua, Ru Haitao, and Dong Naiqiang 1992, pp. 610, 624). Many activists described their favorable impressions of one or both of these books, describing them as "fresh" or "penetrating." One Career Activist, a journalist, noted that her introduction to Western feminism came when she read an English version of the Friedan book, loaned to her by a friend who had purchased it in the United States. The journalist had first heard of The Feminine Mystique when reading another American book then popular in China, Toffler's The Third Wave, and she subsequently used Friedan's perspectives in writing a magazine article critical of the common view at that time that Chinese women should return to the home to alleviate unemployment problems. She noted how reading Friedan's book even further strengthened her conviction that "women returning to the home is harmful to women and damaging to society." Other activists were introduced to feminism by foreign teachers when they were attending or teaching in universities, or when studying in the United States themselves. While for some such exposure did not have any particular effects, for some these experiences were important in beginning to kindle an interest in women's issues. For instance, one woman who has an American Ph.D and who does some grassroots work in association with Fulian noted that her interest in feminism began when she was an undergraduate at a Beijing university: I was an English major. There were a lot of foreign teachers-the language departments were the most subversive. Someone from Harvard gave me the Susan Brownmiller book on rape and I learned about how this is women's biggest fear because of the importance of virginity to being a woman. This was my first awakening. At the time I did not know I was feminist. The book very strongly used the category of "women." It's not just Chinese, you belong to "women" no matter where you are.

Another Voluntary Activist also noted her introduction to feminism coming from a foreign teacher when she was in college: At university I started t o receive contact with some feminism jnuquanzhuyi). The American professors there were feminists jnuquanzhuyizhe), and in literature and anthropology courses they used Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Beijing Activists feminist consciousness. In an anthropology class, an Indian-American professor from Dartmouth introduced the situation of women and minorities in the United States. She talked about her work opposing the caste system. She was a very attractive, beautiful human being.

Such contacts also occurred for women who were able to study abroad. One professor noted the role played by her experiences of studying in the United States in her returning to China to help found women's studies activities at her own university: I became interested in women's studies in 1979 when I went to the United States to study American history. I saw many women's studies books in the United States and I was very happy. We then organized a women's studies group at my university in 1982, with many foreign students and teachers attending. It was a "hotbed."

In other words, contact with foreign feminism was important in beginning to influence some Chinese women's desires to organize their own groups. Some women noted the influence that the preparatory period for the FWCW had on their views of feminism. For instance, one Voluntary Activist, a university professor and active N G O volunteer, noted that "In the past I did not particularly understand feminism, but later I thought it was an extremely necessary thing, necessary and very good." One Career Activist stated that At the earliest, I knew of feminism from the classic works of Marx and Engels, at that time their evaluation of feminism was negative, they thought it was a petty bourgeoisie reformist school of thought. Therefore in China it basically was an overall negative view and this influenced me. Before and during the reforms, China did not at all genuinely understand Western women, including feminism. But at the time of the FWCW in 1995, there came to be relatively more understanding, more than before. At this time I then was able to discover that feminism is one force of the democracy movement, its methods of thinking are challenging the bourgeoisie's patriarchal system, and challenging all inequalities, and this inspired me. Western feminism has many schools, and is very complicated, and we should share experiences. To mechanically copy it to China also won't do, but there are some things that we can use for reference.

Other Chinese women had a mixed view of Western feminism and its applicability to Chinese women and the Chinese women's movement. One Career Feminist, a professor at the China Women's College who teaches a course on the international women's movement, noted that "I feel Western feminist thought and Marxist women's rights thought have some similarities. For example the question between social reform or overthrowing the system. It cannot be denied that they are seeking to reach the same goals, only by different routes." However, one Voluntary Activist was critical of Western feminists' treatment of Third World women: Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization I feel like Western feminists look down on Third World women. Most are upper middle class and very arrogant, and they don't understand Third World countries' situations very well. I like American feminists, but I think many of them have an attitude that there is nothing they don't know. Women in other countries have other concerns. I resDect their work preparing for the conference, and they d o now pay more attention to networking with Third World NGOs.

One Career Activist, the leader of an NGO, felt that she was not very familiar with Western feminism because "I am more attentive to the domestic situation. I am a social activist, my stress is on action." For some activists, their negative views of feminism derive from their socialization in an environment that has been hostile to this notion. For instance, one professor and leader of her school's women's studies center commented in an interview that "I should discuss with you this frustration against men, especially those of radical feminists. Ordinary Chinese will have trouble with this." She went on to note that "Many people are interested in women's issues and doing women's work, but most identify feminists with the man-haters. Feminists are people who work for women, but erroneous impressions have been spread far and wide. We need to define feminism-working for women's interests as opposed to being manhaters." A lawyer working in a women's legal aid N G O noted that she previously had such a negative view of feminists, but that this view changed when she got to know Mary Ann Burris, the Ford Foundation Reproductive Health Program Officer in Beijing in the early 1990s: I first met a feminist in 1993, it was Mary Ann Burris. At that time she gave me a particularly deep impression. I really candidly explained to her that I generally disliked feminism, that I felt that they were relatively extreme. Generally they had the appearance of struggle, of being extremely formidable, masculine, tigerlike. My impression of Mary Ann-I cannot say if it was good or not-but I knew she represented feminists, and at that time I really wasn't too comprehending of Western feminism. She changed my opinion toward feminism.

Such misperceptions of feminism on the part of most Chinese have derived from many sources, one of which is the difficulties that have been encountered in finding an appropriate Chinese translation for the concept. Translating "Feminismn-Nuquanzhuyi

or Nuxingzhuyi?

One very basic reason for the difficulties that "feminism" has encountered in China is due to its lack of a clearly accepted Chinese translation. The translation that has been most commonly used in mainland China up until recent years has been nuquanzhuyi, which literally means "female rights-ism." However, the term for "rights" in Chinese, quanli, has the same pronunciation as the word for "power," as well as the same first character, quan. This had led to an association between feminism and power, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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and to the common (mis)perception, according to a young woman active in the East Meets West Translation Group, that feminists seek to "take power from men." For this reason, a new translation has begun to be used by some activists, nuxingzhuyi. As explained by N G O activist Chen Yiyun, Translating "feminism" as nuquanzhuyi probably causes people to confuse into one thing every different kind of feminist thinking and radical factions' concepts of women's rights (nuquan). In reality, "feminism" is pointing to a complete set of thinking and advocacy regarding women seeking liberation, and striving to reach equality with men in society, economics, politics, and human dignity. By only using the two words "nuquan" is unable to summarize its complete meaning. "Femin-" is indicating the female (nuxing), and "-ismn is zhuyi, it has the meaning of theory, so therefore translating it as "nuxingzhuyi" or "nuxingguan" is relatively precise (Chen Yiyun 1992, p. 43).

This employment of the term seeks to better-integrate it into typical Chinese concepts regarding women's issues-for instance, "women's liberation" (funu jiefang) has been a fairly common discourse under the Chinese Communist Party. Many activists have adopted nuxingzhuyi as a preferable term. The main reason for this shift, according to most activists, is that "nuquanzhuyi has a very derogatory association. The reason why feminists in China don't want to be called nuquanzhuyi is associated with the fact that it is seen as very aggressive, non-feminine, and anti-man. It is a misunderstanding of the term, but it is misunderstood so it is hard to change." A lawyer who is a Career Activist noted her preference for nuxingzhuyi, finding that "it is relatively gentle and soft, nuquanzhuyi has too strong a smell of gunpowder. Nuxingzhuyi is a better translation, nuquan is too formidable." Another Career Activist, a women's studies professor, noted that "With nuquan men see power, nuxingzhuyi is somewhat milder, and I like it more. China is still a patriarchal society, and men and women standing up as equals is fairly sensitive." One Beijing women's N G O leader also noted the constraints provided by China's social, historical, and political legacies: My ideal of feminism is male-female equality. I translate "feminist" as nuxingzhuyi, male-female equality-ism (nannupingdengzhuyi), or women's liberation theory (funu jiefang lilun). A bad translation can bring about misunderstanding, and in China people's understanding of quan is to dislike it. Nuquan is too complicated, because quan equals power and frightens people. First, Chinese common people (laobatxtng) don't like conceptions of "domination." Second, China experienced the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four, with its power struggles, and perhaps there were a very few people who benefitted out of this, but many people did not, including the politicians themselves. Most people suffer from power struggles. Therefore, owing to reasons in historical reality, Chinese people don't like nuquanzhuyi. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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While some thus feel that nuxingzhuyi is a more conciliatory term to use in contemporary China,14 others do feel that nuquan and nuxing have important differences which make them each have their own advantages and disadvantages. For instance, a journalist who often writes articles on feminism for her newspaper noted that Nuquan is very strong and shocking, and nuxing is relatively mild, but now I am very confused about this. I don't know which is better, first I thought nuquan was better, but in the newspaper I do feel that nuxing is better, because you cannot shock the authorities. But nuxing is relatively mild and so it leads to something of a mistaken diversion, it makes people think of "femininity."

A college professor had a similar view of the hazards of using nuxing, finding that nuquanzhuyi is better because it relates to "women's rights. Human rights are women's rights, and women's rights are human rights. I feel that nuxingzhuyi is very soft. Feminism is very strong, to struggle for this aim, for women's liberation." Another university professor had the view that nuquan better denoted the sort of "empowerment" sought by the women's movement. Some activists felt that the two terms essentially do mean the same thing. In this view, the newer term of nuxingzhuyi can be viewed primarily as a tactic on the part of women's movement activists in order to achieve wider acceptance for feminism. For instance, one scholar who did her graduate education in the United States felt that nuxingzhuyi "is a better translation. Nuquanzhuyi is OK too but it already has such a reputation, and you have to work around that. It means 'power' and 'rights.' Power is not bad but in this tradition it is not good for women to fight for power." Another scholar also noted her view that nuxing has gained some currency of usage because of the particular political and cultural connotations of nuquan: "I don't care and I use both terms. To get around I use nuxing, because nuquan is sensitive-it asks 'what rights do women have?"' One Fulian researcher and leading force in the Chinese translation of Our Bodies, Ourselues, noted that the dual terms In China are a kind of strategy. People are afraid society won't accept feminism. Basically they are the same, in Our Bodies, Ourselves we totally use nuquanzhuyi. I do feel that nuquanzhuyi is more accurate, but nuxingzhuyi is better-accepted, because of cultural issues. For example: in China it does seem as if capitalism and the socialist market economy are the same, but "capitalist" is not accepted and "socialist market economy" is accepted.

Such a strategic employment of terminology is a part of the operation of the women's organizations as a symbiotic social movement, through seeking to alter discourses in a way that will not offend state or society.

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Activists as "Feminists"

Due no doubt to all of the historical, political, and cultural baggage that the term continues to carry, many women's movement activists continue to be unwilling to declare themselves to be "feminists." Interestingly, this applies to activists of all types-from Compulsory to Career. Some reject the term because of its many negative connotations. For instance, one Voluntary Activist, a history professor who is also active in some contemporary rural activism, when asked if she was a feminist, responded using a traditionalist Chinese attitude toward women: "I think I am not-I am a virtuous wife and good mother (xianqi liangmu)," as if the two things were mutually exclusive. Another women's studies professor noted that "I'm not such a radical, I don't reject men, in the future development will be women and men going forward hand in hand." And an editor of a women's scholarly publication noted when she was asked if she was a feminist that "I don't think men and women are antagonistic." One Career Activist who is very committed to her work leading a women's NGO noted that "Other people have asked me if I am a feminist-I am not." Some activists are not willing to claim that they themselves are feminists, but they clearly are interested in the personal relevance of feminism. One university professor noted that "I don't think that I am a feminist, but I can approve of feminist thought." And a colleague of hers felt that "I don't have a lot of understanding of Western feminism, but its meaning is a progressive meaning. Recently I have been studying Western feminist theory because I am interested in it. I read The Second Sex very early, in 1990. I appreciate her viewpoint, and I can relate to her as an individual." A journalist who writes about feminism for her newspaper observed that "I still don't dare to say that I myself am a feminist. Feminism has many viewpoints, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't, but I do hope to give my readers an introduction to feminism." Others have also adopted a similarly thoughtful position toward feminism, wondering how applicable it is to the Chinese context. One history professor, when asked if she was a "nuquanzhuyizhe" ("feminist"), replied that "In China we don't have nuquanzhuyizhe-this term is a translation. We talk about the women's movement (funu yundong), and women's rights (funu de quanli). We don't have organizations or a movement resembling the West's." Similarly, a Career Activist who works for Fulian and is active in several NGOs, when asked if she was a feminist, replied that I think in China it is very difficult to say. China doesn't have a feminist movement, and what is the relationship between being a "feminist" and the feminist movement? In China there is no movement, to some extent it has activities and it has people with a feminist point of view or people with feminist thinking, but no movement. I don't think all of my thinking is feminist, I am of the traditional Marxist women's view. I individually think that I better understand feminism relative to many people. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Other activists responded to the question "Are you a feminist?'' with replies like "not a very radical one" or "not a very extreme one." When willing to adopt the title to describe themselves, activists were careful to denote what they think the term means for them. For some, this has meant localizing the term to make it compatible with more conventional gender discourses. For instance, one Career Activist who works in a legal N G O noted that, "I should be a feminist, I pay much attention to women's rights and interests (quanyi), and human rights (renquan). I also think women should have their own characteristics." Quanyi is a common term in discourses on women's rights in contemporary China, for example in the 1992 Funu Quanyi Baozhang Fa (Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests). Others use familiar discursive forms as well. One professor noted that "I advocate male-female equality (nannu pingdeng)." Another said "I think I am all for women's equality. I would like to improve the condition of women, and I am aware of the difficulties that women face. I don't know if you would call that feminist.'' Others choose to term themselves "nuxingzhuyizhe" or "nuquanzhuyizhe," thus choosing between the two terms being utilized, and refining the meaning in that way. For instance, one N G O leader said "I am a nuxingzhuyizhe. If you say nuquan, then you are not able to be close to men and you cannot cooperate with men. I am a feminist, but in my own understanding. I promote the liberation of women and I promote the liberation of men." Others enthusiastically embrace nuquanzhuyizhe. For instance, one Voluntary Activist, a professor and NGO volunteer, answered, when asked if she was a feminist, that "In China we don't raise this question. Men get all green lights, and women sometimes get red and sometimes green. I am a nuquanzhuyizhe. I tell people, and they joke with me and tell me I'm a feminist. I don't care about that." One participant at the "Chinese Women and Feminist Thought" conference held in Beijing in June 1995 asserted her belief that she without question was a nuquanzhuyizhe because of the central importance of "rights" to that translation, and its connotation of pluralist cooperation to advance toward the aim of women's rights.15 The open advocacy of such views is indicative of the increasing acceptance that feminism is receiving in the Chinese women's movement community. And the acting upon such beliefs through the women's movement is indicative of the emergence of genuine feminist activism in contemporary China. CONCLUSIONS Women's movement activists are seeking to promote wider social change, through their activities within the state as well as in social organizations. And at the same time as "feminism" is receiving more acceptance in Chinese movement discourses, the identities of movement participants themselves are being altered by their activism. Particularly for Voluntary Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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and Career Activists, women's movement participation has led to changes in intellectual interests, family relations, social perceptions, and even the way they "name" themselves. Such transformations are important goals in themselves for discursively-oriented social movements. As a founding member of the East Meets West Translation Group has noted regarding her activities in the group, she is "more and more clear" that she is a nuquanzhuyizhe, and that I became a feminist after attending the translation group-before I was interested but I was not a conscious feminist. After I became a feminist, I did not listen to men's opinions of me. Before, there were great pressures, and I was not happy. I was not conscious, I hoped they would like me but I was sad. N o w I am extremely happy, and it is very important for my own psychology.

This shift in outward identity and resulting change in general worldview can be regarded as a very personal, but no less significant, form of "women's liberation," a goal promoted by the Chinese Communists throughout this century, but, at least in the case of this activist, requiring autonomous agency to be truly achieved.

NOTES O n the social nature of the problem, see, e.g., IZlandermans (1992) and Tarrow (1994). For the individual-level approach, see Olson (1965). In Freedom Summer, Doug McAdam looks both at how activists themselves were changed by their participation in civil rights activities, and how such changes contributed to the wider social movements that emerged later in the 1960s. Such movements were part of a broad "counterculture" that emerged to change American society on a more permanent basis (McAdam 1988). Castells argues that in the contemporary era's "network society," for "most social actors, meaning is organized around a primary identity (that is an identity that frames the others), that is self-sustaining across time and space" (Castells 1997, p. 7). Thus, for Career Activists, as well as many Voluntary Activists, their gender has become or is in the process of becoming their "primary identity." In this chapter, I am especially relying on my personal interviews with activists to describe the biographical aspects of activism. For a treatment in print that especially focuses on the effects of preparing for the FWCW on Chinese women activists' identities and commitments, see Wong Yuen Ling (1995). Some interviews followed a set schedule of questions that included personal information such as age, educational history, and marital status. However, there were some interviews that were more informal conversations, and I therefore did not find out the age of all informants. The number of informants in the age sample is 45.

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I will below discuss the many negative associations of the term "feminist" in China.

'

At the time of this interview, The Bridges of Madison County had been translated into Chinese and was a current bestseller. This improvement in educational levels of officials and cadres is a general postM a o trend. See Lieberthal (1995, pp. 231,234-235). Goldman (1994) looks at the role played by the intellectual "democratic elite" in advocating democracy in post-Mao China. lo E.g., see Cro11 (1978), Johnson (19831, and Stacey (1983). l1 The following citations are all drawn from the Fuyin Baokan Ziliao

(Information from the Press). See Chapter 7 for more information on this publication. l2This book was widely available in Beijing bookstores in 1995-1996 for the price of about $1.50. l3 The book Reflections and Resonance (Wong Yuen Ling 1995) features a large number of women declaring their feminist identities in print. l4 Zhang and Xu (1995) discuss the view that nuquanzhuyi is more relevant to the Western experience and nuxingzhuyi to the Chinese experience, because the former is more "political" while the latter has more of an emphasis on asserting identities, "but not through fierce political movements" (p. 37).

Conference proceedings, 22 June 1995.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

PART I11

The Emergence of a Symbiotic Women's Movement in the 1990s: Opportunities, Mobilization and Framing

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER FIVE

Political and Economic Opportunities

In this chapter, I will look at the political and economic opportunities that have existed for the Beijing women's movement in the post-~Vaoera. Such opportunities were especially salient in the domestic political arena in expanding discussion of women's problems that began during the 1980s, and were enhanced by the introduction of the exogenous factor of the Fourth World Conference on Women being held in Beijing in 1995. This was a particularly important "movement-specific opportunity" for the women's movement. Economically, while the reforms had various negative effects on women, the introduction of Ford Foundation funding for independent women's activities in the 1990s was an additional exogenous opportunity. I will particularly show that the combination of increasing tolerance by the state of discussion of women's problems, ultimately further elevated by the successful convening of the FWCW, with the provision of Ford Foundation funding, led to the development of more independent manifestations of the women's movement during the 1990s. First, I will look at the phasing of the development in the movement, which has clearly emerged in Initiating, Latent, and Popularizing Phases. Then, I will look at the endogenous and exogenous political opportunities provided the movement in the post-~Vaoperiod, particularly during the 1990s, as well as the endogenous and exogenous economic opportunities.

PHASES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE POST-MA0 CHINESE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT The significant social transformations that have accompanied the postMao reform process have not bypassed the formerly exclusively state-led women's movement. While the Women's Federation at its various levels has also experienced important changes in the reform era, many of which make it a more faithful representative of "women's interests" rather than a mere mouthpiece for party-state policy,' there has also been the emergence of Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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new forms of women's organizing. In this section, I will show the patterns of development characterizing post-Mao women's groups, and the following sections will elaborate the reasons and the effects of such developments with respect to movement "opportunity structures." The Beijing women's movement has experienced a significant widening and diversification in its organizational manifestations through the 1980s and 1990s, as is evidenced in Table 5.1. The pattern of the foundings of these groups can be found in Figure 5.1. As can be seen, there were two main peaks for women's organizing in Beijing, the first, smaller one being in the mid to late 1980s, and the second more significant one being in the early 1990s, particularly in 1993. This pattern is even more interesting when viewed in Table 5.2 and Figure 5.2. Table 5.2 shows the type of supervisory work unit that given groups had, and Figure 5.2 shows this in graphic form.2 It is evident that a shift in forms of organizing occurredfrom those led by the Women's Federation to those affiliated with university and other types of supervisory units. These findings are similar when repeated in relation to nationwide foundings of groups. Figure 5.3 shows the foundings of groups nationwide, with an emphasis on "women's studies" institutions. As can be seen, this also was characterized by two peaks of organizing, in the mid to late 1980s and the early 1990s, again especially in 1993. And again, the same pattern of supervisory work units is evident when divided between Fulian and nonFulian supervisory units, as is apparent in Figure 5.4. Thus, nationwide patterns of women's group organizing are similar to Beijing's, and Beijing findings may be therefore usefully used as a benchmark for the rest of the country. These patterns show distinct phases in women's organizing. What I will term the Initiating Phase is the period preceding the Tiananmen Square popular movement in spring 1989, and its subsequent suppression on June 4. This period is characterized by a widening discourse on women's issues and a particular growth in Women's Federation-led research bodies, with some growth in other types of groups as well. The second period, from June 1989 to March 1992, when it was announced that the Fourth World Conference on Women would be held in Beijing, I term the Latent Phase. A few groups were founded in this period, but it was a fairly quiet time. The third period, from March 1992 to 1995 (in terms of groups being founded), I term the Popularizing Phase. I term it this because of the particular growth during this time in non-governmental organization forms of organizing, often termed "minjian zuzhi" (popular organizations). During the Initiating Phase, while there was a peak in foundings of women's groups in 1986 in particular, both in Beijing and nationally, almost all of these groups were founded under the auspices of local Women's Federations, particularly as Marriage and Family research associations. The Latent Phase, as befits its name, was characterized by almost Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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no new foundings of women's organizations. But the Popularizing Phase, beginning in 1992, featured a wide expansion in women's organizations, again both in Beijing and nationally. And, even more significantly, this expansion particularly featured women's organizations not under the immediate supervision of the Women's Federation, showing both increasing agency in founding women's groups and an increasing diversity in their forms. In the following sections, I will show how the opportunity structures of the Beijing movement explain this particular phasing of group formation, and why exogenous as well as endogenous opportunities are necessary to explain it. Table 5.1-Beijing Women's Groups and Their Dates of Pounding Organization China Marriage and Family Research Society

Founding date 1981

China Women's News

Marriage and Family magazine Women's Studies Forum, Beijing Foreign Studies University Beijing Women's Issues Theoretical Research Society Women's Studies Section. China Women's College China Capital Women Journalists' Association Women's Research InstitutelWomen's Hotline Chinese Women's Development Foundation

1986

Contemporary Women's and Family Studies, Sociology Dept., Beijing Univ. East Meets West Translation Group Rural Women's Development Association Jinglun Family Science Center China-Canada Young Women's Project

1986

Women's Studies Center, People's University March Chinese Women's 1986 Health Network Oct. 19881 World Women 's Esioiz magazine 1992 December 1988

Women's Studies Center, Beijing University Women's Studies Institute of China Collection of Women's Studies magazine Women 's Studies magazine

October 1990 1991

Rural Women Knowing All magazine

January 1993

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Organization

March 1992 end of 1992

Theoretical Research Association on Women, Capital Normal Univ. Chinese Women Lawyer's Friendly Society Chinese Partnership Research Group Women's Studies Center, Central Party School Tonghe Law Firm, Women's Legal Affairs Section (Beijing Univ.) Funu Chayuan (divorced women's support group)

Founding date ca. 1993

1993 February 1993 Februrary 1993 September 1993 September 1993 September 1993 September 1993 September 1993 October 1993 May 1994 end of 1994 August 1995 October 1995

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Figure 5.1---Foundings of groups in Beijing

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Political and Economic Opportunities

Table 5.2-Beijing women's groups' years of founding and types of supervisory work units (guakao danwei) YEAR OF FOUXDlXG

Pre-1989 1989March 1992 March 19921995

FULIANAS

ACADEMIC OTHER

GUAKAO DANWEI

UNITS AS GUAKAO DANWEI

BODIES AS GUAKAO DANWEI

7 2

1 1

1

4

6

2

NO GUAKAO DANWEI

4

Sources: Author's research; Li Ling and Feng Yue (1996); China-Canada Young Women's Project (1995).

I2

-

10

-

4 W o m e n ' s Federation as supervisory unit -Other

body as supen isory unit

Figure 5.2---Supervisory units of Beijing groups and their years of founding

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization

Figure 5.3---Foundings of groups nationwide Sources: Ford Foundation (1995); Women's Studies Institute of China (1995)

-z-

Women's Federation as supenisoiy unit

+Other

body as supei~isoiyunit

Figure 5.4---Supervisory units of groups nationwide and their years of founding Sources: Ford Foundation (1995): Women's Studies Institute of China (1995)

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ENDOGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS POLITICAL OPPORTUNITIES Ideas of "Civil Society" and Political Opportunity Structure The debate on whether China has been experiencing the emergence of "civil society" during the post-Mao period, already discussed in Chapter 1, is of great relevance to understanding the "political opportunity structure" (POS) of the contemporary Chinese women's movement, for it enables us to look at the ways in which Chinese state-society relations have been evolving during this era. It provides a window onto the ways that forms of societal autonomy, including social movement formations such as the women's movement, seized upon elements in the political climate as propitious signals for mobilization. The ongoing discussion on the "civil society" question has seen a general consensus emerge that China has at most only some of the elements of Western-type civil society, and that it is important to assess China's "civil society" in light of its own cultural and social structural heritages. In other words, China can at best be said to have a "semi-civil society" (He 1997). Despite this conclusion, the literature on civil society in China has presented a number of interesting arguments that are right in line with questions discussed in Chapter 2 regarding the effects of globalization on the state. Post-Mao reforms in China, even without explicit consideration for the influences of globalization, have promoted questions as to the declining or the resurgent power of the Chinese state, both locally and centrally. Such questions of course have implications for issues relating to social autonomy as well. O n the one hand, there are those who assert that the post-Mao reform process has led to a decrease in state power, and a corresponding increase in latitude for social organizing. In particular, the argument is that economic reforms have led to lessened state power and resurgent social autonomy (e.g., Strand 1990; Walder 1989; White, Howell, and Shang 1996). These discussions also often relate to questions of state legitimacy as discussed in Chapter 1 (Ding 1994a; Saich 1994a).In general, it can be argued that such developments as detachment of state from society, the concomitant creation of new social autonomy, and decline in state institutions and legitimacy all provide favorable "signals" within the general POS for social movements. However, these arguments about the fate of the state in the reforms have not been conclusive, and other analysts have looked at the ways in which the state has handled the reforms to maintain its grip on society, with some even asserting that the purpose of the reforms has been to increase state power over society (Shue 1988; Shue 1994). In this formulation, the state has acknowledged the existence of varying interests in Chinese society, but for the purpose of co-opting them into state-dominated institutions and organizations, and has been reasonably successful in this process. Thus, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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while not denying that social organizational diversity has expanded in the post-Mao years, this more "statist" approach argues that social groups have either been co-opted or themselves created by the state, and that state hegemony over the ideological and social as well as political realms can thus endure (see, e.g., Frolic 1997; Saich 199410). In this respect, some assert that overall state power and authority have increased during the post-Mao era (Huang 1993, p. 232; Wakeman 1993, p. 110). In this sense, this perspective is compatible with "Asian statist" arguments for a culturally-specific form of governance in this era, and this is reflected in the fact that some observers feel that Chinese citizens are perfectly at ease with statist ambitions-for instance, Frederic Wakeman asserts that in the current situation, "most Chinese citizens appear to conceive of social existence mainly in terms of obligation and interdependence rather than rights and responsibilities" (Wakeman 1993, p. 110). Others advocate similar perspectives and even explicitly link them to so-called "Asian" values. Brook and Frolic note that statist views rooted in notions of Asian exceptionalism have a certain "persuasiveness among the [Chinese] people," and so the future "is unlikely to be a series of Tiananmens at which people rise up to demand their rights, but rather a more nonconfrontational process of consumerist attachment to economic growth" (Brook and Frolic 1997a, pp. 11-12). While the "state decline" approach does point out the ways in which the post-Mao social resurgence has altered the nature of Chinese state and society alike and the "statism" approach points to the ways that state power persists, both have something of a rigid picture of the effects of the reforms on state-society relations-either society is (re-) emerging autonomously, or the state is successfully assimilating any such developments into its own ambitions. A stress on either of these viewpoints can tend to obscure the dynamic negotiations of the process. Alternatively, and most persuasively, there have recently been arguments as to the mixed effects of reform on state and social power. These view state-society relations as engaged in a constant push-and-pull relationship, with each negotiating areas of ascendance and of submission. Thus, social autonomy and dependence on the state are not mutually exclusive, but exist simultaneously (Strand 1990, p. 17). The state has therefore had a "multidimensional" response to societal development, sometimes engaging in repression but sometimes seeking to incorporate social groups (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 27-29). This has led to a greater existence of social autonomy in China, but it exists strategically both for society and the state, with the state relying "on social organizations to exercise an effective social control, while social organizations draw on the power of the state to develop themselves." In this sense, "not all social organizations...have direct implications for democracy," and in general Chinese "semi-civil society" has an "ambiguous" potential vis-a-vis Chinese prospects for democratization (He Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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1997, pp. 9, 4). This mixed formation means that some types of social organizations can exist with reasonable autonomy, but that they depend on the state's tolerance for their existence. Such a pattern may be characterized as "symbiotic," with the state permitting groups some autonomy if it views their existence to be either nonthreatening or even helpful to its own power, authority, and/or legitimacy. Endogenous Political Opportunities for the Women's Movement This overall view of post-Mao social development has implications for all phases of women's movement emergence. Such state-society negotiations were present even in the wake of repressive episodes, the most severe being of course June 4, 1989. Indeed, continuing post-Tiananmen social development is evidence of the resilience of post-Mao social development, but it has all occurred in the context of the state's continuing efforts to moderate autonomy. In the women's movement's Initiating Phase, there were various vicissitudes in the political climate, but a general trend toward greater openness. This is evidenced in, for instance, the brief-lived campaign against "bourgeois liberalization" in early 1987, following student protests in several cities in December 1986, including Shanghai and Beijing, and the subsequent dismissal of Party Secretary H u Yaobang. However, reformist premier Zhao Ziyang remained in office and attempted, with Deng Xiaoping's support, to limit the purview of the campaign (Chen Yizi 1995, p. 147; Goldman 1994, pp. 224-225). Following this short campaign, the general tendency toward political reform that characterized this decade prevailed and had its most pivotal display at the 13th Party Congress in October 1987. At this Congress, reformist leaders again were dominant, assisted by popular opinion polls showing support for political reform (Goldman 1994, p. 232). The final report of the Political Reform Research Group approved, among other things, of greater autonomy for the mass organizations, such as the Women's Federation, and was then approved by the Central Committee and delivered by Zhao Ziyang to the Party Congress (Chen Yizi 1995, pp. 149-150). One of Zhao's most significant admissions in the lead-up to the Congress was regarding his view of China as a pluralist society: Socialist society is not a monolith. In this society people of all kinds, of course, share common interests, but their special interests should not be overlooked. The conflicting interests should be reconciled. The government should work to coordinate the various kinds of interests and contradictions; the party committees must be even better at the coordinating work (quoted in Tong 1994, p. 337).

And at the Congress, Zhao made similar remarks: There should be channels through which the voices and demands of the people can be easily and frequently transmitted to the leading bodies, and Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization there should be places where the people can offer suggestions and pour out any grievances ...Different groups of people may have different interests and views, and they too need opportunities and channels for the exchange of ideas (quoted in Goldman 1994, p. 234).

While the political reforms detailed at the 1987 Congress were never implemented, they led to a period of openness in China during which the Women's Federation-led women's movement reached its "zenith" (Zhang 1996, pp. 421-422). To understand how this occurred, it may be useful to look at the general elements of "political opportunity structure": "1. The relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political system, 2. The stability or instability of that broad set of elite alignments that typically undergird a polity, 3. The presence or absence of elite allies, 4. The state's capacity and propensity for repression'' (McAdam 1996, p. 27). During the 1980s, in years when reformist leaders were generally in the ascendant, the women's movement also experienced new growth and vitality, especially under the Women's Federation. Thus, the existence of categories (2) and (3) can be said to have been present for the women's movement-particularly with respect to reformist leaders such as Zhao Ziyang supporting more independence for groups such as the Women's Federation. During the 1980s, the state signaled that women's issues were an issue of continuing salience and concern-even that women had not been fully liberated during the Maoist period as had once been concluded. For this reason, it would appear that "political space" (Lieberthal 1995, p. 132) was created for women's issues to be publicly discussed and researched. The 1980s witnessed the proliferation of Women's Federation-affiliated research institutes on women, marriage and family issues, as is evident in Figures 5.3 and 5.4. This occurred both in Beijing and nationwide. During this same period, there was a proliferation of literature in the West about the ways in which socialism had, after all, failed women in China, despite optimistic reports during the previous decade about women's progress under M ~ o While . ~ the Chinese state itself often continued to stress the great progress women had made since the founding of New China, there also was a new discourse in China, emanating from both Women's Federation and academic sources, regarding the problems women were fac, ~ perhaps the fact that women hadn't ing in the atmosphere of r e f ~ r m and been completely liberated after all. This candor in the 1980s is more understandable when the general openings of the period, discussed above, are considered. While the reforms themselves were seldom singled out as the reason for women's new problems, these critiques nonetheless led to a fairly vigorous debate as to women's fate in the changing circumstances. Much of this debate occurred in 1988 and 1989, prior to the crackdown on the student movement. For instance, the magazine Women of China (Zhongguo Funu) Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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featured a discussion in 1988 on "Where is the Way Out for Women?" initiated by a letter to the magazine from a woman asking that question regarding her own situation (Zhang and Xu 1995, p. 25). In that same year, articles were published discussing, for instance, the "Daqiu Village" debate regarding whether women should return to the home to assist in alleviating unemployment. One article concluded "What is the future of women's emancipation? The women have started trying to seek the answers for themselves" (Xiao Ming 1988, p. 36). Such a perspective begins to give agency to women themselves to decide their fate, rather than relying on the state-led version of "liberation.'' Other articles discussed women's employment problems under the reforms, even occasionally admitting that the reforms have not been all good for women (Gao Xiaoxian 1988). At Beijing Foreign Studies University, significantly one of the first Beijing universities to conduct women's studies activities, professors wrote a letter to the state critiquing the problem of female graduates facing discrimination on the job market, and suggesting legal means to deal with the problem (China Daily 1989). Other evidence of pre-1989 critical discourses can be found in the newly-emerging discipline of women's studies-first termed funuxue, or "women-ology", although even that term was initially under dispute as potentially too "bourgeois" (Zhu Qing 1987, p. 25).' Women's studies conferences began to be held in the mid-1980s, with participants coming from Fulian, universities, and Academies of Social Sciences (see Li Hui 1989; Wang Xiaoming 1987; Zhu Qing 1987). New research organizations were founded under the Women's Federation during this period (Li Jingzhi 1992). Many of these had a particular emphasis on marriage and family research (Tan Shen 1996). This period was also characterized by the establishment of various "friendly societies" to aid women in professional fields-these groups were largely associated with their local Fulian (Liu Jinxiu 1992, p. 580). However, women's studies was also beginning to gain a foothold in non-Fulian institutions. The founding of such groups has been regarded as "spontaneous" (zifa), and as having their "roots in resolving women's problems (funu wenti) and for the urgent calls of women's theory" (Liu Jinxiu 1992). The first non-Fulian women's studies center was informally founded in 1985 and formally established at Zhengzhou University in Henan by Li Xiaojiang (Li Xiaojiang and Li Hui 1989; Liu Jinxiu 1992; Wan Shanping 1988), and others followed suit, including the Beijing Foreign Studies University Women's Studies Forum. While these developments have not been entirely critical of state policy on women and have sometimes even tended to glorify the effects of reform on women (see, e.g., Shen Zhi 1984)' there also did emerge a discourse that began to be critical of both the effects of reform on women and the state-led approach to women's liberation characterizing the Maoist period. For example, Li Xiaojiang wrote both of the contradictions of reform for women and their Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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need for "collective consciousness'' and organizing around their genderspecific interests (Li Xiaojiang 1994a). Significantly, this particular essay of Li's was first published in China in 1988, during the height of preTiananmen women's organizing (Li Xiaojiang 1988). Others also focused on the continuing shortcomings of "women's liberation" in China, such as an article published by a Chinese scholar in a Western publication prior to Tiananmen, which critiqued the Chinese government's tendency to focus on the liberation women had received under its rule rather than "their continued low status in society" (Li Xiaoping 1989). Despite these critiques, however, there continued to be a desire to accommodate women's studies to Fulian-to "colonize" it, in the words of Tani Barlow (1994, p. 358). Such a strategy may have seemed particularly feasible given the openings experienced by Fulian in the 1980s and particularly in 1988, the year of the Sixth National Women's Congress, held in September. At this Congress, women discussed problems they were facing, such as employment discrimination and inadequate political representation, and in general the conference was a success for the Women's Federation's increasing organizational autonomy, as well as promoting various proposals to reform Fulian to make it more representative of womem6 It is not coincidental that this event followed on the heels of the Thirteenth Party Congress, with its own political reform proposals, by less than a year. And following the Women's Congress, the first non-governmental women's organization was formally established in Beijing-the Women's Research Institute (WRI), under the China Academy of Management Science (CAMS). The group's early groundwork for establishment occurred earlier in 1988, and culminated in CAMS'S approval of the group's founding in July and the All-China Women's Federation accepting it as a group member in September. Significantly, this "NGO" was founded not as a purely independent entity, but as one with a higher work unit as well as pre-established ties to the Women's Federation. This trailblazing women's group, founded as one of the earliest non-Fulian organizations, followed legal procedures in its founding and thus provided evidence that women's groups were not necessarily oppositional to the state. It therefore conformed to the POS of the time and greatly narrowed the possibility of repressive actions being taken. The more open POS for women's movement activities in the 1980s was found in both general government moves toward political reform and greater openness on the part of the state's women's organization, Fulian. And some Chinese participants have looked back on this Initiating Phase as indeed the early stirrings of a Chinese-style independent women's movement, with women's studies being its "pioneering force'' (Li Xiaojiang and Zhang Xiaodan 1994, p. 150). Unfortunately, this more open atmosphere was closed abruptly by the Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent government repression, which led to a much more circumscribed political atmosphere. Tiananmen was Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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followed by the passage of a law intending to place stricter controls on the formation of social groups, the Management Regulations on the Registration of Social Organizations (Wang Ying, Zhe Xiaoye, and Sun Bingyao 1993; White, Howell, and Shang 1996). The crackdown on protesters on June 4th was followed by various declarations of Fulian's support for this action (see Beijing Daily 1989; Changchun Jilin Provincial Service 1989), and there was a renewed emphasis on the importance of Communist Party leadership of the Women's Federation and other mass organizations (Xinhua 199l a ) . The new exertion of Party leadership over the women's movement is evident, for instance, in different interpretations of statistics on women's condition prior to and after Tiananmen Square. While pre-1989 discourses were characterized by perhaps unprecedented candor regarding women's condition, the post-1989 situation was more one of typical Party propagandizing. Take as an example two Xinhua news agency reports on women, one from 1988, the other from 1991. In 1988, a report on women began with these words: The late Chairman M a o Zedong was fond of saying that women hold up half the sky, but that has not meant women have had an equal share of opportunities with men. Mostly they haven't.

The same report went on to list various problems faced by contemporary women, including the fact that women "account for only 28.8 percent of government functionaries" (Xinhua 1988, emphasis added). The 1991 article featured a decidedly more optimistic view, employing what X.L. Ding (1994a) terms a "vertical" method of comparison, whereby the current era is compared with earlier decades to show the progress made under the rule of the CCP. Thus, in 1991, Xinhua opened with the observation that Chinese women have won a historic liberation and have been playing an increasingly important role in the country's construction and reform since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949.

In this report, Chinese women's presence in state apparatuses was viewed to be 30.26% of the total cadres, or 10 million, which is "27 times the figure in 1952" (Xinhua 1991b). Thus the political atmosphere when each article was written dictated that 28% was a lamentable figure, but that 30% was one to be applauded. Some debates over women's issues did continue during the 1989-1992 Latent Period, indicating at least some women's issues remained of limited political sensitivity. One of these was the debate over women returning to the home (Jiang Yongping 1990). Additionally, some research activities did go on, including a 1991 conference on women's political participation cosponsored by the Women's Research Institute and China Women's News. This conference discussed how to improve women's political representaCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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tion, and even debated the best ways to represent women's interests (Wang Xingjuan 1995f; Wen Ding 1992). The Beijing University Women's Studies Center was formally established during this period as well, during 1990. This was one of the only such foundings during this time period, and perhaps can be explained at least in part by the prestigious nature of Beijing University, as well as the chosen research emphasis on the center, which has done much work on women in history and traditional culture, a fairly noncontroversial topic. This research focus included Beida's workshop at the N G O Forum in 1995, on "Women and Traditional Culture."' The beginning of 1992 saw developments relevant both to China's general political climate as well as its women's movement. Deng Xiaoping's trip to the south in January and February was accompanied by a renewed commitment to political as well as economic reform, and indicated a turn from the post-Tiananmen restrictions (Goldman 1994, p. 358; Lieberthal 1995, pp. 143-144). And in March of that year, it was announced that the United Nations had accepted China's invitation to convene the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. This latter announcement, particularly when combined with a more open domestic political atmosphere, led to the flowering of the N G O portion of the women's movement in what I term the Popularizing Phase (see Figures 5.1-5.4). I will detail these developments in the following section, on exogenous opportunities. First, however, there are a few other issues relating to endogenous opportunities that are salient here. The organizations that developed in the 1980s, while having some interest in women's policy, tended to emphasize their "research" focus. Even the first non-Fulian and non-university based N G O was the "Women's Research Institute." The motivations for this can largely be found in the intellectual basis of the movement. In this respect, we can learn as much about the women's movement from treatments of intellectuals' negotiated relationship with the Chinese state as we can from theories of civil society, and the former can help illuminate the latter. In particular, increasing intellectual autonomy during the reform period has often conflicted with state desires to incorporate intellectuals into the policy-making process, thus co-opting potential opposition. Intellectuals have a certain dependence on the state, for job allocation and the work unit (danwei) system, and so their desires for autonomy come in the form of negotiated areas of independence vis-A-vis the state (Cheek 1994; Su Shaozhi 1995). At the same time, intellectuals have been able to forge new areas of autonomous activity in the context of the reforms and the state's desire for intellectual input-moving from areas of financial and social independence to cases of politicization as was evidenced in 1989 (Bonnin and Chevrier 1996; Hayhoe and Zhong 1997). Intellectuals have been able to draw on expanded discursive and financial autonomy to create new forms of organization. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Regarding "women's studies" in this context of intellectual dependence vs. independence enables us to understand how women's studies from its inception in China was able to transcend abstract academic concerns and promote social and policy issues. From the start, merging "theory and practice," a common line of thinking under the Dengist reforms, has also been a part of women's studies. While such a perspective on women's studies might mean that it has a real policy input, this is always in the context of a stress on continued "Party leadership," even in its "popular" (minjian) manifestations (Liu Jinxiu 1992). However, the emerging non-state elements of "women's studies'' paved the way for alternative forms of women's organizing, as I will discuss in the following section, and also for expanded types of movement discourses. In some respects, the emergence of new forms of women's organizations in the post-Mao era is evidence of processes of state "decline," as viewed by theorists of Chinese "civil society" as well as of globalization. While there have been significant critiques of the disjuncture between Chinese legal policy on women and actual practices in Western source^,^ such critiques also exist among women's movement activists, albeit in less forthright terms. For instance, one journalist who is also active in women's N G O activities-making her a "Career Activist7'-noted her view that the government's policy on women, "In one aspect, in name it isn't bad, but it is 'too abstract' and very difficult to implement. It lacks implementation, and there is no gender consciousness." One of the ways that this view of women activists has been manifested is by their taking on work that they regard the state, through the Women's Federation, as unwilling or unable to do. In part, this has been a component of the state's own acknowledgment of its limited capacities in the process of "reform and openingv-as a Human Rights in China report puts it, even the state recognizes the "need for NGO-type activities" to manage the effects of reform and to "plug the gaps" in the shrinking "social safety net'' (Human Rights in China 1997, p. 4). In other words, the state's ambition is to forestall its own decline by allowing some circumscribed non-governmental activities. Many women's activities fit into this category. However, women activists have also expanded the boundaries of the state-led movement's discourses and activities. One of the ways that this is evidenced is in how women's movement activists conceive of their role and purpose in relation to the larger Chinese women's movement and the Women's Federation. The journalist and Career Activist quoted above noted that NGOs are doing "things that Fulian does not do, for example, the 'hotline' according to all that I know is not done by Fulian. Also there is much research work and some grassroots work." Others, all Voluntary or Career Activists, noted similar things. For instance, a university professor and N G O volunteer noted that "Fulian's strength is too small-it does publicity work. NGOs do other work.'' A leading cadre with the Beijing city Fulian who is also involved in various NGO activities noted that "Fulian's work is not very practicalCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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they don't do pressing work.'' Such work includes issues such as "domestic violence,'' which was first taken up by NGOs, and which one NGO participant noted that Fulian doesn't And when certain sensitive issues began to be taken up by women's studies advocates, it often was initiated by NGOs. For instance, the first extensive research done on prostitution was conducted by the Women's Research Institute, who also organized the first symposium on the issue in April 1989 (Wang Xingjuan 1992; Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 6). And Wang Xingjuan, the founder of WRI, was often the one writing on issues such as domestic violence in general surveys of women's status (see, e.g., Wang Xingjuan 1 9 9 5 ~ )In. this respect, the new forms of women's movement organizing began to contribute to larger policy debates in China. And this desire for influence continued in the 1990s, in the Popularizing Phase, as I will now demonstrate. Exogenous Political Opportunities for the Women's Movement China's post-Mao opening to the outside world provided new opportunities for international exchanges and learning on the part of its women's movement. Of course, in its earliest years at the beginning of this century, the Chinese women's movement was both influenced by foreign feminist ideas as well as actively seeking to create an indigenous program for women's liberation.1° Reform in the 1980s saw a revived interest in the relevance of foreign ways of thinking to the Chinese context, and to some extent this also included Western feminism. One of the earliest non-governmental women's activities in Beijing emerged as a result of China's opening to foreign educators. The Beijing Foreign Studies University (Beiwai) Women's Studies Forum was founded in 1986, as an explicit exchange between Chinese teachers and the many foreigners that came to teach at that particular institution. The group's objectives included raising understanding of both Chinese and foreign women's issues, as well as involvement in current issues facing Chinese women and offering women's studies courses at the university, and these principles continue to guide the Forum today. One problem of this activity, however, was that its discussions occurred in English so not many Chinese could attend and participate. However, several women who were later to become central to the formation of non-governmental women's groups in the 1990s had their first exposure to women's studies through participation in the Beiwai Forum, particularly while they were in college at Beiwai and Beijing University during the late 1980s. As part of the wenhua re ("cultural fever") of the early and mid-1980s, both Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique were translated into Chinese, and many contemporary activists cite reading these as their first exposure to Western feminist thought, rather than the Marxist frameworks commonly employed by the Women's Federation. Women's studies conferences began to feature exchanges with foreigners, even during the Latent Phase of 1989-1992." Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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However, it was particularly following the UN's approval of China's application to host the Fourth World Conference on Women in March 1992 (Xu Ming and Gu Xiuzong 1995, p. 957), that the most extensive foreign influences were felt on the movement. Indeed, I argue that these influences were formative for the movement in its current manifestation. China's interest in hosting the FWCW came in particular from its desire to rehabilitate its international image following the Tiananmen Square incident-China's invitation to the UN to host the meeting came in January 1991, less than two years after the demise of the student movement. At the time, the Chinese government felt fairly confident of its record on women's issues, and also that these issues were "safe" politically (Wang Zheng 1996, p. 193; Zhang 1996, pp. 541-542). The desire of the Chinese government to host the conference is a larger part of its post-Mao re-entry into the international community, including a shift in its stance on human rights from "outright denial and repression to a mixture of softer tactics and modest attempts to address human rights problems." In this sense, one analyst argues, "Chinese sovereignty" has become permeable to "global learning." This includes the moral force wielded by the non-state actors in the Tiananmen Square protests, who were empowered by global media attention despite their lack of more conventional "weapons" (Kim 1990).12The salience of international norms to the Chinese government is evident, for instance, in its frequent policy pronouncements regarding Chinese progress on human rights, including its occasional propensity to juxtapose its record with that of the United States (Ren Yanshi 1996; Xinhua 1997d; Ye Lou 1996). It is also signatory to a number of international human rights documents (Kim 1990). Even prior to the women's conference, China was concerned about its international image on women's issue^.'^ When, at a September 1988 international conference in Montreal, China was ranked 132nd in a world survey ranking women's status in various countries, the Chinese government commissioned the ACWF to conduct its own survey on women's status in China, the results of which began to come out in late 1991 and early 1992.14When China applied for the conference in 1991, its delegate to a meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in that year noted several reasons why choosing Beijing as the conference venue would be "suitable" and even "necessary." One was that no such conference had yet been held in Asia. The delegate, a Fulian official, also noted China's own qualifications, that the Chinese government consistently has paid attention domestically to women's work for realizing male-female equality, and it promotes women's great effort in participating in the country's development. China internationally has ~ a r t i c i ~ a t ein d each activity in the UN's women's sphere, in order to implement the "Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women" (People's Daily 1991). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Also in early 1992, immediately prior to the UN's announcement as to the conference location, the Chinese delegation to the UN was careful to note that the Chinese government was then about to pass a new law on women's rights (Li Jianxiong 1992; Xinhua l992b). Thus China was granted the FWCW in March 1992. Shortly after this announcement, on April 3, the Fifth Session of the Seventh National People's Congress passed the Law of the People's Republic of China on Protecting the Rights and Interests of Women (for an English translation of the law see Croll 1995, pp. 184-192; People's Daily 1992), an action that appears to be causally related to China's desire to host the FWCW and to show its support for women's equality (Brown 1994). Indeed, Fulian leaders, at a meeting of their national Party committee, chose to stress the law's implementation as "the basis of the convening of the women's conference" in Beijing (Wu Baoli and M a Junmin 1992). In 1993, there was a proliferation of government-level groups to promote and enforce the law at all levels from village to center (People's Daily 1993a). As China prepared for the conference, the leadership continued to emphasize its importance for China's place in the world. For instance, Chen Muhua, chairperson of the ACWF, noted that the conference's convening in Beijing is "each country's government's and people's confidence and hope in the Chinese government and people,'' and that We should promote our country's overall women's participation in development, in the process of realizing their own rights and interests. This conference also will be a great advancement for our country's friendly cooperation and exchanges with all countries of the world (Chen Muhua 1994, p. 17).

One way that China's international image was tied into the convening of the women's conference was through the stress on China's international commitments to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), to which China was an early signatory (Chen Yongling 1989) as well as to the Nairobi ForwardLooking Strategies. There was a great deal of Chinese domestic media attention to these issues as China was preparing to host the conference.15 The supervision exerted on the preparatory process by the Chinese government, especially through the Women's Federation, is consistent with previous Chinese participation in UN women's meetings. China had a delegation in both Copenhagen (1980) and Nairobi (1985), but in the conference reports no Chinese NGOs are listed as having participated, nor were there any statements presented by Chinese NGOs (United Nations 1980; United Nations 1986). It is fairly evident that Chinese official delegations at the 1980 and 1985 meetings were composed of representatives from Fulian (Xie Qimei and Wang Xingfang 1995, pp. 356-358), the same body entrusted with preparing the 1995 N G O Forum, and which in the lead-up to the 1995 conference increasingly identified itself as an "NGO." Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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The Chinese preparations for the NGO Forum indeed led to an important shift in Chinese thinking on NGOs, which I will discuss more thoroughly in Chapter 6. A report from Human Rights in China asserts that the existence of NGOs in China can enhance its international image and attract international funding (Human Rights in China 1997, p. 4). It is evident that, at the very least, the FWCW forced the Chinese government to confront the existence of NGOs, both domestic and foreign, in unprecedented ways. The state attempted to exert its control over the preparatory process: while Fulian was entrusted with much of the work, it was stressed that it was to be under the leadership of the Party and government (AllChina Women's Federation 1992; All-China Women's Federation 1993; People's Daily 199310).This was evident in the fact that all Chinese women wanting to attend international preparatory meetings as well as the NGO Forum itself required Fulian consent. The state also perhaps initially underestimated the seriousness of the conference, as reflected in one Chinese description of the conference as being women "happily gathering" (Xie Qimei and Wang Xingfang 1995, p. 361). The effects of the preparatory process on women's organizing was evident in Fulian's own identity shift, leading to it calling itself an "NGO." While the state attempted to maintain its dominance over the women's movement, a wide flowering of new "NGOs" developed in Beijing and elsewhere in China (see Figures 5.2 and 5.4). While the most extensive development occurred in the area of women's studies centers in universities, other types of women's NGOs also were formed. In general, the conference was regarded as enhancing local women's activities in significant ways (Fu Xu and Tang Weixu 1993). Of the 28 Beijing women's groups listed in Table 5.1, 1 6 (57%) were founded after China was granted the conference (see also Figure 5.1). Perhaps more significantly, while 75% of the new groups founded prior to March 1992 had Fulian as their supervisory work unit, after March 1992, 75% of the groups founded had bodies other than Fulian as their supervisory unit (Table 5.2 and Figure 5.2). A scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences asserts that it was because of the conference that growth in women's studies, as well as foreign funding for it, occurred in Beijing, and actually led to overdevelopment of the women's movement sphere in relation to other social spheres.16And the timing of the foundings of various groups bears this out-while the discussion of women's issues emerged almost a decade prior to China being granted the FWCW, the founding of women's NGOs can be seen as caused by the international opportunities provided in particular by the women's conference. Several women's NGOs were all founded in September 1993 alone (see Table 5.1), the same month as the Seventh National Women's Congress was convened in Beijing," and in general many of the groups that were founded after it was announced that the conference was to be convened in Beijing had the FWCW as an explicit inspiration. While some of the motivation Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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behind the founding of some groups may have been to increase China's number of women's "NGOs" in anticipation of the coming N G O Forum,ls other groups were founded by activists genuinely committed to promoting women's issues. These include the East Meets West Translation Group, founded by several young women along with an American working in the Beijing Ford Foundation office, with the purpose of translating Western feminist works into Chinese and publishing them to introduce a wider range of Chinese people to their ideas. The magazine World Women's Vision (Shijie Funu Bolan) was founded with a similar desire to introduce China to the world women's movement. Its founder, journalist Shang Shaohua, considered founding such a magazine for two years, but found the "opportunity" to do so when the conference was coming to China. World Women's Vision was in fact the major vehicle publishing the translations of East Meets West. The Chinese Women's Health Network was founded after a Ford Foundation-sponsored "summer school" on women's issues at Tianjin Normal University, during which a number of Beijing women's activists from several sectors of the movement decided to found a "network" (wangluo) to help prepare for the FWCW. Officially founded after the conference, the Women's Legal Affairs Section of the Tonghe Law Firm was founded because of the "inspiration" of the FWCW. As noted above, many of these NGOs worked on issues that the government previously had been unwilling to address. This is an issue I will further discuss in Chapter 7, on framing in the women's movement. Preparations for the conference, despite their domination by Fulian and the state, led to many new opportunities for women activists. Prior to the conference there were a large number of women's meetings, as various groups "rehearsed" for their NGO Forum workshops. While having so many women's meetings in one year was regarded as "unique" by one involved historian (Du Fangqin 1996; Zang Jian 1995)' and provided opportunities for women to network with other concerned activists, both Chinese and foreign, these "rehearsals" were also part of a larger state effort to monitor China's contributions to the N G O Forum (Wang Zheng 1996, p. 196). Despite these efforts at state supervision, which I will discuss at greater length below, the conference had effects that transcended statist efforts at control and which promoted greater autonomy and agency within the women's movement. For instance, while Fulian had ultimate control over who was permitted to attend preparatory meetings overseas, close to 100 women were able to go that otherwise would have not due to funding from foreign agencies and assistance with negotiations from the Ford Foundation. And the convening of the N G O Forum itself in China meant that some 5000 Chinese participants (mostly women) attended, a far larger number than would have been able to attend had the conference been held anywhere else. There was a great amount of attention to the conference in the Chinese media, leading Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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to a much greater awareness than previously about such meetings among the general Chinese population (Zang Jian 1995). For instance, various women's magazines, including the newly-founded publications Rural Women Knowing All (Nongjianu Baishitong) and World Women3 Vision featured background information on the conference, as well as post-conference follow-up information on the Platform for Action and its implementation. In general, the conference provided a very extensive platform for the newly emerging women's movement activities-and the state cooperated particularly because of the conference. McAdam (1998) notes that new international allies might "have significant effects on the will or ability of the target regime to repress opposition movements." While the women's movement is hardly oppositional, it has undoubtedly helped to have the many explicit international statements by the Chinese government regarding its concern for women on the side of the movement. The lead-up to the conference promoted increased government attention to women's issues, and both progress and difficulties in practically implementing women's legal equality were addressed (Xinhua 1994). Immediately prior to the conference, the government issued a new measure on women's equality, The Program for the Development of Chinese Women (1995-2000), adopted by the State Council (All-China Women's Federation 1995, p. 1). This Program (Gangyao), dealing with various women's issues ranging from employment to health to education to women's images in the media, was implemented especially because of the FWCW. It may be thus regarded in the context of China's efforts to improve its international image, and it specifically cites China's "solemn pledges for the observance of relevant international conventions relating to women's rights and development" (Ibid., p. 3 ) . At the NGO Forum, other publications distributed also promoted views of Chinese women's high status (All-China Women's Federation 1994; Information Office of the State Council 1994), and there were also reports during the conference in the official English-language media promoting a favorable image of Chinese women's situation (e.g., China Daily 1995; Xu Yang 1995). The very concrete promises the Gangyao makes have been seized upon by women activists as a lasting benefit of the conference. It was widely publicized in the Chinese press (e.g., People's Daily 1995), and women activists positively regard its commitments as genuine. While some Fulian cadres regarded the conference as merely "proving" the Chinese government's already-existing concern for women's issues, other activists regarded the conference and the subsequent Gangyao as important "new things from the government to protect women." Many activists regarded the conference as a crucial impetus in increasing government attention to women's issues which will help "ordinary women" as well as the intellectuals and Fulian cadres who were the primary attendees of the actual conference. A Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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prominent lawyer noted that the conference caused the government to "discover women's strength, and it paid more attention. Previously there were some localities that had gender discrimination in their exercise of leadership, but now there is some redress." In more general terms, Chinese women activists were fairly optimistic about their government's commitment to promoting women, and much of this commitment was seen to derive as much from the conference's influence as from previous state pledges to promote gender equality. Several activists, ranging from a feminist working for the United Nations to a Fulian researcher active in N G O activities, noted the great significance of the women's conference in promoting government attention to women's issues. The latter woman, a Career Activist, noted that, while "in many aspects the government and Party are not genuine, they have false aspects, for example on democracy they are very hypocritical. But in male-female equality, in upholding this one principle, the Party is genuine.'' She went on to note that problems exist more in the Party's lack of understanding of gender matters (xingbie de dongxi), rather than lack of authenticity. In this respect, many women's activists regard themselves as crucial links in state policy implementation. A number of the papers presented at the NGO Forum workshop sponsored by the Women's Research Institute of China (the ACWF's research body), specifically addressed issues relating to the influence of women's studies on policymaking (Women's Studies Institute of China 1995). For instance, Guan Tao of the ACWF looked at the effects of women's studies on laws, women's development, women's rights (such as opposing proposals to return women to the home as a means of dealing with unemployment), mass media, and the women's movement itself, both in Fulian and in NGOs. She also noted the importance of promoting the influence of women's studies on policy-making (Guan Tao 1995; see also Ding Juan 1995a). Such influence continued after the FWCW. For instance, Fulian, in its activities to implement the Gangyao, invited women's studies researchers to make suggestions, and convened a conference on it in December 1996. A university professor who is also a local-level People's Delegate has been able to bring up women's issues in the People's Congress. Others noted the importance of working through "official channels" in the Chinese context, both to make action feasible and to make it influential. Some N G O activists emphasized the importance of maintaining good relations with the government in order to reach their goals. A Fulian researcher noted the means of influence that her organization, the Women's Research Institute of China, has on the government, saying that the problem lies in how to raise "reasonable proposals'' with the right government agencies. Not surprisingly, however, other activists do have a less rosy view of the government's responsiveness to their appeals, noting that NGOs in particular have "relatively small influential impact on the government," while larger bodies such as Fulian and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences are more compelling. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Women's groups have therefore continued to mediate between critiquing women's condition in contemporary China, and accommodating themselves to the opportunities presented by the FWCW and the state's response to it. I will discuss in Chapter 7 the ways in which state discourses on women were expanded as a result of the FWCW and its accompanying exposure to the international women's movement. The preparations for the FWCW, and the desires of the Chinese state to present a favorable face to the world, provided for a greatly opened atmosphere for women's movement activity, particularly those of the "NGO" variety. While the Chinese state attempted to assert control over the conference's preparations and the N G O Forum itself, its efforts to maintain hegemony were of limited utility. For instance, the rhetorical force of its many statements regarding Chinese women's progress was undoubtedly diminished by various reports in the mainstream foreign press detailing the continuing problems facing Chinese women (e.g., Lawrence 1994; Lawrence 1995; Walsh 1995). And the sudden decision to move the N G O Forum to Huairou, distant from central Beijing and the UN conference, also thwarted many of the Chinese government's public relations efforts surrounding the conference. For most of the period from March 1992, when China was granted the conference, to early 1995, preparations were going smoothly and the Chinese government and people were positive about the conference. Up to at least October of 1994, the Chinese government continued to reiterate its commitment that all interested NGOs would be welcome at the Forum (Chan Wai-fong 1994). However, in April 1995 there was a sudden expression by the Chinese government of its desire to move the N G O Forum from the Workers' Stadium complex in the center of the city to Huairou. While the stated reason was that the complex was "structurally unsound," the real reason appears to be that Chinese leader Li Peng received new knowledge about NGOs and the international women's movement when he attended the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen in March 1995. Along with the realization that such conferences feature rather open discussion of "sensitive" issues such as homosexuality, protesters in Copenhagen explicitly confronted Li on China's human rights record in Tibet and Tiananmen. Thus, "women's issues suddenly seemed to have gained a dissident status" and were no longer regarded as the "safe" issues they originally had been. Additionally, the "fragile" Chinese leadership was concerned over Deng Xiaoping's poor health and the succession struggle that would follow his death (Zhang 1996, pp. 559-560).19 Thus, greater governmental control began to be exerted over the conference, including Chinese women's preparatory activities as well as foreign visas and N G O approvals. There were also rumors originating at official levels that foreign women would demonstrate in the nude in Tiananmen Square, and that many foreign prostitutes were coming to the conference. Thus, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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new state attention was focused on women's issues and women's studies, and they risked being "politicized" in the Chinese sense of the term-that they would attract Chinese government regulation or even suppression of women's activities because it felt that its own power and position would be threatened. Many Chinese women activists themselves tried to downplay this aspect, in order to be able to maintain the former, "depoliticized" image of women's activities (Wang Zheng 1996, pp. 194-197; see also Zhang 1996, pp. 560-561). Thus, at this time, immediately preceding the conference's convening, statist impulses were becoming predominant once again. The government banned the presence of dissidents, particularly those linked to Tibetan and Taiwanese causes, and some foreign NGOs (Liu 1995). Prior to the conference, most Chinese who were to participate received visits from security personnel warning them about excessive contact with foreigners. And at the conference itself, security forces took what one foreign observer described as a "paranoid" interest, as the conference itself became a Chinese national issue rather than a women's issue-and Chinese participants were viewed as representing China, not women, and were expected to behave accordingly. The surveillance by security personnel at the NGO Forum was widely reported in various forms of the foreign media (e.g., Faison 1995; Kaye 1995a; Liu and Au 1995). At the Forum itself, there were very few non-Fulian sponsored Chinese workshops, which was how it had been planned all along, and those NGOs that did have workshops had to endure a rather long approval process. Other problems facing Chinese participants were of a linguistic natureone historian noted that of 5000 Chinese women participating, less than 1000 were able to speak English, the most common conference language. In Huairou, I always saw Chinese people walking together with Chinese people, talking together, but other countries' women were able to be with different countries' people, it wasn't that Chinese people didn't want to be with foreigners, but it was a language problem. Chinese people wanted to listen but couldn't understand, so they were not able to understand the whole world's situation.

Some of this may also have been caused by Chinese women wanting to adopt a low profile due to government warnings. Some Chinese women activists were profoundly disappointed at the sudden control exerted over a conference that previously had given them cause for optimism.20As one Career Activist, a lawyer who works in an NGO, noted her post-conference views: I didn't think it was that good, it was average. I felt that the women's conference should be a common inquiry into women's issues, but it was too strictly controlled, it had too little publicity. O n the surface it looked very lively, but I felt exchanges were not too plentiful. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Despite such disappointment, there were a few voices of dissent, even from Chinese women. At several N G O Forum workshops, questions were raised as to how representative the Women's Federation is of China's many minority nationalities. And a letter, in English, was left anonymously at the press center of the N G O Forum by a Chinese woman (Anonymous 1995).21 In the letter, she wrote "As a Chinese woman, I am extremely happy to attend the conference and feel empowered by women from all over the world. However, I feel sad for my other sisters who were excluded from the conference." She went on to note that terming the ACWF an N G O "is a joke," that it is a "ministry or branch of Chinese government," and she is critical of the government's non-inclusion of most NGOs from the conference, asserting that "Denying the accessibility of non-government groups helps to cover the issue [sic] and problems of Chinese women." She also wrote about the above-discussed publicity blitz put on by the Chinese government regarding women's equality in China, and she strongly stated her views of the limitations of "women's liberation imposed by the communist party," which prevents women from "getting into the decision making class," and doesn't "give the freedom for women to develop their own feminist theory that is independent from the Communist (sic]." She closes the letter, which is merely signed "A Chinese Woman," with these words: "How can I keep silent for such blunt discrimination and suppression of women in our women's conference?" This letter is moving evidence of the effects wrought on a continuing state-dominated women's movement. However, the women's conference, and its NGO participants, did ultimately alter the perspectives of the Chinese state on women's issues. In particular, while the movement was in the end again depoliticized to a large extent (an outcome I will discuss later in this chapter), the conference also contributed to a great widening of women's discourses in Chinese society, and thus to the range of problems that Chinese women's movement activists can address. In other words, while the removal of the conference to Huairou might seem to indicate the impending predominance of statist impulses over the women's movement following the FWCW, the actual aftermath of the conference was not like this, as I will show below.

ENDOGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITIES While the post-Mao reforms had clear political effects that also had great relevance for the emergence of an independent women's movement, they have also had perhaps even more pronounced economic effects. And these effects have had significant gendered implications. They are relevant to the women's movement both in terms of their salience to formation of "civil society" in China and in relation to the particular difficulties they have created for women. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Economic Reform and "Civil Society"

The post-Mao reforms have been primarily economic in nature, so it is not surprising that their economic effects have been, for most analysts, a chief cause for any emergence of Chinese-style "civil society." Some analysts describe the emergence of "economic7'-if not political-civil society in contemporary China. This type of civil society is a "realm of non-governmental private economic activities and sectional economic interests," not a realm of "public and voluntary associations such as religious and cultural organizations, independent newspapers, occupational and professional societies, and local self-government" (Yang 1989, p. 35). In general, the privatization of many aspects of the Chinese economy has led to the rise of new tensions, but also to the emergence of new forms of social organization (e.g., Strand 1990, p. 10). In particular, what one book refers to as the "market hypothesis" for the emergence of civil society in post-Mao China explains the emergence of societal autonomy by looking first at the transformation of economic relationships accompanying reform (White, Howell, and Shang 1996). Different analysts of this phenomenon see it in broadly similar ways-as social-oriented groups emerging out of non-state economic groups (Wakeman 1993, p. 110), as political autonomy having economic causes (Strand 1990), and as new forms of social organization emerging out of marketized economics (White, Howell, and Shang 1996). In particular, "Government agencies at all levels are trying to reduce the burden of supporting social organizations financially, prompting the latter to make an effort to find their own sources of revenue and become more autonomous as a matter of institutional survival" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, p. 214; see also Brook and Frolic 1997a, pp. 13-14). Such privatization of funding for many social groups has tended to promote their social autonomy as well. This includes intellectuals and their social groups (Bonnin and Chevrier 1996). At the same time, the well-known shattering of the "iron rice bowl" has led to new social grievances and has particularly hit some groups of women hard, as I will discuss below. Frustration over inflation and corruption are the most commonly cited reasons for the widespread non-student participation in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 (Lieberthal 1995, p. 147; Ostergaard 1989). In general, there are those that argue that, perhaps contrary to the state's intentions surrounding the reforms, that the market economy generally weakens the state (Brook and Frolic 1997a, p. 14). Tony Saich argues that there is a need for more Party "accommodation with China's rapidly changing society," or else it will be unable to continue with its economic ambitions (Saich 199413, p. 264; see also Saich 1994a, pp. 263-264). The emergence of the women's movement can be viewed in this context. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Endogenous Economic Opportunities for the Women's Movement As I have already noted in Chapter 2, Valerie Sperling aptly focuses upon two elements of "economic opportunity" for social movements, a concept which she feels needs to be included in the repertoire of social movement theory. The first is the more general economic environment "that may inspire or depress organizing." Interestingly, for an example of this Sperling uses the case of increasing women's unemployment, which of course increases the need for organizing but also decreases the potential resource base of such organizing. Chinese women have been confronting this same problem-unemployment. The second dimension is "local infrastructural conditions that facilitate or limit the possibilities for social movement organizing" (Sperling 1997, p. 17). Both of these aspects of "economic opportunity structure" are highly relevant to the Chinese women's movement as well as that in Russia, the first particularly relating to the gendered elements of the dislocative effects of post-Mao reforms, and the latter to the resources both denied and granted to social organizations as a result of China's reform and opening to the outside world. While the effects of the reforms obviously differ for different sectors and classes of womeqZ2there is a wide-ranging consensus that, in general, the reforms have exacerbated gender inequalities. Some even assert that the policies of the reforms themselves promote such dislocations, despite state claims to desire the advancement of women (Jordan 1994; Robinson 1985). As I have already discussed, a new discourse on these problems and their sources emerged during the 1980s. The state and Fulian seem to be more likely to locate the causes of women's continuing inequality in things like the continuing existence of "feudal values," and are reluctant to specifically state the reforms as a cause of women's difficulties. For instance, a Pamphlet issued by the State Council and distributed at the NGO Forum notes all of the progress made by women since liberation: Over the past 45 years, especially in the 15 years since the introduction of reform and opening to the outside world, Chinese women have achieved truly historic advances toward the goal of "equality, development, and peace" ...China is a developing country. Owing to the constraints of social development and the influence of old concepts, the condition of Chinese women is still not wholly satisfactory (Information Office of the State Council 1994, pp. vi-vii).

However, other women activists have been more likely to openly cite the reforms as a cause of women's difficulties, although rarely explicitly seeing this as an outcome of distinct state policies themselves. A large proportion of the activists I talked to cited issues relating directly to the reforms as the major problems women were confronting in the post-Mao era. This included discrimination against women in the labor force (including female college graduates), women being disproportionately laid-off as firms seek Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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more efficiency and profitability, and women's low "quality" (suzhi) making them unable to compete in the new economic circumstances. Such problems have often been a reason behind the founding of women's NGOs. For instance, the stated goals of the Women's Research Institute, the N G O founded in 1988, is to help women adjust to the changes wrought by reform (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 23). At the founding meeting of WRI in October 1988, Wang Xingjuan, its founder, noted, The changes in the political system and the implementation of policies advocating women's rights have created an impression that Chinese women have experienced complete emancipation. However, China's social and economic reforms, China's opening up to the rest of the world, the reconstruction of the market economy, and intense social competition have all begun to challenge women's gains in status and rights. We have no choice but to recognize the fact that our sisters who are independent enough to successfully adapt to the overwhelming challenges of the market economy are only a fraction of those struggling to survive. Reality tells us that achieving women's complete liberation is still a challenging and arduous task ...[ Ilnitiating women's own awakening is the demand of our time; it is also the principle of the Women's Research Institute (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 2).

Such language is fairly specific in faulting the reforms for women's changes in status, and also emphasizes raising women's consciousness as a discrete social group in a more evident way than most statist and Fulian discourses. Other N G O activists have expressed similar views about the effects of economic reform on women. An N G O volunteer and college professor noted the particular problems relating to urban women, finding that "in the market economy, there are starting to be gender differences and this is a new challenge." A head of a university women's studies center particularly remarked on the problem of women being disproportionately laid-off in relation to men: "Women are very often among the first to be laid off. This is a more acute problem in recent years. It is related to the reforms. We were used to eating out of the big bowl but now it is broken." A lawyer working for an NGO expressed beliefs that were consistent with statist discourses about women's "quality," but also went beyond them to look at the effects of the reforms and the loss of state protections: It seems like there are many new problems, there are several aspects of these. Looking at them overall, rural women particularly d o not have a high cultural quality, this causes their rights and interests to be more likely to be violated. Chinese women are faced with how to adapt themselves to society changing direction toward the environment of a market economy. Originally China had state protection, now enterprises assume the sole responsibility for profits and losses, so they aren't willing to hire female workers. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Other activists also looked at the costs of the loss of state protections for women, and the corresponding need for new forms of women's organizing. A Career Activist very involved in NGO work also referred to the reforms, using the English term "backlash" to describe the post-Mao situation for women: I think there is an extremely large "backlash" occurring. Because now there is a market economy, people all are talking about "making profit," considering their costs, including the cost of labor, and because the cost of employing women is high, because women will have a baby-this is the only reason they are costly. Actually this sort of problem was already resolved after 1949, but now we are going backwards. Now some enterprises don't want female university graduates, and 40-year old women will lose their jobs ....The state role is now very weak, so joint ventures can discriminate against women. The market itself does not bring gender equality-it strengthens gender inequality. In the West because the state's role is very weak, you let your NGOs do things. In China women's liberation was faster than in the West, but after the market economy, it has been going backwards and now there is a "backlash." I don't think this is progressive, I think it is only a growth. You also cannot say it is development.

So these activists critique the market economy and note the need for other means to protect women's needs and interests. The latter activist in particular has a positive regard for previous state intervention and its effects on gender equality, and in her NGO work is trying to fill in the gaps left by the state's withdrawal from micro-managing social life. These concerns of women activists have been reflected in activities of NGOs. As discussed in Chapter 3, for instance, the very first research project of the Women's Research Institute, the NGO founded in 1988, was on women's employment issues. The research project was directly motivated by new state policies restructuring state-owned enterprises, in which 20 to 30 million jobs would be lost, of which 60-70% would be women's positions. The research report made numerous policy suggestions-however, none of these were particularly focused on the gendered effects of reform (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 5). In early 1989, the Beiwai Women's Studies Forum put on a press conference "to expose discrimination against our female graduates." Chen Yiyun has described her hopes for her Jinglun Family Science Center, one of the Beijing NGOs founded since 1992, in these terms: "I didn't hope to provide the elixir for every family, but I think we can help people surmount their difficulties at a time when reforms have rocked the mores of Chinese society" (quoted in Gong Qian 1994). In other words, some women's N G O activities have started to take a specific look at the gendered effects of economic reforms, and have sought to make these issues more visible. However, they also still continue to mediate between critiquing the effects of reform and being supportive of general state policy. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Another effect of the decentralization and privatization under the reforms has been a decline in availability of state revenues to social services, which has accompanied a general reduction in state procurement of revenues. The central government has faced generally increasing budget deficits during the reform years (Lieberthal 1995, p. 250), and this has contributed to the general propensity of the state to be less financially supportive of its subentities. This includes institutions of higher education and the mass organizations, both of which have had to increasingly rely on finding independent sources for at least part of their revenues. These pressures have led to what can be regarded as a general "commoditization" of many elements of social and political organization. For instance, the Women's Federation at all levels has experienced a decrease in state funding levels and so has had to augment its funds through engaging in economic enterprise a c t i v i t i e ~ Another .~~ area where this is evident is in trends in women's magazines. Publications in general are increasingly relying on circulation and advertisements for funding, and this had led to a general commercialization of their contents to boost the interest of a generalized readership (see, e.g., Zha 1994). For instance, Marriage and Family (Hunyin yu Jiating) magazine, the publication of the Marriage and Family Research Association of China, has experienced a change over time in its contents, as is evident in Table 5.3. In general, what has occurred is that more "serious" topics such as the women's movement and social change have experienced a decrease in coverage, while more "tabloid" type of topics such as celebrities have experienced an increase in coverage (see the highlighted cells in Table 5.3). This is not surprising, given that the magazine has increasingly come to rely on subscriptions for its sole source of income, and that it is one of the sources of income for its supervisory organization, the Marriage and Family Research Association of China.

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Table 5.3---Article topics in Murriuge and Family magazine* (by percentages)

1

I

Genderand social roles Family Love and

art Women's Conference Medical issues

1

I I I

14.6

1

9.1

1

3.2

1

7.2

22 20.7

12.2 27

4.8 59

13.9 22.1

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

1

6.8

*Based upon coding of 322 articles from 14 issues of the magazine (2 issues from 1985,4 each from the other years).

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1

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Similarly, the magazine Women's Studies, a publication of the Beijing city Women's Federation, changed its name from Funu Yanjiu to Nuxing Yanjiu when it switched from being an internal (neibu)publication to being one sold openly. While both of the Chinese terms can mean "women's studies," Western researcher Tani Barlow has argued that funu has been the term utilized by the state-dominated women's movement, while nuxing has been a more subversive word utilized by post-Mao women's studies (Barlow 1994). One of the reasons cited for this change was the magazine's efforts "to become suitable to both popular and educated tastes" (Funu Yanjiu 1992). One of the magazine's editors noted that when the magazine started it was black and white, but that readers did not like it, so they started using color pictures on the cover. Also, while Fulian had been giving the magazine money since its founding in 1992, it was going to stop providing subsidies in 1996. The magazine's later, more commercialized manifestation was still called Nuxing Yanjiu (Women's Studies) in Chinese, but also featured an attractive woman and the English word "She" in large letters on the cover. Others also noticed this trend of using pretty women on the covers even of magazines intended to be serious in content. The magazine World Women's Vision, the primary purpose of which is to introduce Chinese readers to foreign women and the international women's movement uses this "method," in the words of one of its editors-"a pretty woman on the cover, but inside there are serious and thoughtful articles. Readers first thought it was a 'lifestyle magazine' but then they read the articles and still thought it was very interesting. In China, you need this method." NGOs not able to rely on advertisements or reader subscriptions have experienced even greater challenges in locating sources of revenues. While financial independence is seen as a positive source of identity for NGOs, it also imposes its own challenges in a situation of resource scarcity. In fact, finding sources of financial support are one reason why specific attention to economic opportunity structures for social movements in a non-democratic context is particularly important.24The types of mass-membership organizations characterizing the women's movement in the United States are not common in the post-communist context, for diverse reasons. Valerie Sperling looks at the absence of such organizational forms in postcommunist Russia, finding that the authoritarian legacy includes the lack of the structural basis for such types of organizing, including checkbooks and mailing lists (Sperling 1997, p. 14). In the Chinese context, where the Communist Party continues to have a monopolistic hold over political power, there also is the question of mass-constituency organizations being viewed as a potential threat to state power. For these reasons, women's organizations in China have tended to be more service and research-oriented, and thus face the constant question of where to obtain funds for their activities. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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So Chinese NGOs face particular revenue dilemmas that often challenge even their ability to persist in whatever activities they seek to pursue. Financial difficulties trouble most of the NGOs-in fact, in interviews this was named most commonly as the greatest problem that groups have encountered. Groups have pursued various strategies to ensure their ongoing survival. These range from participants using their personal money to support activities, to soliciting donations from visitors, to running enterprises, to money procured from supervisory work units including Fulian and universities, to support from foreign foundations. This latter means has been particularly crucial in supporting NGOs whose existence might otherwise have been jeopardized. I will argue below that, in fact, foreign funding has been another crucial cause for the wide growth in N G O activities in Beijing especially in the 1990s. However, first it would be useful to understand the means that groups use to support themselves without the often plentiful resources provided by overseas supporters. Groups that have the Women's Federation as their supervisory unit can often rely on Fulian assistance. The journal Collection of Women's Studies cannot survive on subscriptions alone and so receives a subsidy from its higher unit, the Women's Studies Institute of China, which in turn receives some of its support from the All-China Women's Federation. The new campus of the China Women's College, opened in 1995 just in time for the FWCW, was funded by the Chinese Women's Development Foundation, which in turn relies on domestic donations from prominent citizens for the bulk of its f ~ n d i n g . ~"Friendly ' associations," unlike other types of women's organizations, do often rely on member "donations" for support. However, these are more in the form of compulsory dues-for instance, all female journalists in Beijing are members of the China Capital Women Journalists' Association, and all pay a membership fee, although that is not the organization's only source of support. Similarly, the Chinese Women Lawyers' Friendly Society relies on law firms paying it fees. As I have already discussed, these groups are largely under the purview of their local Fulian, so the "voluntary" nature of these organizations is questionable, although the members who are truly active are probably voluntarily participating. More independent entities are usually not so fortunate with respect to procuring funds, even if they have their own supervisory unit. A large number of groups, especially some women's studies centers, rely heavily on their participants' own meager resources for operation. For instance, the People's University Women's Studies Center is located in the apartment of its head, Sha Lianxiang. Another NGO, the Chinese Partnership Research Group, had to count on its members' own finances to support an English translation of its book The Chalice and the Blade in Chinese Culture in time to be sold at the Fourth World Conference on Women. Other groups have used similar means to survive-relying on a mix of participant donaCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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tions, small grants from supervisory bodies, and the largesse of interested visitors. A good example of the funding struggles experienced by N G O women's groups is the Women's Research Institute. This group, the earliest-established non-university based NGO, has experienced considerable evolution in its material conditions. At its inception, its office was located in a six-square-meter room in a one-story building of a downtown primary school. There was only space for two face-to-face desks. there was no heating equipment except a honeycomb brique stove. There was no telephone. In winter, piercing winds blew into the office through the windows; in summer, desk and chairs were soaked by the rain which leaked through the ceiling.

The group and its members attempted to deal with this "most challenging problem" through various means. They had no government funds, and members donated money from their own pockets. They tried to engage in an enterprise selling clothing but made no profit, an exercise repeated more than once. Finally, the group attempted to assess what skills it could use to bring in funds, and founded training classes for women cadres that brought in some money (Women's Research Institute 1995, pp. 1-4). Interestingly enough, this also was a way (though perhaps not intentional) for the NGO to network with and perhaps even influence those in the government on women's issues. Funds are clearly an ongoing issue of struggle for WRI, as is depicted in the contribution of its founder and President, Wang Xingjuan, to a collection of essays describing Chinese women's preparations for the N G O Forum. It is titled "I Am Busy Raising Funds" (in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 11-17). Exogenous Economic Opportunities for the Women's Movement Interestingly, and not surprisingly, the fortunes of the WRI began to change when Wang Xingjuan met an American working in Beijing who helped her write applications for grants from foreign foundations. The group received its first foreign grant just six months after China was granted the FWCW-and in September 1992, WRI opened the first nationwide Women's Hotline in China. A year later, with funding from the Ford Foundation, WRI opened a second "experts" Women's Hotline. Wang writes that Ford "is also financing the improvement of our working conditions to a great extent" (in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 16). Indeed, seven years after its founding, the Institute now rents office space of ninety square meters, including a conference room and two separate rooms for the Women's Hotline. In addition, a computer, a printer, a photocopying machine, a fax machine, and other modern equipment have been purchased for the office (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 1). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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In other words, foreign donations have been central to making this NGO work and improving its own conditions and its work. The Ford Foundation established a program on Reproductive Health and Population in its Beijing office in early 1991. Its funds have been central to supporting many of the NGO women's activities that emerged as China was preparing to host the FWCW. Indeed, while the coming of the FWCW provided the central political opportunity for the emergence of a more independent women's movement in the 1990s, the Ford Foundation in particular, with some other foreign funding agencies also contributing support, provided an equally necessary economic opportunity and this particularly came during the Popularizing Phase of the movement. This points out yet another of the contradictions of globalization processes-on the one hand contributing to exacerbating gender inequalities, and on the other providing new resources for social movement organizing. I have already discussed the negative effects of the economic reforms for women-contributing, for example, to increasing women's unemployment. In large part, the reforms and their effects on women have been particularly due to China's entry into the global economic system, and the desire for China to be competitive in this system. Even the All-China Women's Federation has tended to discuss its interest in improving women's status in globalized terms: The world today is undergoing a historic change and international competition is getting increasingly tense. Competition in economy, culture, science and technology in the world is fundamentally a competition of the quality of the nation as a whole. The quality of women affects the quality of a nation and the development level of women affects the comprehensive strength of a nation (All-China Women's Federation 1995, p. 2).

However, the gendered nature of the reforms in relation to China's global economic place has by and large not been reflected in gains in women's social or economic status. Instead, they have been reflected in women, especially young women, being utilized as a central component of the inexpensive labor force that is part of China's reform strategy. Women are disproportionately represented in the joint-venture and export-oriented industries of the Special Economic Zones-for instance, one statistic cites women as composing up to 80 percent of the labor force in such factories, factories where working conditions are poor and pay is minimal (Croll 1995, p. 123; see also Ong 1996). In general these conditions have also been reflected in a resurgence of patriarchal ideology that some analysts regard to be a particular effect of China's assimilation into the global capitalist economy. For instance, L.H.M. Ling defines China and other "post-communist" contexts as "reintegrative societies" vis-A-vis global capitalism, and argues that "reintegration into the capitalist world economy heightens, rather than diminishes, gender conservatism" (Ling 1994, p. 19). Similarly, Aihwa Ong examines the seductiveness of the Singaporean model of "state patriarchy" Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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to the Chinese leadership in its own development plans, and notes that such a strategy lead to the marginalization of "subaltern groups," such as young women, who "bear the main burden of Asian capitalist success" (Ong 1997, pp. 183, 192). However, the globalization of production also has other effects that can be liberating, including the evolution of a women's movement that has a globalized perspective (Icrause 1996). In China, as I have already noted, a major means of the entry of this global feminism has been through the Fourth World Conference on Women. However, another means has been the increasing availability of foreign funding for women's groups and activities that has often helped to overcome groups' resource deficits in critical ways. I have already discussed the change in operating circumstances that has accompanied foreign donations to the Women's Research Institute and Women's Hotline. It has been the case that many "NGO" activities in Beijing, being unable to rely on state funding, have come to depend on external economic resources, and especially those of the Ford Foundation, for their existence. Ford's Reproductive Health and Population Program in China has a "three-pronged strategy": social science research, empowering women to affect their own health, and ethical issues. Because of these goals, much of the support for this program has been given to women's organizations, particularly in Beijing and in Yunnan province in southern China, as well as to preparing for the Fourth World Conference on Women. This program has been utilized to fund state agencies, such as the Family Planning Commission and the Women's Federation, and can thus be seen as an important additional supplement to the diminishing state resources discussed above. And Ford itself has regarded funding the Women's Federation to be an important part of its work in China. However, "creating an empowered women's movement" was also an important goal of Ford's work in China in the first half of the 1990s. Ford was very influential in funding NGO activities in Beijing in the 1990s, and some groups have even been founded with the benefit of Ford monies. These include Rural Women Knowing All magazine, the Rural Women's Development Association, the Chinese Women's Health Network, and the Women's Legal Affairs Section of the Tonghe Law Firm. Ford has funded numerous university-level women's studies programs as well, and some that don't receive funding from Ford have expressed a wish that they did. In general, Ford Foundation funding to NGO-type activities has increased through the first half of the decade, while that going to state agencies has generally experienced a decrease, as can be seen in Figure 5.5. By 1996, grants to NGO-type activities comprised just over 50 percent of total Reproductive Health and Population grants in China, an increase from just under 20 percent in 1992. At the same time, funding to state agencies was less than 1 0 percent in 1996. In general, this shows that Ford has played a Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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role in "creating" an NGO community in China, and with it a more diversified women's movement sector.

50

-

40

-

-I-

State agencies and Women's Federations

4Universities

and Academies of Social Sciences

-.- NGOs

Figure 5.5---Recipients of reproductive health program grants in China Sources: Ford Foundation Annual Reports

The contributions of the Ford Foundation, while also going to state agencies and the Women's Federation, have also contributed greatly to expanding the types of women's movement organizations in Beijing and elsewhere in China. A large portion of Ford funds not earmarked for its rural programs in Yunnan province have gone to Beijing groups. This includes a large portion of the funding for the Women's Studies Center at Beijing University, one of the first women's studies centers in the Beijing area. As noted above, some groups have had to rely on their own members' resources to fund their activities, but in some cases this reliance was able to be replaced by grants from the Ford Foundation. This funding in general has been viewed as a means of increasing the range of activity that groups are able to pursue. As I showed in Chapter 4, on activist identities, Ford funding was centrally important for providing many opportunities for activists to travel overseas to preparatory meetings for the FWCW, and for many this provided their very first opportunity to travel outside of China. One CASS researcher feels that Ford funding is vital for the general advancement of women's status in China, looking at the difficulties faced because of poverty, but also finding that "foreign aid" and "international cooperation" help with "China's progress." One N G O leader positively Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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regarded Ford's "orientation" as not being "religious or political," and for this reason was satisfied with Ford as a source of funding. However, this same leader also noted that Ford's "orientation" was towards "women's issues." She noted the semantics in naming a group that are related to procuring funds: While I call my center a "family" center, not a women's center, many people thought I should found a women's center. They said "why not found a women's center?"-for this kind it also is easy to find money. Before the 1995 conference this was very popular.

Ford funding has in several cases been described in terms that show the restrictions imposed on groups utilizing its funds. For instance, groups generally had to limit their projects to the terms initially specified in their applications for funding. Other activists have expressed views that Ford has tended to influence women's activities in a direction that they might not otherwise had gone if they had lacked such funds and their influences. Indeed, some view this "woman-centered" emphasis of Ford as having contributed to steering groups and activists toward particular endeavors through the project approval process. This was depicted by one group volunteer describing her organization's new project emphasis resulting from Ford support: There are some restrictions [caused by foreign funding]. You are not able to completely do things in accordance with what you yourself would want to do. For example, [my group's leader] wanted to do family medical treatment issues, Ford would not necessarily give money for this. Ford wasn't interested in that then, it only supported an emphasis on a project on women's status.

This group ended up doing work on domestic violence issues, along with other projects. Another volunteer for several women's NGOs noted the influence of Western ideas of Ford's American employees: Western influence has good aspects, but it also has negative aspects. At many meetings before the women's conference, for instance, those at the Ford Foundation, the Ford Foundation opinions were very far from those of ordinary Chinese women. The Ford Foundation opinions were often very human-rights oriented. Ford has a large influence among women's groups but a small influence in society.

Such influence is perhaps why some group leaders have expressed the wish that they could be independently funded, even when they are receiving Ford monies. It would indeed seem that women's groups are caught in a dilemma-between representing in a completely authentic fashion their own interests as well as the needs of their constituency of Chinese women on the one hand, and the issues of concern to the foreign donor agencies financing their activities and giving them greater autonomy from the Chinese state on the other.26 Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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CLOSING OPPORTUNITIES? As I have discussed in this chapter, while the Fourth World Conference on Women was a vitally important factor in the creation of an expanded women's movement in Beijing in the 1990s, it also contributed to some nervous moments for that movement. Since the NGO Forum was moved to Huairou for transparently repressive reasons, we might also expect that there was some post-conference narrowing of opportunity structures for the movement, given the state's evident realization of the potentially controversial content of women's movement discourses and activities. This also might seem to be the case given a look at Figures 5.1 and 5.3, with the apparent decline in number of groups founded in 1995. And since then, there have not been any significant new founding of groups relating to women's studies in the Beijing m o ~ e m e n t . ~ ' However, despite these facts, many aspects of the pre-conference Beijing women's movement persisted and even thrived after the conference as well, which is indicative of the lasting effects of seemingly temporary openings in opportunity structures. Those groups that were founded prior to the conference were able to continue in their activities. This is evidence that the state was pleased with how the conference went and that some political learning occurred with respect to the nature of women's movement organizing vis-2-vis the state; in other words, that its purpose is not usually to undermine the state. One reason that this occurred was because of the generally perceived " S U C C ~ S S ~of ' the conference's convening. A foreigner close to the movement noted "There was no immediate post-conference backlash, despite a fear of that. It went as well as possible from the Chinese activists' perspective, and there was an acceptance that the security reaction was an overreaction." This view is echoed by an overseas Chinese writing on the conference and its relationship to the Chinese women's movement: Even before the adjournment of the official conference, the Chinese government leaders' paranoia had already subsided. The N G O Forum ended without incident.- here was no demonstration against the Chinese government; instead, there were demonstrations against American imperialists! China was obviously not the target of attack, much to the relief of Chinese leaders. They realized that most women from abroad were not coming to discuss China's problems at all. O n the side of Chinese participants, there were no troublemakers. Everyone in the forty-seven [Chinese] panels read their lines according to the scripts they had rehearsed. With their skillful performance, Chinese participants showed the state that women were not an oppositional force against the government. The end of the N G O Forum brought tremendous relief to the government leaders. They were further elated by the gratitude and praise of foreign government officials at the U N conference (Wang Zheng 1996, pp. 197-198).

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Activists expressed similar beliefs. One N G O activist who also works as a Fulian researcher noted that the post-conference atmosphere was Not bad. The government thinks that the convening of the FWCW was successful, so then it naturally supports researching women's problems. After the "Platform for Action" the government made promises, and it wants to do things. If the conference was not convened successfully, then there would not necessarily have been such good improvements.

And such state-level commitments indeed were forthcoming following the conference, sometimes specifically linked to China "successfully" convening the conference (Xinhua 199610). Such promises on the part of the Chinese government have been evident in numerous official-level press releases and Fulian discourses. While some overoptimistic accounts continue to be issued (Xinhua 1996c; Xinhua 1997e), in general there continues to be concern over the persisting problems facing Chinese women. For instance, one survey shows a general improvement in women's status but also emphasizes that differing local conditions mean that "women's rights are not fully protected and in some places are seriously violated." Chen Muhua, chairperson of the ACWF, concluded from these findings that "We may make women realize that they can resort to legal means to tackle their problems, and let men be aware that the problems of the opposite sex are not only the problems of individuals, but of the whole society" (Xinhua 1 9 9 7 ~ )One . way that Chen has sought to ensure this is by calling upon the government to keep its promises to women, and asking "departments and units, governmental and non-governmental organizations to work to keep these promises" (Xinhua 1996a). One provincial-level Fulian has done just this by paying more attention to the problem of domestic violence, including proposing laws to prevent it, as well as the establishment of centers to help women in need (Zhongguo Xinwen She 1996a). N G O activists, such as one professor teaching in a women's studies center, notes that she felt that the post-conference atmosphere Is very good. I think this is because I am a scholar. We scholars think we are non-governmental (fei zhengfu de). The government has started listening to expert scholars' opinions on women's problems, in the past they did not have a concept of NGOs, but now they have started to solicit our opinions. Fulian also respects us, we can also raise opinions with them.

A CASS sociologist has noted a somewhat different effect of the post-conference atmosphere on NGOs: The post-conference environment is relatively good. Before the conference, the government paid attention to NGOs because it was concerned about their influence. After the conference, there has been more freedom. There is a little less pressure now. Before it was seen as a political problem, but now it is a women's problem.

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dom to pursue their activities in peace, such viewpoints are indicative of a governmental learning process that has continued in the wake of the FWCW. Another reason for continuing state acceptance of the ongoing promotion of the women's movement are the international commitments that the state itself made prior to as well as in the course of the conference. The government continued its "solemn commitment" to honor the implementation of CEDAW, relating "women's quality" to "national quality" and "the ability to compete globally'' (People's Daily 1997; Xinhua 199713).Some of the state's commitments were directly relevant to NGO work in China. During the course of the FWCW, along with agreeing to "Establish a monitoring system on women's conditions," the official Chinese delegation also pledged to "Improve women's institutions at all levels and attach more importance to the role of NGOs" (Miller and Chasnoff 1997, p. 105). Such a pledge would again seem to be indicative of the state's new awareness of the positive role that NGOs could play. Despite these new views, there have been few foundings of new groups since the FWCW. As one foreign foundation official observed about the post-conference atmosphere, "There will be a chill period now, but groups with foreign ties will not close. People know you exist. But this is not the time for starting new groups.'' Several groups did have such foreign ties-for instance, the Women's Hotline was extensively covered in the foreign media even prior to the conference, including CNN, the BBC, CBC, and the Washington Post (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 47). A secretary at another N G O noted that C N N had visited her organization. A college professor active in several NGOs felt that after the conference I think there will be kind of, not a backlash, but groups will not be as much talked about as before, not as visually there as before. The real NGOs will continue. It might seem more quiet, but still water runs deep. People will make use of these opportunities to do work. It is harder for the government to do anything high-handed to the NGOs-now there is a network across the country, so it is safer for NGOs.

Another NGO activist noted that "all groups have safe and unsafe aspects," and that the "premise of NGOs is not opposing the state." While perhaps opportunities for the formation of new groups have closed to some extent, this may partially also just reflect a general "saturation" in the women's movement sphere. In other words, those interested have already become involved to some extent in existing groups. In general, women's movement participants are more likely to emphasize the post-conference benefits for their work, rather than the difficulties. One professor noted the proliferation of seminars in 1996 around the country discussing women's issues-including at Nanjing, Beijing, Nanjing Normal, and Zhengzhou Universities, as well as at Beijing Municipal Fulian and the ACWF Research Institute. Continuing activities were also evident in Beijing Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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female professors initiating an "empowerment" campaign to help female college graduates (Zhongguo Xinwen She 1996b);28the China Women's College instituting activities on the Internet, including a stated desire to increase networks among Chinese women as well as among Chinese and foreign women, as well as hoping to promote poor women's access to World Bank loans (Xinhua 1996d);29and the opening of the ACWF Women's Studies Institute web page (Xinhua 1998). The Chinese Women's Health Network has proceeded in its translation of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and in May of 1998 had a conference in honor of its publication. It will be published in two versions, one "formal", omitting sections from the original English version on lesbianism and prostitution, and another "informal" version, published with the help of a "friend" of one of the editors, with these chapters included.30 This situation is indicative that the women's movement is still not characterized by complete openness. However, this is to be expected. Other post-conference aspects of surveillance also existed. For instance, one NGO had to begin reporting to its local foreign affairs office whenever a foreigner came to the office-many of its members claimed that this was due to the particular location of the group's office, as well as a previous lack of understanding of the regulations regarding these matters. However, one activist claimed that this was the result of the proliferation of "minjian" organizations in China and the government's desire to administer their work to some extent. There is also a possible connection to the great amount of international attention that NGOs received during the FWCW, and the state's uneasiness with such attention. The most commonly cited post-conference difficulty for NGOs was one that had existed all alongfunding. One N G O leader distinguished her group from Fulian using that criterion: The government cannot always give us NGOs money. Our life is difficult, we want to exist, and we also want to develop. Previously the question was how to do this, today the question still is how to do it-getting money to d o a solid job. Fulian is not the same, it has the support of the government, it has development and a future, we are not the same.

Funding problems may actually be another reason why many new groups have not been formed since the FWCW.3' However, some groups have managed to continue to procure Ford Foundation and other grants to support their operation. For instance, the Women's Hotline has since the FWCW procured a new Ford grant and has been able to purchase three new computers and a new fax machine. The continuation of the Ford program in China, as evidenced in increasing grants to NGOs in 1996 (see Figure 5.5), is an important component in ensuring that the opened opportunities provided by the FWCW continue in China.

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CONCLUSIONS The opportunities provided for the Chinese women's movement in the 1990s were largely "group-specific opportunities" (Tarrow 1996). In particular, exogenous opportunities in both the political and economic spheres have been central to the creation of a more independent women's movement in that decade. The Fourth World Conference on Women had the net effect of contributing to a general "depoliticization" of women's issues, although the conference did go through a period of "politicization," culminating in the removal of the N G O Forum to remote Huairou. However, it ultimately contributed to a process of learning for the Chinese state which enabled the women's movement to persist even after the excitement of the conference had faded. Meanwhile, the Ford Foundation provided important economic funds to otherwise very resource-poor groups. In this way, it also contributed to expanding the forms of the Chinese women's movement. These forms, even those utilizing Ford funding, can be regarded as "symbiotic" in their relationship with the state, and the women's conference was an important reason for the endurance and development of this type of non-oppositional movement, as well as for its acceptance by the party-state. The FWCW showed the Chinese state that an independent women's movement would not of necessity contravene its own statist priorities. In these ways, globalization processes expanded domestic-level social movement opportunities. One way that this has been manifested is by the expansion of organizational diversity in the women's movement, a topic I will take up in the following chapter.

NOTES As I have already discussed to some extent in Chapter 3. See also Zhang (1996). I will more completely discuss the concept of supervisory work units in Chapter 6.

Some of these include Andors (1983)' Honig (1983)' Johnson (1983)' Pepper (1986),Stacey (1983)' and Wolf (1985). For detailed attention in English to many of these issues, see Honig and Hershatter (1988). See also Bauer et al. (1992)' Croll (1995)' IZorabik (19871, Mirsky (1994)' and Rai (1992).Some Western scholars assert that the reforms have intentionally discriminated against women from their very inception (Robinson 1985). I also discuss some issues relevant to funuxue in Chapter 3.

See Zhang (1996)' and Zhao Ning and Guan Xing (1989).Documents relating to this conference can be found in All-China Women's Federation (1991). See Beijing University (1995). See also Beijing University (1994),which was on women in ancient China. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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See Hom (1994), and Jordan (1994).Jordan is an especially insightful account of the ways in which Chinese legal guarantees of equality to women are contravened by other policies that reinforce patriarchal social relations and gender inequality. See also Nickerson (1995). I will address some of these issues, including domestic violence, at greater length in Chapter 7, on movement framing. lo Particularly on the latter see Gilmartin (1995). l1 The Sino-American Conference on Women's Issues was convened in Beijing in 1990 and featured speakers from both countries discussing a wide variety of issues relating to employment, education, family, and other issues. Notably, the conference featured greetings from Premier Li Peng and ACWF Chairperson Chen Muhua, indicating its connections to the establishment (China Women's Press 1991). Zhengzhou University also hosted an international conference on women's issues in 1990 (Du Fangqin 1996). l2 O n the latter point, see also Calhoun (1989). Merle Goldman argues that Deng

Xiaoping was, in fact, concerned about China's international image and felt that it could crack down on protests in 1986 and 1989 because of lack of international reaction to crackdowns on previous protests in 1979 (1994, p. 206). l3 This can be viewed in light of Hughes's view that China has "socialized" global liberalism for its own statist purposes and interests. In other words, the Chinese state may have been more concerned about the potential effects of the FWCW on its own international image than its implications for Chinese women's status. l4 See Rosen (1993). One of my interviewees also noted this situation as a moti-

vating factor behind Fulian's survey, and that the purpose was to "oppose" the U N results, and to show them as "incorrect." For some results of this study, see Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping (1993). In her preface to the book, the head of the study, Guan Tao, expresses her view of the relationship between the study and the upcoming women's conference, and her hope that "through our work we can make international society completely, authentically, and fairly understand Chinese women's condition" (Tao Chunfang and Jiang Yongping 1993, pp. 2-3). l5 See, e.g., People's Daily (1994a; 1994b) and Zhang (1996, pp. 551-552). The Chinese media also devoted attention to Chinese participation in earlier U N meetings (China Women's News 1993) and to Chinese joint cooperative projects with the U N on women's issues (Huang Shuqing and Wu Baoli 1992). l6I will further discuss the issue of foreign funding in the following section, on economic opportunities. l 7 The Fulian constitution adopted at this meeting can be found in All-China Women's Federation (1993). l8 Most of the professionally-oriented "friendly societies" are tied to Fulian, and are regarded as such. However, these groups did begin to be founded in the 1980s Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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(Honig and Hershatter 1988, pp. 320-322; Liu Jinxiu 1992). l9 See also Kaye (1995b), Miller and Chasnoff (19971, Schmetzer (19951, and Tatlow (1995).

20 See also Wang Zheng (1996, p. 197). 21 I am grateful to one of my interviewees for providing me with a copy of this letter.

22 Some argue that the reforms have particularly benefited rural women. See XiaoZhou (1997119981. 23 See Xinhua (19931, and Zhang (1996). 24 Economic resources for movement organizations are not a major issue of discussion in contemporary social movement theory, which is usually focused on democratic countries. Additionally, it would seem that there is a general lack of attention to funding issues in treatments of the Western women's movement (e.g., see many of the essays in Ferree and Martin 1995, and Katzenstein and Mueller 1987). The exceptions seem to be work grappling with the question of the effects of accepting state funding on feminist autonomy (see Matthews 1995, and Reinelt 1995 for examples of this). In the Chinese case, not accepting state funding is both seen by many as a prerequisite of NGO status and is often not possible anyway. 25 See Women of China (1989).

26 In many ways similar to the Chinese situation, Valerie Sperling notes in her work on the Russian women's movement that foreign assistance is heavily relied upon by women's organizations, often more than domestic funds. However, this also leads to its own difficulties, including influence over the form and content of activities (Sperling 1997, pp. 259-260, 265-278). However, Russian feminist leader Anastasia Posadskaya asserts that Western funding has come with considerable autonomy (Waters and Posadskaya 1995, p. 372). 27 Personal communication, May 1998. 28 For more on "empowerment" in the Chinese women's movement, see Chapter 7. 29 Frederick (1993) looks at problems with poor people's access to computers, but also at efforts to democratize cyberspace.

30 Personal communication, 2 7 March 1998. 31 In the case of the Russian women's movement, Valerie Sperling (1997) notes that groups tend to jealously guard their own foreign contacts, which tends to increase fractionalization in the women's movement. It is not evident that this is the case in China, as some groups have even helped others find foreign funding, but some more established groups and activists may at this point have some monopoly on existing sources of foreign funds. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER SIX

The Emergence of NGOs in the Women's Movement

New and more diverse forms of social organization came to exist in the China of the 1980s, and also in the 1990s despite efforts to manage such developments. The women's movement has not been immune from such changes, and it has featured both "local" and "global" influences on its organizational forms. Locally, the supervisory work unit, or guakao danwei, continues to be a fact of life for most new Chinese women's groups. However, groups have also had increasing opportunities for cross-work unit networking that has contributed to the overall shape of the women's movement. At a more international level, the introduction of the concept of "non-governmental organization," or NGO, into China as a result of preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women and its simultaneous N G O Forum, has led to the growth of this type of organizing among Chinese women, and to the evolution of a more nuanced conception of what it means to be an "NGO" in China today.

ENDOGENOUS AND EXOGENOUS MOBILIZING STRUCTURES Reform and Social Changes There was an expansion in the "mobilizing structures" available to potential women's movement activists during the 1980s and especially during the 1990s. As can be expected, the Chinese reforms contributed to social as well as political and economic bases for such a development, introducing a measure of societal autonomy that was largely absent during the Maoist period. However, institutional legacies of that period also persist. One such legacy is the work unit (danwei), where the individual not only has her place of employment, but also from which she receives many social and economic benefits, such as housing, health care, and pensions. Some have argued that the danwei produces a significant barrier to the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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emergence of civil society in China, leading to a "fragmented" social structure which inhibits development of "common political interest" (Christiansen 1994, p. 155). For these reasons, the work unit is regarded by some as contributing to a certain sense of "isolation" among Chinese social groups, and a general lack of "horizontal" means of identification and contact (Lieberthal 1995, pp. 120, 142). However, the reforms did introduce a "horizontal dynamic" through increased market relations (see Lieberthal 1995, pp. 142-143; White, Howell, and Shang 1996, p. 22), as well as through the state's own appeals to various social groups to shore up its own legitimacy (Ding 1994a). Many analysts have noted the effects of the reforms in promoting new forms of social independence and new social interests. For instance, White, Howell, and Shang argue that These changes have created a social soil which is potentially fertile for the growth of new forms of social association. Attitudes toward self, society, and state have changed radically; social groups and interests have diversified, in the process becoming more autonomous and potentially more assertive in relation to the Partylstate.

They go on to note the opening of social space and resources for "new types of intermediate association" which seek "greater autonomy from, and influence over, the Partylstate" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 25-26; see also He 1997, p. 22). The organizational manifestations of such autonomy have been varied. While Christiansen seeks to show how the danwei has tended to diminish the possibility for alternative forms of social organization, others have shown how the social institutions of the Mao years, including the work unit, have been altered and in some cases infiltrated by "society." First, as I discuss in Chapter 1, X.L. Ding views this process as occurring through the utilization of state-level institutions by social interests, through the process of "institutional parasitism" or "institutional amphibiousness" (Ding 1994a; Ding 199410). Similarly, Philip C.C. Huang (1993) postulates the existence of a "third realm" where both state and society participate. Second, increasing societal autonomy can occur through existing social associations, such as the "mass organizations" like the Women's Federation, changing character and attempting to become more legitimately representative of their supposed constituencies (White, Howell, and Shang 1996; see also Zhang 1996). In a similar vein, Michael Frolic (1997) looks at state-initiated "NGOs." Third, some analysts discuss the existence of truly autonomous organizations. However, these tend to be either illegal and "underground" (White, Howell, and Shang 1996), or very short-lived, as those formed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests (Gu Xin 199311994, p. 50). Thus, while genuinely independent social organizations have generally had a short life-span in post-Mao China, there are a range of other social Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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forms with varying degrees of independence from the state which have been able to persist and even to thrive. In part, this is a reflection of the emergence of a multiplicity of social interests emerging and taking organized manifestations. The existence of such "horizontal" interests was especially evident in the 1989 protests, where differing groups-including intellectuals, students, entrepreneurs, workers, the unemployed, cadres, peasants, and the military (Ostergaard 1989)-had diverging interests and demands. Craig Calhoun looks at the student hunger for identities as individuals during these protests (Calhoun 1994a; 199413).The post-Mao period has been characterized by increasingly diverse forms of personal identity, created in part by state policy, and accompanied by similarly diversified types of social organization. Endogenous Aspects of Mobilizing Structures One such identity has been that of "women." While the Communist party-state has always paid attention to women's issues, the post-Mao era featured acknowledgements that perhaps the reforms have affected women in unique ways, as I have discussed in Chapters 3 and 5. And women's movements are often concentrated more on social change than on direct engagement with the state. Such identity-oriented issues have been observed to be characteristic of the early stages of social movements in other non-democratic contexts, such as Russia in the 1980s (Zdravomyslova 1996). The post-Mao era has seen the increasing emergence of women as an interest group (Jin Yihong 1995), with the emergence of increasing "women's consciousness" after the decades of Maoist androgyny. Such a development is evident in, for example, women from many different Beijing work units, including universities and hospitals, converging on the Women's Hotline to serve as its volunteers. At the same time, many women's organizations have been organized under the auspices of pre-existing work unit ties, such as university-level women's studies centers. Exogenous Aspects of Mobilizing Structures In the post-Mao era, there have also been increasing exogenouslyderived mobilizing structures for the Chinese women's movement, resulting from many of the same forces that were part of exogenous political and economic opportunities. Particularly because of both the Fourth World Conference on Women and the Ford Foundation, ties with foreign women's movement activists have increased, and in general there has come to be an increasingly outward-looking attitude among Chinese women's movement activists. This was exemplified in the pre-FWCW slogan of jiegui, or to "connect the rails" with the international women's movement (Wang Zheng 1996, p. 195). Prior to the convening of the FWCW, there were Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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other international conferences linking up Chinese with foreign activists, and in general the FWCW was an important facilitator of such conferences. The Ford Foundation "earmarked" funds specifically to increase both national and international women's networks in the lead-up to the conference, and as a result of the Ford project, nearly 100 Chinese women were able to attend the N G O Forum who otherwise would not have received approval. Ford was also a central source of funds for Chinese women to attend N G O preparatory meetings in non-governmental delegations, which was also a significant way for Chinese activists to jiegui. The FWCW was also an important contributor to women's sense of cohesion as a group. A prominent legal scholar and advisor to the Women's Federation noted the effect of the conference on the networks, both domestic and international, of the China's women's movement: Before the conference, everyone's concentrated strength was not enough. After the conference, there is more unity, more contact, and we regularly get together. As we discovered that women have so many organizations, our foreign exchanges have also increased. Through this opportunity we made friends, and established contact with similar foreign groups. Through such views, we can see the effects that international ties have on domestic social movement mobilization, and the importance of both domestic and international factors in the widening of the movement during its Popularizing Phase of the 1990s.

THE "LOCAL" IN THE CHINESE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT The influence of the "local" on the Chinese women's movement's organizational forms is particularly evident in the ways in which the communist social structure affects social organizations. Thus, although I have been discussing the existence of "NGOs" in China's women's movement, most such groups have a somewhat different relationship to the state than would be found in the West. In the following section I will attempt to sort out what it really means to be an "NGO" in China, but first I will discuss some of the organizational peculiarities of developing a women's movement in the Chinese context, and the impact of "local," or endogenous, factors on these groups. These include the importance of the guakao danwei, the role played by clear political connections, the existence of networks among activists, and intra- and inter-group relations.

Supervisory Work Units Of the 28 women's groups surveyed (see Tables 5.1 and 5.2, previous chapter), all but four have specifically designated supervisory work units. This phenomenon is a unique feature of communist systems in transition. "Legal" NGOs in China are required to have a supervisory work unit-a guakao danwei. ' This is the product of a new regulation on social groups, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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the "Management Regulation on the Registration of Social Groups," promulgated in October 1989 (Wang Ying, Zhe Xiaoye, and Sun Bingyao 1993), after the Tiananmen Square protests. The regulation required registration with the appropriate level Civil Affairs department, as well as having a supervisory work unit in the government apparatus. White, Howell, and Shang (1996) view this relationship as potentially controlling or cooperative, with the higher unit both seeking to supervise the group as well as potentially providing resources to it. With many of the most "non-governmental" of women's groups in China, this latter is definitely not the case, and in terms of resources they are definitively on their own. There certainly are elements of control exerted by supervisory units on voluntary women's groups. For instance, a researcher at CASS had to change a study she did, sponsored by the Ford Foundation, on the gender consciousness of intellectual women because her CASS leader did not agree with the findings. After the women's conference, one Beijing NGO had to begin reporting to its city district foreign affairs office whenever a foreigner came to the office. In addition to controls being exerted by supervisory work units, the Women's Federation has also attempted to assert its dominating position vis-a-vis smaller women's groups. Most NGOs are "group members" (tuanti huiyuan) of Fulian. The organization's 1993 constitution defines this phenomenon as follows: Section 6-Group Members Article 22. Factory and mine enterprises' basic level Trade Union Female Workers' Committee and the different upper levels' Trade Union Female Workers Committee all are Fulian group members. Article 23. Any countrywide or local women's group registered in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, every profession's women's volunteer-organized association organized to serve society and women, friendly societies, religious groups and other mass groups of women's organizations, applying for and getting All-China Fulian's or local Fulian's agreement, can be Fulian group members. Article 24. Fulian wants to enhance similar group members' contact, at the same time helping and supporting their developmental work. Group members should accept Fulian's professional work guidance (zhidao). Article 25. Group members' rights and duties: rights are that group members can enjoy attending Fulian's related activities, and can raise critical proposals regarding Fulian's work. Duties are undertaking the reporting of women's situation to Fulian, reporting work, publicizing Fulian's resolutions with the mass of women, and carrying out related work tasks (AllChina Women's Federation 1993).

The reality of the realization of members' "rights," particularly with respect to the ability to "raise critical proposals" is questionable, as will be seen below. Whatever their views on Fulian, however, numerous groups Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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described their relationship with Fulian in hierarchical terms. For instance the head of one NGO sounded suspiciously similar to the Fulian constitution on the subject: "We are a group member of Fulian, are guided (zhidao) by Fulian, we accept Fulian's guidance (zhidao)." Another women's group leader who is also a high-ranking official in the Women's Federation noted that "Fulian is the organization of women's groups, it administers (guan) many women's groups. The All-China Women's Federation ...[ is] the highest place defending women's interests." Such regulatory behavior is particularly evident in the fact that all Chinese women's groups who wanted to sponsor a workshop at the N G O Forum required Fulian approval. However, others dismissed the significance of Fulian's superordinate position, as in the words of one Career Activist: "Fulian is our leader. It does not administer us. We have no contact with Fulian, this is my own feeling about it." In general, activists involved with NGOs asserted the importance of having a guakao danwei, but also the general flexibility of the system. For instance, a professor involved with a number of different Beijing NGOs noted that "You can find a good guakao danwei and have a lot of freedom." Leaders of NGOs seemed to adopt this very approach, searching carefully for a work unit affiliation that would be of the greatest benefit and the least cost-often literally, because supervisory work units are known to make subordinate groups pay "supervisory fees'' (Ding 1994a, p. 28). Guakao relationships are strategic decisions for the NGO in question. For instance the leader of one group noted that her group "is a legal NGO, so it conforms with the social groups law...when looking for a guakao work unit, we were determined to find one that would not take our money, and to not find a troublesome (mafan) one." Another N G O activist discussed the rationale behind finding a guakao work unit: If you want to be independent then this is very troublesome (mafan)government officials' approval of the group's establishment is fairly difficult, the procedures are troublesome, so you should guakao. In fact you are looking for a mother-in-law, to rely on a big tree to relax in a cool place. This is the legal system. Our pay is independent. Although we are composed from [our higher work unit], we don't necessarily have contact with it, we are relatively independent, this also is China's characteristic. We also hoped to have an independent setup (jigou), but it is relatively difficult.

From this, it is evident that the guakao relationship is not one of necessary subjugation, but also a tactical decision by an organization seeking to both exist as independently as possible and to be within the bounds of the law. This same activist noted the support of her group's higher work unit, and asserted that "We receive the guidance (zhidao) of our higher work unit, but we are fairly independent, we make our own policy decisions, and we Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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don't accept too much intervention (ganyu) or control (kongzhi) from them. We report our situation to them. It is very loose (songsan)." Such reports, often yearly, seemed to be a minimum requirement of NGOs' relationships with their supervisory work units, and otherwise many NGOs claimed to be quite independent. It is therefore the case that the state-level units involved can play a dual role-both by imposing limits on any potentially subversive activities, but also facilitating mobilization through granting an aspect of legitimacy. This is consistent with X.L. Ding's view that activities with oppositional potential often arise within state-level institutions (Ding 1994a), as well as with observations that social movements can arise within institutions (Katzenstein 1990; Tarrow 1994, p. 146). It is also compatible with Craig Calhoun's work on the 1989 student protests, where he notes the importance of pre-existing student ties in facilitating their mobilization into action in Tiananmen Square (Calhoun 1994a).The women's movement has some similarities in this respect. Of 28 studied groups, 21 were formed within already-existing work units. These include women's studies centers at universities, and subunits of Fulian. Role Played by Institutional Connections Another, related feature of the Chinese women's movement which has its origins in the Chinese political system is the particular role played by preexisting political and social identities of participants. While membership in the Chinese Communist Party is no longer a necessity for social advancement (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, p. 23), a majority of leading figures in the Beijing women's movement are Party members, although there are notable exception^.^ Additionally, as noted above, 21 of the women's groups were founded as subordinate bodies to already-existing work units, thus easing the formation process. In particular, some groups were founded with a pre-ordained organizational identity. This is especially apparent in women's studies centers in universities. While their founding might have been voluntary, as is individual participation in them, their approval by their supervisory bodies was a relatively simple matter. For instance, the founder and head of one university-level women's studies center noted that the founding of her group was "very easy, the school very quickly approved it, and is still very supportive of the Center. During the FWCW, the university's president let its Party secretary come to see what difficulties we were having, and the university still gives us some money." Such relations to Party status are also evident in, for example, the head of the women's studies center at a different university also being the the Party secretary in her academic department in the university. However, this is not necessarily the case, and the heads of four other women's studies groups founded in academic bodies are not Party members. This may in part be reflective of autonomy in the academic Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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sphere, and even its "relative freedom," that was frequently mentioned by women's studies and other scholars. It also does reflect the declining necessity of Party membership for socio-political mobility in contemporary China. Other groups have leaders with identities that are still very much wrapped up in their supervisory work units. For instance, Xie Lihua, the founder and editor of the women's magazine Rural Women Knowing All (Nongjianu Baishitong), is also an assistant editor at China WomenS News (Zhongguo Funu Bao), the guakao danwei of the magazine. Similarly, Shang Shaohua, the founder and editor of World Women's Vision, was previously an editor at Women of China (Zhongguo Funu), which is the supervisory unit of World Women's Vision (Shijie Funu Bolan) and also provides it with office space free of charge. The head of one "NGO" was receiving her pay from Fulian while essentially working full-time at her NGO. She noted that Fulian did not control her activities but that she did have a cooperative relationship with it. Other NGOs have been founded by long-standing but now retired Communist Party cadres who have been active in various spheres, including women's activities, as well as by scholars who have approved background due to their long involvement with their academic activities. Such connections are important in a society where resource distribution methods almost necessitate receiving paychecks and housing from a formal work unit. One example of the latter is another N G O activist who is still paid by and receives housing and other benefits from her official work unit, but is able to spend the vast majority of her time on her NGO activities. She said she explicitly uses the benefits of having this official affiliation to facilitate her activities -for instance in handling her passport and visas for overseas travel relating to her women's work, as well as asking foreign colleagues to use both of her titles-the officially-recognized one and the N G O onewhen they issue her letters of invitation for such travel. However, such ties can occasionally also hinder the pursuit of independent activities, as in the case of a university professor of English literature who found that her superiors were puzzled by her interest in pursuing women's activism: "Initially when I went to the N G O preparatory meetings no one was supportive. My school said it was OK but the Education Commission said 'you are a professor of literature, what does this have to do with women's issues?'." Many of these findings are consistent with Ding's assertion that guakao danwei relationships largely come into being through "personal connections" (guanxi) (Ding 1994a, pp. 28, 66). As can be seen, many of the "NGOs" in the Beijing women's movement actually did not go through the process of first being founded, and then searching for a sponsoring work unit. Instead, they were more often than not founded with the pre-existing shelter of established ties with formal work units, which then became their guakao danwei. Founding activists had pre-established institutional ties Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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which facilitated their desire to found independent women's groups. These ties provided for some of the pre-existing social networks useful in social movement "micromobilization" processes. Networks among Women's Activists

Despite the prevalence of such "verticality" in the founding of women's group^,^ in the 1990s there has also existed an extensive cross-formal-affiliational quality to these activities which indicates the emergence of a larger "women's movement network'' which is horizontal in nature. The women's conference as well as resources provided by the Ford Foundation increased the opportunities for such networking. Perhaps the most explicit evidence of such ties is a group that used the term in its name-the Chinese Women's Health Network (wangluo). This group was founded after a Ford-sponsored conference and its founding members featured activists from NGOs, Fulian, women's media, and academic bodies-in fact, its founders are a veritable "Who's Who" of contemporary Beijing activists. They include its conveners Wu Qing (a professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University and a people's delegate for the Haidian district in Beijing), Liu Bohong (assistant director of Fulian's Women's Studies Institute of China), and Xie Lihua (editor of Rural Women Knowing All). They also included a Chinese employee of the Ford Foundation, a high-ranking official of the Beijing City Women's Federation, a researcher from CASS, and the founders of a few independent NGOs in Beijing. The existence of such a network is especially significant because it shows that women's groups, whatever their guakao danwei and pre-existing ties to the state, are not merely existing as objects of state power but also as subjects pursuing their own agendas. Networks are often regarded as a defining characteristic of social movements. For instance, Mario Diani finds such networks to consist of "(a) inter-organizational exchanges; (b) individuals1SMOs [social movement organizations] exchanges; [and] (c) personal exchanges.'' (Diani 1992, p. 109). All three types of contact exist in the Beijing women's movement of the 1990s, both domestically and internationally. Here, I will focus on domestic ties, and give some examples of the wide existence of such ties. First, with respect to inter-organizational exchanges, there was a wide variety of such connections in Beijing, particularly in the lead-up to the women's conference. This included Ford Foundation-sponsored conferences as well as numerous other conferences and meetings in various settings. One example of such a conference was one co-organized by the People's University Women's Studies Center (a university-based center), the Women's Research Institute (an NGO), and the Marriage and Family Research Society (a Fulian-based organization) in March 1995 (Chinese People's University 1995a). People's University also cooperated with the Marriage and Family Research Society on their workshop on "Chinese Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Marriage, Family, and Women's Roles" at the N G O Forum (Chinese People's University 199513; published as Sha Lianxiang 1995). Another Beijing NGO, the Women's Hotline (which is part of the above-mentioned Women's Research Institute) has been influential in providing assistance to those setting up women's hotlines in other locations in China, thus assisting such women's activities in spreading beyond Beijing. NGOs providing counseling services, such as the Women's Hotline, often refer their clients to a women's legal affairs NGO for legal counseling, and this N G O introduces its clients to the former groups if they are in need of psychological counseling. Chen Yiyun, the leader of the Jinglun Family Science Center, one prominent NGO, attended meetings of the Women's Hotline in order to lecture on family and marriage issues. In general, reciprocity seems to be the rule in inviting the various women's groups to conferences being held by a given group. In addition to cross-NGO networks, there also exist contacts between NGOs and the state-based "mass organizations." For instance, the Jinglun Family Center, is active in training Fulian and Trade Union (Gonghui) Female Workers' Committee cadres on women's issues. Fulian and Gonghui often pay the Jinglun leader's expenses when she goes to the provinces to run such training sessions. This is one way that NGOs can have influence on the state-based organizations. Additionally, Fulian-based bodies often invite NGOs to participate in their activities, and the Women's Studies Institute of China often cooperates with other women's studies centers such as those at universities. Such vertical relations are generally voluntary in nature. Second, there are numerous ties between individuals involved in one group and other women's groups. These ties particularly come in the form of mutual assistance -a given person may use resources that she has due to her formal ties to aid an N G O in its work. For instance, a CASS researcher has assisted the Jinglun Center on various research projects, thus using her access to research materials to assist the NGO. A reporter for China Women's News has used her skills to help edit a women's scholarly magazine. The same reporter, when she previously worked at the People's Daily, was able to assist an early NGO, the Women's Research Institute (WRI), by writing articles about it in the newspaper. WRI's Women's Hotline has also received the assistance of a number of professors from women's studies centers around Beijing, as well as psychologists and social workers teaching and working in diverse work units. Leaders of NGOs serve as "advisors" (guwen) to other NGOs. Wang Xingjuan and Chen Yiyun, two leaders of Beijing NGOs, serve as "advisors" to the newer Chinese Partnership Research Group, publisher of a Chinese version of The Chalice and the Blade; and the leader of a relatively early-established university-level women's studies center is now "advisor" to a more recently established one at a different university. There are also ties between Beijing groups and other women's studies activists elsewhere in China. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Finally, there exist numerous interpersonal ties between activists at all levels of the movement. For instance, some activists were introduced to their work due to personal ties with other activists. For instance, a full-time staff member at one NGO, retired from her formal work unit, knew the NGO's head from that formal work unit where they were both affiliated. An active participant in another NGO was introduced to the work by a fellow professor at the university where she teaches. One psychology expert has been involved in assisting two different NGOs with the counseling work that they pursue. In general, there exists a wide range of cross-ties among women activists in Beijing. While such ties are often very friendly, ties between groups can take on a wide variety of tones. It is to such relations that I now turn. Intra- and Inter-group Relations There exists a divergence of types of relationships between organizations in the Beijing women's movement, from cooperative to conflictual. While, not surprisingly, participants particularly prefer to downplay conflictual relations, such situations do periodically exist. The most commonly admitted types of disagreement, both within and between groups, are those of a "scholarly" nature. Many people commented on how such disagreements are "permissible" or "normal." Another common source of friction is the scarcity of resources available in the NGO sector, and the subsequent reliance on unpaid volunteers and foreign grants. Additionally, relations between Fulian and the NGOs are not always particularly harmonious. Within the NGOs, while "scholarly disagreements" are the type of conflict most commonly admitted to, there are several other sources of tension. Disputes of a scholarly type exist, for instance, in the form of differences in opinion as to how to resolve psychological counseling questions. In such a setting, however, there also are disagreements that emerge between those drawn to the work because of its relation to psychology, and those who are committed to it because of their interest in women's issues. Contradictions among volunteers also arise because of the voluntary nature of the activity, and the fact that they are often trained professionals who wish that they could be paid for their services to the NGO. Commitment to working in an N G O is often only possible on a very part-time basis, because of the need to work for a formal work unit to have a salary and housing provided. If pay is available, it is very low and often seen as inadequate for the challenges of the work being done. To get volunteers to do the work, a leader may make promises-such as hoped-for opportunities to travel abroad-that she may in the end be unable to keep. Another comon difficulty with NGO work is that their founders often have their background in fields that do not contribute to their ability to manage the interpersonal and financial aspects of their groups. Such difficulties can lead to some group leaders running their group in an "autocratic" way, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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rather than in the more open manner to which many N G O participants aspire. Another problem is the often existing age difference between the older leader and younger volunteers, and their subsequent differences in viewpoints. There also exist differences between NGOs, often for similar reasons. Once again, differences in scholarly opinion are the type most freely acknowledged-for instance, one Career Activist involved in a variety of groups noted that I think "different voices" are very normal. Every person's specialty is not the same, so their views are not likely to be entirely the same, their specific viewpoints different. But everyone mutually supports each other, for example the Hotline invited me to go teach classes, and of course I went. I also can disagree with their consulting content, but this is not the same as me not supporting their general orientation for women.

She went on to note the difference between her favorable personal relations with various activists, but differences in their respective "theoretical viewpoints." Another, similar difference that can exist between groups are differing emphases on various types of work, and disagreements that can arise as a result of such divergences, for instance, one person favoring research while another emphasizes counseling. A dispute based in different approaches to women's work has led, at least in one case, to a valued volunteer leaving one group for another. The volunteer agreed more with her new group's approach and work climate, finding the first group to be too strongly in favor of women rather than supportive of the family. Her leaving this group was a source of anger for its leader, as well as a loss of prestige. The loss of a volunteer can also be regarded as a loss of a scarce resource-trained staff willing to assist without needing remuneration. Such scarce resources can also be a source of conflict among groups due to their constant need to search for money. For instance, one activist's constant appeals for funds have led others in the Beijing movement to question her commitment to the actual work of helping women. Such needs can lead to competition among groups for the foreign funding that is available, particularly from the Ford Foundation. An additional issue is the nature of the relationship between Fulian and the NGOs in the Beijing movement. While in Chapter 3 I discussed the frequent cooperative activities between Fulian and NGOs, and while some activists note that Fulian has "relatively good" relations with the NGOs, and that their NGO "supports" Fulian, others have observed conflict between Fulian and the NGOs, and the not always agreeable relations between them. A journalist involved with several NGOs felt that Fulian and NGOs "still have a kind of relative facade of cooperative relations, sometimes there is cooperation, sometimes there is mutual noninterference." For instance, in the late 1980s there was a widely publicized debate between Fulian and Li Xiaojiang of Zhengzhou University in Henan Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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province, one of the earliest advocates of women's studies in China in the 1 9 8 0 One ~ ~ activist whose formal work unit is Fulian noted the ceasing of this particular dispute, finding that in "the past two years [from 1994 to 1996-coinciding of course with the convening of the women's conference] there has been no open criticism." Despite this one aspect of easing of tensions, however, she also asserted that relations between Fulian and some NGOs continued to be "not necessarily particularly good." In particular, she found that In NGOs it is very complicated, they are from bottom to top, "grassroots", not top-down. In those from top to bottom, for example the Women Judge's Association, their heads are all government officials. This sort of organization and Fulian's relations are very good, it is the government facing the government. But [other NGOs] are run by ordinary women, their money comes from abroad, so everything they are doing is compared to Fulian ...Fulian thinks women having difficulties should first find Fulian, so it feels uncomfortable.

An NGO activist whose full-time job is with an international agency in Beijing noted a similar phenomenon, finding that "Fulian tries to ignore the other women's groups. They don't cooperate together. Before the conference, in order to prepare for the N G O Forum, Fulian used them, but it has no resources to give them." Another person involved with various women's groups similarly noted the often "antagonistic" (duili)relations between Fulian and groups sponsored by the Ford Foundation, citing disagreements in particular on statistics used by the Women's Hotline on the rate of domestic violence in China. She asserted that what Fulian felt to be the Hotline's overestimation of the problem was regarded by the Federation to be the result of its being influenced by Ford and Western feminism. This same activist, in another interview, noted that Fulian and NGOs have different viewpoints and different roles. Fulian is consistent with government viewpoints. Other women's groups are influenced by Western viewpoints. Fulian says women's problems are less and their status is higher, NGOs say that there are many problems. Fulian is not satisfied with the way that NGOs are influenced by Western ideas ....I think that the establishment of NGOs is a criticism of Fulian. In the past, Fulian did all women's work, but it was not all correctly done. NGOs represent other viewpoints and can raise other viewpoints, which creates pressure on Fulian. This is good for Fulian.

Other activists noted similar causes for tensions between Fulian and NGOs. A university professor observed that As you probably have noticed, some Fulian leaders are longstanding cadres. They are concerned with women's issues in their own ways. Some of our teachers are familiar with the West and compare us to the West. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization Without knowing it we have adopted feminist principles. Fulian looks at issues in a different way.

And a CASS scholar observed that "Fulian is not too open-it is official thinking. It is not too willing to tolerate new ideas. It cannot entirely accept feminism, but it can accept some parts of it." From the existence of such disputes as well as such divergences in thinking, it can be seen that the Beijing women's movement can no longer be regarded as a monolithic phenomenon controlled by the Women's Federation. One area where this emergent multiplicity is especially evident is in the discourse on "NGOs," to which I now turn.

THE GLOBAL MEETS THE LOCAL: "NGOS" AND THE CHINESE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT In the 1990s, there has been a seemingly sudden proliferation of selfdescribed "non-governmental organizations" (NGOs-feizhengfu zuzhi) in China and in particular in its women's movement. As discussed above, in order to be legal, NGOs in China are required to register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs and to have a supervisory work unit. And, because of the diverse nature of relationships between NGOs and their guakao work units, it would seem that some groups have elements of de facto independence, which can be compatible with groups' claims to be "NGOs." Groups may be of society, even if they are technically in the state. X.L. Ding notes that "many Party officials in supervisory institutions did not interfere very much in the activity of voluntary organizations" (Ding 1994a, p. 28). The existence of such operational independence is significant for understanding the realities of contemporary Chinese social development. How did such independence affect the self-conceptions and public identities of these groups? And, how did international factors, largely overlooked by Ding, alter the structure of relationships, particularly by providing groups with needed resources? "NGO" is a term that has been used with some lack of discrimination in the context of the women's movement in the 1990s. Formations ranging from the All-China Women's Federation to the most informal of discussion groups have all applied the term to themselves-often using the English "NGO" in conversation rather than the cumbersome Chinese translation. I will here discuss some of the ways the term has been used, and sort out some of the consistencies in meaning and usage that can be discerned. First, I will discuss the Women's Federation, and its putative self-designation as an "NGO." Second, I will discuss the increasing consciousness regarding NGOs in the Chinese women's movement. I will enumerate some of the common characteristics that NGOs are regarded to have, and how these are seen as differing from Fulian in practice. Such divergences are indicative of a significant diversification of Chinese social organizational forms. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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T h e Women's Federation a s a n "NGO"?

The months surrounding the Fourth World Conference on Women and its accompanying N G O Forum were filled with claims about Fulian being an "NGO." In fact, it often referred to itself as "China's largest women's NGO" or even just "China's largest NGO." This change in self-conception is a direct result of developments related to the conference. First, in November 1993, at the Asia-Pacific preparatory meeting in Manila, two Chinese delegations attended. One was a Fulian delegation, and the other was a group of Chinese women sponsored by the Ford Foundation. At the meeting, other delegations objected when the Fulian representative-a man-took the floor, saying that they did not want to listen to an "official" delegation, because Fulian "to a very large extent was representing the official" viewpoint. These objections led to Fulian vigorously terming itself an "NGO" following the Manila meeting. Fulian participation in NGO activities began in the lead-up to the women's conference, particularly with participation by its senior officials at the population conference in Cairo in 1994 and the social development summit in Copenhagen in 1995. Such participation previously "was unheard of. Before they didn't go to NGO meetings, they were just the government wearing another hat." Fulian's preparations for the conference altered its perspectives on NGOs. One women's studies scholar noted that when China was preparing for the FWCW and its N G O Forum, "it didn't have NGOs, only Fulian was able to undertake preparations for the conference-it is half-popular and half-official. China can create (zhizao)NGOs, but their quality wouldn't do." She felt that, while China did have some other women's NGOs, they were too small for the task of preparing for the conference. So Fulian was in charge of preparations for the Forum, and in this way acquired new knowledge of NGOs, knowledge that changed its perceptions. One Fulian activist who was involved on the China Organizing Committee for the conference felt that there were two such changes. First, Fulian was finally aware that NGOs are not illegal, in China they are the popular groups (minjian tuanti) that are not willing to oppose the government. Fulian previously thought "NGO" was "AGO"-"against government organization," so it was very afraid and evaded this question. Now it knows that an N G O can maintain consistency with the government. Moreover, if it is not an N G O then it cannot attend the N G O Forum, so it started to understand N G O functions, that NGOs are a direct force that international society should not be without, and consequently it started calling itself an NGO. Second, and most importantly, Fulian finally was aware that it wanted to represent women's interests (liyi), and it was aware of what women's interests are. It started to be aware of how to represent women's interests, how to represent this mass. To give an example: it is supported by the state, but if serving women's and the state's interests conflict, where does it stand? This is very important-before it thought that the two did not have any contradictions, only that if it was Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization standing on the side of the state, then it was also standing on the side of women. Now it is doing much work safeguarding women's rights and interests, this is a very big change. Fulian is gradually entering an NGO role.

In this latter way, Fulian's self-designation as an "NGO" can be seen as not merely a cynical manipulation of the term, but also as a reflection of changes that the organization has undergone in the post-Mao period and especially during conference preparations. These changes include an increase in outside funding used by Fulian, both from foreign funding agencies as well as domestically-run business enterprises, that supplement its traditionally-received government funds. There are assorted views of the type of organization Fulian really is. While some pay lip service to the notion of it as an NGO, others are far more candid in their assessments of its overall nature. With respect to the former viewpoint, Fulian's nature as a "bridge" between women and the government, its presence in every level from village to center, and the utility of that vertical "network" both to transmit state policies and to assist women in need are often cited to assert Fulian's role as an "NGO." Its ability to accept non-state financial assistance, including international funding, is seen as another element of its NGO status, as is its claimed lack of decision-making and administrative power. Because of its long history and large expanse, Fulian is generally seen as a far more potent representative of women's interests than other women's NGOs. However, awareness of that very history generally leads women activists, whatever their formal ties to Fulian or the state, to have a fundamentally more subtle view of Fulian's "non-governmental" nature. For instance, one of the same activists who enumerated many of the foregoing "NGO" qualities of Fulian, also noted its "official" (guanfang) nature. Others adopted similar views-noting, for instance, that "it is a mass group, but you also cannot say that it is an extremely pure NGO, its officials are government appointed"; or, "Fulian is a state organ (guojia jigou)"; or, it is "semi-official (ban guanfang) ...no one sees it as an average popular organization (minjian zuzhi)," due to its founding by the Party, its staff's salaries being appropriated by the state, and its Party organization being directly below the central Party committee. Some were even more candid, with one university professor referring to Fulian as "the official organization. They say it is the biggest NGO, but it is different from other NGOs. Fulian works under the government." An N G O activist and outspoken feminist stated her opinion that Fulian is very conservative. They don't have concrete women's consciousness. They cannot think about women 100 percent, because they have to consider the government. If the interests of the government and women conflict, they stand for the government. At best they are a mediator.

Even a high-ranking cadre with the Beijing city Fulian was rather blunt in her criticism of Fulian's efforts to be considered an NGO-"Fulian says it Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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is an NGO, but Fulian thinking is government thinking. All 90,000 Fulian workers are paid by the government. It should earn its own money if it really wants to be an NGO. It should change into a genuine Fulian." She noted that "Fulian cadres see themselves as governmental officials and they are not quite aware of their real role. If they saw themselves less as officials, they might do better." An analysis by members of the Sociology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences comes to the same conclusion, classifying Fulian as an "official-run association" (guanban shetuan) (Wang Ying, Zhe Xiaoye, and Sun Bingyao 1993, p. 72). To Be an NGO If Fulian in the end is still regarded by most as an official organization, despite its vociferous claims to the contrary, what then is regarded as a legitimate NGO, especially if most legal social organizations in China have supervisory work units in the state? Gordon White, Jude Howell, and Shang Xiaoyuan have a somewhat more variegated view of contemporary Chinese social organizations than that presented by Ding, who emphasizes the "institutional parasitism" side of the equation. White et al. divide social groups into four categories: caged, incorporated, interstitial, and suppressed sectors (White, Howell, and Shang 1996, pp. 30-37). Similarly, sociologists from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences differentiate between official-run (guanban), semi-official-run (ban guanban), and popular-run (minban) associations (shetuan). As noted above, they find Fulian to fall into the first of these categories. They use four categories of analysis to differentiate between types of group: organizational formation process, association's main leadership emergence, association's main leadership identity, and funding source. What they term "pure popular organizations" (chuncui de minjian zuzhi) are formed at the motivation of their members, select their leaders purely through election, and raise their funds themselves (Wang Ying, Zhe Xiaoye, and Sun Bingyao 1993, pp. 70-78). The actual concept of "NGO" seems to have entered China because of the Fourth World Conference on Women, although Chinese did have an equivalent in its term minjian zuzhi ("popular organization"). However, a college professor and women's studies activist noted that "There was no such term in China as 'NGO,' until the women's conference came. Then people started talking about NGOs." I have already noted the learning process that the Women's Federation experienced vis-A-vis its conceptions of NGOs. Much of this process occurred for Fulian and other activists alike through the preparatory meetings for the NGO Forum, held in 1993 and 1994 in various locales around the world. Many activists wrote about their experiences in the Ford-published volume Reflections and Resonance (Nuxing de Fanxiang) (Wong Yuen Ling 1995; the following quotations are from this book).' Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Through attending N G O Forum preparatory meetings, activists reconstituted their notion of N G O activities, and began to adopt a positive attitude toward these groups. The meetings were very informative for women who were coming from a context that lacked such groups, and one purpose of Chinese women attending these meetings was to familiarize them with N G O procedures. Many Chinese activists had the same misconceptions of NGOs that Fulian did-that they were opposed to the government. Some Chinese also expressed a typical fear of luan, or chaos, in their "common view" that things in Beijing would be a "mess" if NGO women were able to just freely speak their opinions and air their grievances (p. 246). However, many Chinese women adopted a new perspective of, and appreciation for, NGOs during their participation in N G O preparatory meetings. One N G O activist who attended the Manila conference with the Ford Foundation-sponsored delegation described her views of its proceedings, and their general implication for forms of women's movement activism: Unlike any other meeting which I had attended before, this one had a free forum for twenty minutes after every hour of formal presentation, even during the opening ceremony...All this deeply impressed me. Days later, when the "Draft Platform of Action," reflecting all these protests and requiring the government to take action and initiate legislative proposals, reached my hands, I realized that the Conference on Women was a conference for us women to express our opinions. What it needs is not listeners, but active participants (p. 9).

Other activists also noted similar positive views of the open methods of deliberation pursued in the N G O meetings. One professor, N G O activist, and Fulian advisor noted that her attending of the Vienna preparatory meeting was also the first time I really understood the concept of an NGO-a Non-Governmental Organization-Forum. Unlike a meeting at which everybody just reads her paper, a forum gives one the chance to fully express one's viewpoints, and this may lead to heated debate. It requires wisdom and insight ...I fell in love with this method of communication (p. 178).

By comparing N G O methods to more formalized means of holding meetings, this activist can be seen as implicitly critiquing the lack of spontaneity that characterizes typical Chinese gatherings, which was typified by the repeated "rehearsals" of Chinese women's own panels prior to the NGO Forum. Another activist, a lawyer who previously worked in the Women's Federation and now is with a women's legal aid NGO, extensively described her vision of the proper role for NGOs after attending the Manila conference. Her observations are related to formulating a more cooperative-or symbiotic-role for women's NGOs, with respect both to how they relate to the state, and to how they relate to men. Her first sugCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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gestion is that "the task of NGOs should be to influence their governments by their efforts and to win over their support and protection-not to protest against the government in a militant manner." While she notes the different political systems characterizing the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, she feels that NGOs are best served by urging "the broad masses of women to actively participate in national construction in order to influence and change attitudes toward women." Her second suggestion is that, in order to create a "powerful system," NGOs "should unite, form a network, and cooperate to carry out their work systematically." Finally, she suggests that "the women's movement is not simply a fight between men and women," and that NGOs "should have both men and women participate and should work to influence all strata of society," because "the women's movement should become the work of the whole society" (pp. 215-216). Such suggestions are especially interesting in the ways that they apply "local" Chinese sensibilities, such as the need for harmony and cooperation, to an aspect of "global civil societyv-NGOs. At the same time, many Chinese women activists have clearly been positively impressed by their increased contacts with the international women's movement and its organizational forms, and they aspire to many of its traits in their own groups. I will here enumerate eight characteristics that have commonly been regarded as important conditions for genuine N G O status in the Chinese women's movement: financial independence, voluntarism, independence and freedom, "looseness," internal democracy, legality, diversity, and "purity."

1. Financial independence Financial independence, important to the CASS sociologists discussed above, is also generally seen by women's movement activists to be the sine qua non of N G O status in China. NGOs are sometimes differentiated from Fulian by their proponents on the basis of this attribute, and this characteristic is often seen as what makes NGO work especially difficult. For instance, one history professor who is active in her university's women's studies center noted that Founding the group was relatively difficult, because we are all volunteers. We had to spend a lot of time. The university's authorities did not like itthey said, "this is an important field in the world, but we have no money." They could not say "we don't support this." But they did not enthusiastically support it, because they are all men, and they thought the university's courses were all fine-why do we need more on women's issues? There is no money to develop these courses, they said, money should be put toward technology.

In other words, the main difficulty her group had was not politically-based, but financial-the university feared that it would draw upon resources that were felt to be better used for other purposes. Such a view of the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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particular funding difficulties faced by genuine NGOs was even the case for activists who also forcefully declared their belief that Fulian too is an NGO. Thus, while NGOs have to struggle for funds, Fulian is supported by the government. One activist noted the importance of this particular quality: "if finances are not independent, then [a group] definitely is not independent."

2. Voluntarism The voluntary aspects of NGOs were commonly cited as another important characteristic. To some extent, this is regarded as both an asset and a liability. As a liability, voluntary participation is somewhat impeded by groups' inability to remunerate most participants, and the shortage of those able to do the work full-time. However, as an asset, voluntarism is particularly viewed to lessen tensions within groups, because participation only occurs if individuals are willing. This is contrasted with the requirements of formal work units. Groups are sometimes, though not always, regarded as "open" to the participation of anyone willing, sometimes even including foreigners. One N G O leader saw voluntarism as both beneficial and detrimental to her group's fortunes: "Our strength (liliang) is very small, but it is a concentrated social strength. We are not the same as administrative cadres taking wages, we are bringing social strengths into play, to do work for the women's movement." In this respect, such voluntary social mobilization seems to be regarded as an important supplement to the official, state-led women's movement, and thus a significant benefit for women. One college professor who is an enthusiastic volunteer in her university's women's studies center noted a crucial difference between her center and the Women's Federation: Fulian is not the same as us. We voluntarily do women's work. They are different -it is their career. Fulian's cadres are maybe not very interested in women's issues and don't really like women's work. But when you graduate from university, you have to go where they say. Volunteers are very different.

Such zeal for doing women's work was noted by a number of the activists who attended N G O preparatory meetings and observed other countries' women's NGOs. One Fulian researcher and N G O activist noted that I was most impressed by the participatory spirit of the N G O women. Because women in many countries have been oppressed by men, and all their rights and the improvement of their social status have been achieved through persistent criticism of their traditional and unreasonable social systems and through hard struggle from the bottom up, the women who went to Manila have a strong sense of self-identity, participation, and action. They are powerful, innovative and creative, stressing sisterhood among women and respect for different voices. NGOs are very influential (quoted in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 152). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Such a "bottom-up" approach to women's liberation has been a central trait noted by Chinese women's activists, and they have often explicitly contrasted such voluntary social action for the women's movement by NGOs with the historically state-led Chinese movement. One participant in the Manila preparatory meeting noted that "Individually, I used to think that China's women's movement was feminist (nuquanzhuyi).Now I think China has been passive and the West active. It isn't women's own choice in China-it is the government's choice of results." Similarly, another NGO leader, who also attended the conference in Manila, noted the importance of the development of a sense of voluntarism among Chinese women's movement activists: A difference between the Chinese and foreign women's movements is that China's has been done by the state, Chinese women are from top to bottom, and intellectuals don't participate in Fulian. The foreign is from bottom to top, with women consciously organizing, so these two ways have differences. State organizing leads to you not having your own thinking. Women organize also to d o things for themselves, to raise their level from organizational and from individual aspects, this is "empowerment." For example our group is not the government making us d o it, it is our own willingness to do it. Chinese traditional women's organizations are bureaucratic and orthodox, and have very big differences with foreign movements.

Such a view on the value of "empowerment" indicates a belief in the possibility for social change, even in a symbiotic social movement that maintains a cooperative relationship with the state.

3. Independence (duli) and freedom (ziyou) Stressing independence is one way that such empowerment can be achieved. As discussed above, supervisory work units often have only infrequent contact with women's groups below them, and independence is often not only a matter of fate but also of conscious action. For instance, one N G O leader noted her group's increase in independence since it was founded, saying that "no one tells us what to do, when we think we should do something then we do it." She used her activities during the women's conference as an example of her independence, noting that more than 20 foreign delegations visited her office during the conference, but that she had no need for her higher unit's approval. Such "autonomy" has also been noted by other groups as well. Groups have even asserted their desire for independence vis-a-vis higher units. For instance, a number of women's groups, largely "friendly societies" representing women in various professions, organized a conference that they adamantly prepared themselves, though they did invite Fulian leaders. An activist involved with the conference noted that "the All-China Women's Federation wants to lead us, but we are not willing, they want to lead, and will then want to absorb us to enter their Party Committee, causing it to become a genuine women's Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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alliance organization. We don't want Fulian to do this-we want our own activities." With independence also comes "freedom," another attribute of N G O activity noted by activists. "I feel I enjoy freedom," said one group leader. "Our freedom is relatively strong, our activities are relatively free," noted a staff member in the same NGO. Another activist found that NGO activity meant the existence of some element of freedom of speech, at least within the group: "The government does not organize your discussions, there is a 'free space' and 'individual free speech."'

4. "Looseness" Another commonly-observed characteristic of NGOs was their "loose" (songsan) nature. Such looseness was often explicitly contrasted with Fulian's hierarchical qualities. For instance, women involved in a university-level women's studies center noted its organizational differences from Fulian, finding the center to be "loosely" organized and not administered by the university. They noted that this enabled them to work in a multidisciplinary fashion, drawing scholars from multiple fields of study, including economics, population studies, sociology, philosophy, and law. It also facilitated their working at the grassroots level with rural women. Other women's studies centers were also depicted as "loose." One university professor saw this quality as existing in other countries' women's organizations, which she said "really are NGOs (queshi shi feizhengfu)," and contrasted this with Fulian's hierarchical nature. Another professor noted that such looseness connects to notions of freedom and does have its disadvantageous aspects: In China women's studies centers are all the same-they are not real tenters. In the United States it is a "program." In China, a center has no power. You cannot force people to d o this or that. We just make research suggestions. If you have time, you can do it. My main job is teaching history, and I can put women's studies contents into the courses I teach. In every university it is like this. It is flexible, and very free. But freedom also means lack of freedom because there is no money.

5. Internal democracy Related to organizations being "loose" and nonhierarchical, NGOs often emphasized their "democratic" methods, even sometimes using that term to describe their decision-making procedures. For instance, one leader of a women's studies center at a university noted "I think we're following the principles of women's studies, with free discussion. Many matters are decided by ourselves." Many stated that their internal organizational decision making was done democratically, with the "minority submitting to the majority," and they even contrasted this method with the more hierarchical methods of formal work units. For instance, the head of another women's studies center described their decision-making procedures which occur Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

The Emergence of NGOs in the Women's Movement through discussion, we are a popular organization (minjian zuzhi), mainly the members discuss things together, and the person in charge puts together the opinions. Popular organizations have this advantage-formal organizations will carry out the orders of higher levels, but we don't, we are very democratic (minzhu). In some cases, even women with close ties to Fulian noticed this difference between their NGO and Fulian. For instance, the head of a "friendly society" for professional women who was also a high-ranking Fulian official noted that disagreements in the NGO were handled democratically, and therefore differently from formal work units. A very similar perspective was discussed by another person who formally worked in Fulian but was also active in a number of N G O activities, finding that in her Fulian unit, one "obeyed, if higher authorities make you do something, then you do it." But her N G O was characterized by "democratic discussion (minzhu taolun), the minority is subordinate to the majority." She described this latter method as "the N G O way (fangshi)" and the former as "Fulian's way," thus contrasting their forms of organization in this respect. Such explicitly drawn comparisons are evidence of one way that women activists distinguish between Fulian and other, newer forms of women's movement activity. 6. Legality Another variable element in the general system of "NGOs" in China concerns the actual conformity of a given group to the letter of the law on NGOs. To be a "legal" N G O in China, a group must both have a supervisory work unit and be registered with the relevant department of civil affairs. This is a supervisory system that was put into its current form following the 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests. Yet, according to some activists, there are considerable gaps in the system's applicatiom6 In this respect, one NGO activist claimed that only her group and one other in Beijing were truly "NGOs" in the complete legal sense. Other "NGOs" legally have a more ambiguous status. First, some NGOs have a guakao danwei but for various reasons this work unit is not itself a legal body. Because the NGO relied on this higher work unit for approval, rather than going through the Ministry of Civil Affairs, it is illegal. Second, universitylevel women's studies centers are not approved by the Ministry of Civil Affairs, but rather by their university and they are thus subordinate to the State Education Commission rather than to the Ministry. Third, some of these groups are allowed to continue to exist for reasons relating to their already-established nature and their international reputation. This latter point is particularly interesting, for it points out the possibility that transnational ties can increase the margin of "safety" for NGOs in China, a point made by others as well. The legality of groups is an important means for NGOs to be acceptable to the Chinese state-as noted above, Fulian has only recently come to the knowledge that an "NGO" is not necCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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essarily an "AGO." This latter perspective came no doubt at least in part by the "antagonism" of some NGOs toward China, such as Amnesty International and Asia Watch, as described by one university professor and N G O activist. Through the women's conference, Fulian and the Chinese state learned that NGO activities on women's issues are not "targeted at China," and so "real NGOs" increased Fulian's understanding of NGOs. This greater understanding on the part of the state and NGOs alike is a crucial reason why a symbiotic women's movement has come to exist in contemporary China, and the state has come to accept the existence of NGOs, particularly those that are "legally" constituted. 7. Diversity Due to many of these characteristics of what are regarded to be NGOs in China, there are now perceived to be a diverse array of groups. For instance, some still emphasize the continuing Marxist viewpoint employed by Fulian as its analytical framework. Others note that NGOs do some work that Fulian is not willing to do, both in terms of research and in terms of grassroots work. One N G O activist divided Chinese NGOs into three types. First, there are the "traditional, half NGOs." Fulian is one of these, due to its "political color." Second, there are the "academic" NGOs, who, as noted above, don't have the approval of the Ministry of Civil Affairs. They can use money and students from their universities to promote their activities. However, because of their academic nature, they are "freer" than Fulian, both with respect to their ability to use foreign funding and to have foreign contacts. Third, there are the "real, pure, new NGOs." This leads to the final characteristic of contemporary NGOs in China.

8. "Purity" "Pure" NGOs are "very few in China," and are "very small, run only by professional women." They don't have staff, office space, or funding from the government. The term "purity" (chun) was often applied to NGOs to describe their differences from groups that still rely on governmental ties. One leader of a "friendly society" noted of another group that it was "a real popular group, even more popular" than her group, an opinion voiced by others about differences between groups as well. In this sense, "NGOs" are viewed more as relational entities, rather than as absolutes. The term has shades of meaning, and some activities are regarded to be more "non-governmental" than others. Of course, this is particularly evident in the common dismissal of the Women's Federation's claims to be an NGO. There are thus varying degrees of social autonomy in China, with some groups, albeit a small minority, succeeding in establishing a significant measure of independence and still being within legal bounds. In other words, some groups claiming to be NGOs are really more "non-governmental" than others. There are other differences between these more genCopyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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uine NGOs and other groups, especially Fulian, as well. In particular, some activists regard NGOs receiving foreign funding as a key factor in their increasing independence. This is regarded to be particularly salient within the women's movement due to preparations for the Fourth World Conference on Women and availability of Ford Foundation funding. More "pure" NGOs tend to be more interested in foreign ties than those under Fulian, and they more actively pursue international exchanges. This difference is also evident in more scholarly "NGOs," which, while tied to their universities, have more latitude in their activities. For instance, Fulian's Women's Studies Institute of China, while more open than other Fulian bodies due to its scholarly nature and its interest in international ties, is still regarded as more closed than other women's studies centers. Given the increasing usage of the term "NGO" in China, it would additionally seem that foreign ties are of importance in how women choose to "name" their activities, and awareness of the inconsistencies of usage of the term NGO indicates that a multiplicity of social forms are emerging in China today. CONCLUSIONS The emergence of a Chinese women's movement in the 1990s with such forms of organizational diversity is evidence that elements of "global civil society" have permeated social forms in China. By differentiating between their groups and the Women's Federation, women's movement activists demonstrate that the usage of the term "NGO" by Chinese is not just a rhetorical exercise in enhancing global legitimacy, but also that the concept does have very concrete meanings in China, meanings that lead to some groups being more validly regarded as "non-governmental" than others. Chinese society is currently characterized by measures of increasing organizational autonomy that can promote certain types of social movement development. However, as is also evidenced in the case of the contemporary Chinese women's movement, images of "global civil society" providing localized social forms that contribute to the potential undermining of state authority must be supplemented with attention to the continuing ways that "NGOs" are subjected to the regulation of the Chinese state. In particular, the "symbiotic" nature of the Chinese women's movement is organizationally evident in the fact that most of its NGOs have supervisory work units within the governmental apparatus, and that they have come to adopt a view of "non-governmental organization" that stresses the potentiality of this form of organization to engage in cooperative, rather than conflictual, relations with the state. Such cooperation is also apparent in the ways that new discourses have been incorporated into the women's movement during the 1990s, a topic I will take up in the following chapter.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Chinese Feminism Faces Globalization NOTES Guakm can be also translated as "hanging."

Including the founder of one of the most independent of the Beijing NGOs, who is a member of one of the "democratic" minority parties. For a brief discussion on the phenomenon of "verticality" in the Chinese political system see White, Howell, and Shang (1996, p. 22). Li discusses this in Li Xiaojiang (1994b). Other writings that relate to this debate include Barlow (1994), and Li Xiaojiang (1994a), both in Gilmartin et al. (1994). One of the major activities for the East Meets West Translation Group in the leadup to the FWCW was translating this book so it could be published both in English and Chinese. White, Howell, and Shang (1996, p. 196) also notice such lacunae, finding that situations such as variable local interpretation of the regulations and rapid social change make total compliance with the regulations difficult to accomplish.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER SEVEN

Framing in the Chinese Women's Movement

Perhaps one of the most significant effects of globalization can be viewed in local cultural forms. This includes social movements, and the Chinese women's movement, due to its particular ties to the international sphere in the 1990s, has been a particular agent as well as recipient of such effects. As discussed in the previous chapter, there is an increasing awareness among Chinese activists that the women's movement in Communist China has largely been top-down and state-led. The 1990s have witnessed the emergence of a greater sense of "collective identity" among Chinese women's movement activists, and in particular a greater sense of their own agency. Part of this process has included the wider introduction of issues originating outside of China, and particularly learned about in the process of preparing for the Fourth World Conference on Women. Such aspects of "globalized culture" have, however, been interpreted and discussed in uniquely Chinese terms, and in ways that make them more amenable to acceptance by the state as well as by societal elements. In particular, activists have taken advantage of existing state commitments to gender equality to "frame" new issue agendas for the contemporary Chinese women's movement. In this chapter, I will first briefly discuss the general cultural implications of reform for Chinese "civil society." I will then look at elements of collective identity among Chinese women's movement activists, as well as their increased view of commonalities with the international feminist movement. Finally, I will look in detail at the ways in which activists seek to introduce new issues gleaned from abroad to a wider Chinese audience.

REFORM AND CULTURAL CHANGES Along with political, economic, and social effects of the reforms contributing to what some view to be the emergence of some type of "civil society" in post-Mao China, there have also been important cultural changes. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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"Culture" is a central concept in much of the literature on social movement "framing," which tends to view culture as not only "a long-enduring set of symbols and beliefs" but also something that can be seen in terms of "emergence and creation" (Zald 1996). Approaches to Chinese "political culture" in recent years have also sought to view culture not as static, but as constantly negotiated (Perry 1994), not just "embedded in the fabric of institutions," but also "reinterpreted, refashioned, and regenerated" by individuals within these institutions (Link, Madsen, and Pickowicz 1989a, P. 3 ) . The reforms have clearly contributed to such fluidity in culture. The "greater cultural openness" under the reforms has been cited by some analysts as one cause of "the reemergence of civil society." For instance, David Strand looks at the "cultural roots" of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, as a "rhetoric of remonstrance and retribution" (Strand 1990, pp. 10, 16). At the same time, the reforms have not only featured cultural continuities,' but also important cultural changes in Chinese society. For instance, some view the reforms as contributing to the emergence of what might be called "public opinion" (McCormick, Su Shaozhi, and Xiao Xiaoming 1992, pp. 188-189), and also to an increasing salience for the role of the "individual" in Chinese culture (Pye 1996). These developments have affected the women's movement, for example, in the expanding local discourse on gender equality. There have also been important international-level developments that have affected the cultural basis for social organizing in contemporary China. In general, there has been increasing openness in cultural and literary areas, as well as greater access to information, travel, and "contact with foreigners and foreign ways of thinking" under the reforms (Gold 1990, pp. 27-28). These cultural changes have led to a general expansion in the types of discourses available to those pursuing social movement activity. For instance, as I have already discussed, there has been an increased interest in the international women's movement among activists in the Chinese women's movement. This in turn has transformed state as well as societal attitudes towards particular women's issues.

THE CREATION OF COLLECTIVE IDENTITY IN THE BEIJING WOMEN'S MOVEMENT As I have already discussed in Chapter 5, one component of the emergence of "NGO" forms of women's organizing was the view that these groups were taking on work that the state, through the Women's Federation, has been unwilling or unable to do. And in Chapter 6 I have examined the role that "voluntarism" plays as one of the characteristics of Chinese women activists' views of "NGOs." These views on the part of many activists in women's studies and other N G O activities is reflective of an increasing sense of agency among certain women, and their views that they themselves Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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have the ability to take action to influence their own destinies, as well as those of other women. Such a formation of "collective identity" among women, and their endeavors to take action on this identity, is evident along several lines. First, conventional views of gender liberation under the CCP have viewed it as part and parcel of the larger class liberation that was divined to be an inevitable outcome of Communist Party rule in China. Resolutions of women's problems were viewed to be achieved by state action, rather than by the impetus of individuals and social groups. This is evident in, for instance, entries in the four-volume Chinese Women3 Encyclopedia, which, while it introduces many new concepts to its readership, also tends to feature rather conventional, Marxist analyses of women's issues. The entry on "gender role behavior" (xingbie juese xingwei), for instance, uses several traditional Chinese maxims on male-female relations to describe the past situation, such as "the male is superior to the female (nanzunnubei)," but sees progress in this area as a consequence of general social development: "Owing to specific social and cultural changes along with changes in the socio-economic base, gender role behavior is not immutable and frozen" (Lu Yueshan 1995a, pp. 319-320). Viewing gender liberation to be a product of larger social progress is also evident in the entry on "women's problems" or "women's issues" (funu wenti) in another volume of the Encyclopedia, which notes that funu wenti "can through the socialist system be perfected and obtain adjustment and resolution. When humanity enters communist society, women's problems will tend to wither away, causing the realization of genuine male-female equality" (Lu Yueshan 1995b, pp. 17-18). Such a view of women's liberation essentially means that women are passive recipients of whatever changes the larger social structure brings to them. And this perspective is evident in, for instance, this view of a Fulian cadre, a Compulsory Activist, regarding the relevance of feminism to the position and activities of the Women's Federation: "Fulian does not advocate extreme feminism, we don't agree with extreme feminist viewpoints. I am saying that we don't agree that society's main contradiction is between the two sexes, we at Fulian do not agree with this, we think men and women should hand in hand do things in common." In other words, gender identity, in Fulian's conventional perspective, is only part of larger social relationships that can be resolved through state-mandated policies on women, and mobilization on gender-specific grounds is not necessary to resolve these problems. However, the post-Mao era has been characterized by an increasing sense among many women of the need to supplement statist action with their own initiative. This creation of such a "collective identity" (Castells 1997; Melucci 1995; Taylor and Whittier 1995; Taylor and Whittier 1992) began, as I have discussed in the preceding chapters, with increasing interest in "women's issues" and women's studies during the 1980s. It reached Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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its zenith during the preparation, in the early 1990s, for the Fourth World Conference on Women. Just prior to China being named the host of the FWCW, the Ford Foundation began its program on Reproductive Health and Population in China and was able to begin to fund women's organizations, including the Women's Federation and other smaller groups. As a Ford program advisor noted, "We used funding to small, low-funded groups as the basis of the movement. This was to give groups the sense that they could do something, because most Chinese have been raised in the context of mass actions. We wanted them to see that small-scale, local work is worthwhile." It can thus be seen that one influence of international funding, especially that from the Ford Foundation, was to create a greater sense of agency among Chinese women's movement activist^.^ Greater international contacts especially provided by the preparations for the FWCW and its NGO Forum had other effects on activist collective identity as well. First, the conference provided explicit evidence regarding the efficacy of more grassroots strategies for women's liberation than those present in China. As noted in Chapter 6, activists often favorably compare foreign women's movement forms with those of the state-led, top-down women's movement as it has existed over the past decades in Communist China. This was a lesson learned by many Chinese activists during the preparatory process. For instance, a journalist who traveled to Africa for an NGO preparatory meeting observed the benefits of China's hierarchical system of Women's Federations at all levels from village to center, but also noted the "indomitable vitality" of grassroots African women's organizations. She concluded that ""Maybe since we have a well-organized system and network, we lack the sense of being our own masters, and usually are not active participants. We just wait for orders or arrangements from above. Can we combine the two advantages and make them an even bigger one?" (in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 72). Other women have also noted the desirability of some aspects of more grassroots-level foreign women's movement forms. A psychology professor active as a women's NGO volunteer noted that "In China, women's liberation has not made much progress, and women's liberation is understood in a very narrow sense ....After liberation in 1949, the social status of most Chinese women improved. However, it was the government who brought this about. I think at this stage, women were liberated only superficially, because their ideas had not changed." She noted that one effect of this state-led "liberation" was that most calls to the Women's Hotline in Beijing were from women who "do not know their rights as citizens." She went on to observe that Our foreign counterparts have done a lot in this respect, and this has deeply touched me. I think first of all they have a strong sense of feminism; secondly, they are fighting for their rightful image in the interest of women; thirdly, they are taking action rather than only talking; fourthly, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Framing in the Chinese Women's Movement they have shown their strength; for example, they forced their government to revise the law. They have become an influential social power (in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 262-263).

The capability of foreign women to recognize their own rights and act upon them has been admired by Chinese feminists, as have some of the effects of these actions. Such lessons about the beneficial aspects of different types of women's organizing came in other ways as well. The emphasis on "action" at international NGO preparatory meetings made a significant impact on some Chinese participants, as did the lesson that one activist learned that the women's movement is "our awakening and the constant striving for rights." One activist felt that "we Chinese women will learn from the successful experiences of the international women's movement" in promoting the influence of women on the policy-making process at the national level. In general, the FWCW and NGO Forum themselves provided one such opportunity for Chinese women (all in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 104, 309, 157). Similar attitudes were expressed in many interviews with activists, although they expressed differential attitudes about the effects of the conference on activism. A journalist at a women's magazine felt that relatively "cultured" people in Beijing, especially intellectuals, were very aware of and concerned about the conference, while "ordinary women" (putong funu) were less cognizant of the conference and related women's issues. However, a history professor noted the influence of the conference and its accompanying publicity blitz in increasing awareness about women's issues: "Before the conference everyone still did not know that women still have troubles, but now, ordinary women also know that they have their own problems." There are increasing views expressed by activists regarding women's own need to take action, which enables us to observe the emergence of more self-aware subject identities in China. One important term employed by many activists is "consciousness" (yishi),and they regard their activities as contributing to rectifying what is regarded as Chinese women's generally low gender consciousness. For instance, a journalist at World Women's Vision magazine noted that "Raising consciousness is a purpose of our magazine, for the self-cultivation and self-respect of women, and to help women with the better opportunities provided by the reforms." However, other women's movement participants noted the need for such activities in the wake of the problems engendered by the market reforms, and the corresponding decline in state protection for women. For instance, one activist who works for the United Nations noted that the "social injustice" of the market economy "requires the concern and efforts of the whole society and, moreover, the struggle of a future generation of daughters." The necessity of promoting the "awakening of women's self-awareness" (in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 10, 114) has been noted by myriad activists. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Indeed, one of the causes of women's problems in the reform context has been asserted by many to be the low level of just such self-consciousness. A professor in a women's studies center noted that a typical problem of women in the context of the reforms is that "their consciousness is not too strong. People possessing women's consciousness (nuxing yishi) are a minority. In resolving women's own problems the most important is women's own awakening. Second it is social." Another activist noted that while "externally" women face problems of discrimination and lack of political power, "internally" they also confront the issues of "lack of gender consciousness" and "passivity." Views of the need for just such action to increase women's own consciousness of their rights is evident in many of the rationales given for activist work. One N G O leader noted the continuing pervasiveness of "traditional concepts, which are very important and are also deep-rooted" in perpetuating China as a "society with patriarchy as the center." She noted her desire "to educate women, and make them overcome their own weak points, and to learn how to use the law to protect themselves.'' A professor noted the special role played by intellectuals in leading these efforts: "Through research and social work, we both study and do practical things. Because women have many problems, intellectuals should do things-if intellectual women don't research them then who will? We are calling to rural women, we can see that are activities are influential and are mobilizing women to develop themselves. Women want liberation and to raise themselves.'' This wider role played by intellectual women and by "women's studies" is evident in the stated goals of the non-governmental Women's Research Institute, founded in 1988, which include researching women's issues, but also "to organize activities to improve women's educational level, to arouse their sense of independence, to develop their wisdom, and to help them to recognize their own value and ease their stress" (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 3 ) . Some felt that the conference itself provided increased women's consciousness and awareness of women's continuing inequality, and even that, due to extensive domestic media coverage of the conference (e.g., Xinhua 1995), "Women now feel they themselves can speak regarding equality. In the past, only leaders could speak, and people had an attitude that 'the leader represents me.'" In interviews, many activists contrasted the favorable policies of the Chinese state regarding women's issues with their uneven implementation. This can be seen as one reason for women's desire to engage in their own women's movement activities, and returns us once again to the notion that NGOs are doing work that the state does not do. One foreign term that has been recently introduced in this context is "empowerment." It is variously translated in Chinese, including shi juyou quanli (literally, "to cause to possess power") (Hom and Xin Chunying 1995, pp. 100-101)' fuquan ("endowing with power"), and quanneng ("enabling with power"). The Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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latter two translations are discussed in an article by a journalist and activist seeking to discern the best translation for the term and to discuss its relevance in the Chinese context (Feng Yuan 1996; the following analysis and quotes are from this article). The journalist, Feng Yuan, notes the ubiquity of the term "women's empowerment" in the major documents resulting from the FWCW, the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, as well as in numerous other foreign publications on women. In the article, published in Collection of Women's Studies, the journal of the Women's Research Institute of China, she seeks to come to an understanding of the term's meaning: The process of empowerment is individual and it also is collective. Because it is through participation in a group, it can cause women to organize, to adopt consciousness of and ability to act and promote changes to obtain full and constant development. Empowering women (fuquan funu), can be seen as a continuing process with several inherent interrelated and mutually reinforcing factors ...Simply speaking, empowerment is a process that builds consciousness and ability, leads to even more equality, even greater influence on policy-making and decisions, and even greater transformative action.

She discusses the term not only in relation to how it should be translated and its Western origins, but also its relationship to Third World feminism, finding that "'empowering women' originated due to demands for equality not seeing results, but this new method of 'empowering women' also sprung up in the activities of Third World authors and grassroots organizations; women's subordination is not only men's problem, at the same time it is also owing to the oppression of colonialism and neo-colonialism." She discusses how the term has been implemented in South Asia particularly through economic intervention and rural development programs. In this sense, she establishes a more "local" basis for the term's employment in China, as many Chinese women's movement activists regard themselves .~ Feng argues that "accurate interpretaas part of the Third W ~ r l dIndeed, tion and translation of certain key terms are of great significance to women's studies in China, to successful implementation of the Platform for Action, and the promotion of a women's movement in China." "Empowerment" is merely one of the "many women's studies accomplishments rapidly being absorbed into the practice of the women's movement, in a large number of global women's issues' 'introduction from elsewhere' (yinjin)." Some of these terms listed by Feng include, in addition to "empowerment," "gender" (translated as shehui xingbie, or "social gender"), "engendering" (shi juyou shehui xingbie yishi, or to "cause to possess social gender consciousness"), and "gender mainstreaming" (xingbie zhuliuhua, a fairly literal translation of the original English). I will below more extensively discuss the question of terms introduced to the Chinese women's movement from abroad. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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What is of particular significance here is the view that such "empowerment," both individual and collective, is of utility to the Chinese women's movement at this juncture. Women are increasingly seen to be requiring the kinds of "consciousness" and "participation" detailed in Feng's article. This is not to say, however, that activists regard women as a unified mass with wholly shared interests and goals. There is also a great awareness of and sensitivity to the differences among women in contemporary China, a further indication of the emergence of multiple identities and sub-identities. One Career Activist listed various types of women-"rural, urban, intellectual, working, old, young7'-and the diverse problems they are confronting. A particularly salient differentiation is the clear sense of the urban-rural divide and the different issues faced by women in each of these settings. While some argue that this promotes divisions among women (Xiao-Zhou 199711998), there is also a clear desire among many urban women's movement activists to assist their rural sisters (see, e.g., Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 66-72). There has also been increasing consciousness among young women of their own issues and struggles, and a promotion of their activism (e.g., China-Canada Young Women's Project 1995; Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 138-143). Despite these differences, however, there has also been an increasing sense of commonality with the world women's movement, as I will now discuss. VIEWS OF GLOBAL "COMMON PROBLEMS" One very significant effect of the convening of the FWCW in China was its generation of increased awareness of the international women's movement. While Chinese women's movement activists began to engage in international exchanges during the 1980s, this process really entered its most involved period in the lead-up to the FWCW (Du Fangqin 1996). During this period, as I discussed in Chapter 6, there was a much increased desire to jiegui, or "connect the rails" with the international women's movement. This provided for an important learning process for both activists and the state, one characterized by a "social construction of similarity" (McAdam and Rucht 1993, p. 60) between the Chinese and the international women's movements. A common refrain among activists regarding the perspectives they gained due to the FWCW was the view that women around the world face "common problems" (gongtong wenti). For instance, a Fulian researcher noted the impact that the conference had on her views of women's issues: "After arriving at the research institute, I had contact with women's problems and felt these problems were very universal. When I went to the FWCW, I even more felt that this is a global problem (quanshijie de wenti)." Other activists noted similar effects on their views on women's issues resulting from preparation for and attendance at the conference. Some activists emphasized the possibility of mutual learning from movements addressing similar as well as disparate issues. A young activist mused about her Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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mother's and grandmother's struggles, and their preeminent desires for her to find a good husband, and placed her newfound "feminist" identity in an international context: "I finally understood, women's issues are global and China is no exception." Another activist also clarified her conceptions and misconceptions about "feminism" after her exposure to the international women's movement: I feel that many aspects of women's issues transcend borders. Women worldwide, despite their differences, face many common problems. However, we have little opportunity to communicate, especially between China and foreign countries. Regarding the field of women's studies, we call it 'women's problems,' while it is known as the 'women's movement' or 'feminism' abroad. This difference is caused by a lack of communication.

A young woman active in a women's N G O who attended a preparatory meeting in Argentina mused about telling her grandmother about what she saw: "I will tell my grandmother that I have seen a growing worldwide feminist movement at the Forum. This movement contains a great variety of voices. Here we believe in one grand cause. Here we are working in different ways to achieve the same goal" (Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 10, 302, 131). Thus, connection to the world women's movement, despite previously negative views about "feminism," caused many Chinese activists to realize that the issues they were confronting were not so different from those elsewhere. These include so-called "sensitive" problems (mingan wenti). This also motivated many women to act on their new knowledge. One newspaper journalist discussed a television reporter colleague of hers who attended the N G O Forum, and "discovered women have so many problems, and was every day excited by many things. She went home, wrote some articles, and now wants to use women's insights in her research." Other NGO activists have legitimated their own work in supplementing state-level commitments to the promotion of women's equality using the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies (Wang Xingjuan 1995b). And even the Women's Federation has changed its view regarding international linkages, according to a researcher at the Women's Institute of China: "In researching women's issues, in the past it was each researching themselves, but now it is different. We now feel women's issues are not sealed up, everyone does many exchanges, and we conduct comparative research.'' This interest in comparative research and its benefits for Chinese women is an important outcome of the increased global perspective on women's problems. Indeed, perhaps the more significant outcome of enhanced perspectives on women's commonalities worldwide has been the greater openness in ability for activists to discuss varying women's issues-to this extent, they have been "depoliticized," in the sense that they have been removed from the realm of issues of relevance to the Chinese state's authority4. In particular, this means that activists can engage in circumscribed discussions and even Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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critiques on new issues, and not have this be regarded as direct criticism of the state or the Party. To some extent this governmental-level learning process began even prior to the actual convening of the FWCW in September 1995. In the 1980s, there continued to be an emphasis by Chinese women's movement leaders on the differences among countries in the circumstances of their women's movements and status of women, as is evidenced in a speech given by an official Chinese delegate at a 1987 implementation meeting regarding the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies which had been adopted two years previously: Owing to differences in the national conditions of each area and each country, the progress of women's work is not balanced. The Commission on Women's Status, when monitoring and verifying situations of the document's im~lementation,should consider these kinds of characteristics, and sufficiently allow each country to have its own emphases when implementing (Xie Qimei and Wang Xingfang 1995, p. 357).

This stress on "national conditions" by Chinese officials, a common refrain in Chinese human rights discourse, was changed somewhat as China prepared for the women's conference and learned more about women's condition in other countries. For instance, in an article introducing the FWCW to a more general readership, Fulian Chairperson Chen Muhua noted that despite various cross-country differences in social systems, levels of economic development, levels of political participation, and religious customs, women "are still confronting many common problems" (Chen Muhua 1994, p. 16). Thus, in the lead-up to the conference, commonality began to exceed difference in discussions of women's issues. And the conference itself only enhanced these perspectives. As discussed in Chapter 5, the perceived "success" of the conference's convening led to a continuing general openness in the Beijing women's movement sphere following its conclusion. Activists located the basic reasons for this situation in the conference itself; the relatively smooth convening of the conference and the NGO Forum led to a more relaxed attitude on women's issues. A women's studies scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences noted her observation that Before the conference the government had some fears. There was criticism from the West of governmental policies on women. Then after the conference the government saw that the criticism was of a social problem, not a governmental problem. So the government said you could discuss these things.

This political change in the status of women's issues was an important transformation, and was echoed by other activists. One N G O activist whose full-time position is with the Women's Federation noted that the FWCW did affect the attitudes of the state on women's issues: Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Framing in the Chinese Women's Movement First, it made the government see that women's problems are the concern of the entire world and every country. Second, the government originally thought that women's status was high enough and it did not want to raise it, but the discussions of the FWCW encouraged the government. If not for the FWCW, the government's understanding would not be so deep.

Not only did the FWCW encourage the state to adopt a more tolerant position regarding discussion of women's issues, it also increased the range of issues that were deemed to be permissible to discuss. This can be viewed as an effect of the "depoliticization" process, and the viewing of women's issues as social issues rather than ones directly affecting state power. A lawyer working for a women's N G O observed this about the "discussability" of women's issues: The women's sphere is somewhat better than the political sphere, there is nothing that we cannot discuss. For example, prostitution, in the past was relatively closed, now prostitution and visiting prostitutes are openly reported. Also abducting and selling women, and domestic violence.

This more permissive environment included alterations and openings in the Women's Federation itself. An American active in the Beijing women's movement community observed the effects of the conference on the Women's Federation and its discourses: The list of issues that could be discussed more than doubled. It was a process of experience, and Fulian grew. It was becoming acceptable to the international community. There were new issues, such as the environment and young women, as well as issues, such as human rights and violence, that they thought they could avoid but could not. The conference definitely put new ideas on the agenda.'

I will discuss some of these new issues, and their incorporation into the "frames" of the Beijing women's movement, below. Other activists, albeit in a minority, were more pessimistic about the range of issues that could be truly openly discussed. One journalist noted "I think there are a lot" of issues that cannot be discussed, including "family planning, lesbians, and some crimes, especially details of crimes-these view certainly does point out the continuing hazards kinds of i~sues."~This of conducting a social movement in a repressive context, where "depoliticization" can mean that issues are able to be discussed, but the range of actions able to be taken is limited and there is still a dependence on state forbearance. Naihua Zhang notes that the tendency prior to the FWCW on the part of women's movement activists to emphasize the differences from the West characterizing the Chinese women's movement "runs the risk of depoliticizing the feminist struggle and women's studies in China" (1995, p. 37). However, increasing adoption of views of more "common" elements with the world women's movement, including that in the West, has not necessarily increased the movement's "politicization." Instead, there Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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continues to be a negotiated relationship with the state regarding what issues are valid for the movement to address. This points to the risks of the contention that there was a continuing need for state intervention with regard to women's issues in the 1980s, as was argued by Emily Honig and Gail Hershatter (1988, p. 340). These authors noted the lack of a possibility for autonomous political action at that time, and, while a more autonomous women's movement has sprung up since then, it is still circumscribed to some extent by what the state deems acceptable. As long as this is the case, a truly open discourse on women's situation and the conditions of liberation will be difficult to achieve. NEW ISSUE AGENDAS IN THE CHINESE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT The interest in international exchanges and the view of the existence of "common problems'' facing the world's women has contributed to a greater element of "hybridity" and "cosmopolitanism" in the movement and the issues it addresses, or its "issue agenda'' (McCarthy, Smith, and Zald 1996). New terminologies, deriving from foreign sources, have entered the Chinese women's movement during the 1990s, as I will subsequently discuss. At the same time, these new issues are adopted and discussed in ways amenable to local cultural meanings. In particular, problems have been named in new ways, but this naming goes beyond mere semantics and gets to differing interpretations for the sources of and solutions to them (see Snow and Benford 1992, p. 136; Tarrow 1994, p. 122). While activists are particularly interested in these concepts, they also seek to introduce them to wider audiences through various means. In this section, I will first look at ways that activists endeavor to disseminate their "framings" in wider settings, and to more general audiences, both in the state and in the general population. Then, I will look at some of the new concepts that have been introduced to the women's movement in the 1990s, and show their novelty in movement discourses. Then, I will elaborate on some of these terms, discussing the ways that they have been introduced, disseminated to the wider public, and the level to which they have been accepted as terms relevant to the contemporary Chinese experience. Channels of Influence I have already discussed the ways in which a "collective identity'' has formed among women's movement activists, and the ways in which they view a women's social movement to be imperative in the post-Mao context. While the movement is admittedly a very small group of women composed largely of elite intellectuals, there are various ways that they seek to reach larger segments of the population, in order to spread their concepts and eventually to produce change. This goes beyond the large state-connected organs such as the Women's Federation, who possess important ties to the similarly state-connected instruments of the mass Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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media and policy-making, and extends to more truly non-governmental women's studies centers and other organizations, who, even while doing research, also seek to promote wider social relevance for their activities. Such efforts employ a variety of tactics, along similar dimensions to those described by Snow et al. (1986)-face-to-face vs. mediated, and private vs. public aspects. In general, women's studies activists have a great concern for the larger relevance of their research. Rarely is it regarded as mere theory, but instead there is a constant interest in finding new and better ways to resolve problems. Various activists use diverse methods to ensure just such a wider impact. First, many of the Chinese women's NGOs fall into the category of "service-provider organizations" (Mueller 1995). They particularly are focused on providing counseling to women in need.'This occurs in various forms-utilizing telephone hotlines, regular office hours, and setting up counseling booths on city streets. Some groups provide psychological services, while others provide legal advice and even legal counsel. To these ends, groups utilize the services of various experts whose primary interest is not necessarily women's studies-psychologists, social workers, medical doctors, nurses, and lawyers. N G O groups also run various training programs. Some are for the purpose of training these expert advisors in social work techniques, some of which are specifically woman-focused. These advisors are not just social workers, however, but also work in various state-level bodies such as the Women's Federation and the Trade Unions. For instance, one Beijing N G O leader often goes to the provinces to conduct trainings of Fulian cadres: We have a lot of contact with Fulian, last month I was in Ningbo for 20 days for a "training workshop." I was invited by the provincial-level Trade Union and Fulian. We originally estimated that 200 people would come to hear the class, but we had more than 1000 people, we did the class 20 times. The class is regarding "Women, Marriage, and Family In Transitional China" ...We do relatively grassroots work, with women's cadres and social workers. We talk about how to handle clients' problems, because in recent years many women are seeking help.

NGOs also have engaged in trainings of women government officials on topics such as organizational and psychological skilk8 Groups also have engaged in various discussion seminars and "salons" on women's issues-such as those run by the Women's Research Institute in its early years, as well as those conducted by the Institute's associated group, the Singles Weekend Club (Women's Research Institute 1995, pp. 5-7). These trainings and seminars provide for a way for groups to influence people beyond their own small circle of leaders and active participants. The trainings are an especially interesting element, in which the NGOs use their expertise to influence the state and the Women's Federation. But the seminars are useful as well in that they spread ideas to individuals outside the core of the women's movement. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Such a propagation of women's movement ideas also occurs through various forms of the media. For instance, some NGOs publish book series regarding the issues with which they are dealing9A leading women's studies activist, Li Xiaojiang of Zhengzhou University, edits a book series established in the 1980s titled Funu Yanjiu Congshu (Women's Studies Book Series), with book titles including Nuxing Guannian De Yanbian (The Evolution of Women's Concepts) (Du Fangqin 1988), and Guoji Funu Yundong, 1789-1989 (The International Women's Movement, 1789-1989) (Min Dongchao 1991). Chen Yiyun, a social worker and the founder of the Jinglun Family Science Center in Beijing, has also authored or edited books in a series titled Jiating Kexue Xilie Congshu (Family Science Book Series) (Chen Yiyun 1994a; 199413; 1994d; 1994e), which are used in the Center's training courses. And the Women's Hotline has published a book series, the Funu Rexian Congshu (Women's Hotline Book Series), that publishes actual queries and counselors' responses from the Hotline, which tapes all of its calls (Ding Juan et al. 1995; Ding Ning et al. 1995; Huang Hengyu et al. 1995; Le Ping et al. 1995). These books are edited by various expert counselors who volunteer at the Hotline.lo Both the Family Science and the Hotline book series were inexpensively priced, at less than U.S. $1 per volume, and available to the general public in Beijing bookstores. In this way, women's activists can begin to disseminate their ideas and modes for solving problems to a wider audience than those people directly experiencing their counseling and trainings. Additionally, NGOs have received extensive coverage in various domestic (as well as international) forms of media, and in that way receive some free and much-needed publicity regarding their work. Indeed, some groups have primarily relied on journalistic interest in their activities to publicize them. One NGO participant noted that, after her group's founding, "Much of our publicity has been newspapers publishing information about us. Beijing's two television stations both have covered us. Our telephone number is in the newspaper, and was broadcast on television." A number of NGOs tend to rely on domestic newspaper and television journalism for their publicity. This is particularly due to budgetary constraints, but also does reflect the relative "acceptability" and well-connected nature of women's activists. Women's issues also have received coverage due to women journalists in particular taking an interest in them and covering their work. As discussed in Chapter 3, the China Capital Women Journalists' Association organizes women based precisely on their gender and has done some work to promote gender-sensitive journalistic practices. For instance, one if its leading members, Xiong Lei, spoke at a Plenary Session of the N G O Forum in Huairou, discussing a survey conducted by the Association of coverage of women and gender issues by China's mainstream press and encouraging the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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press to increase its coverage of these issues. She argued that there is a need for a "cooperative relationship with our male colleagues'' in order to promote a more gender-balanced media (Xiong Lei 1996)-a strategy that underlies much Chinese women's movement activism. The Association also conducts conferences to discuss its activities and ideas-at one conference, journalists performed a skit parodying the traditional gender roles pervading Chinese television advertisements, but also discussed serious issues such as poor conditions for women workers in factories as well as rural outreach strategies. One publication chose to use a financial award it received to give scholarships to female university students." In these ways, journalists raise their own gender consciousness and also then spread these ideas to the larger public. There was a great deal of media attention to issues of "malefemale inequality" in the lead-up to the women's conference.12Journalists who attended the NGO preparatory conferences wrote and broadcast about their experiences-one well-known radio journalist has a number of women's oriented radio programs and used them to discuss her experiences of the preparatory meetings (see Wang Yongchen 1995). Additionally, there are radio and television journalists at a number of media outlets, including the central radio and television stations, who are specifically interested in women's issues and do reporting on them (Ford Foundation 1995). For instance, the Women's Hotline has been featured in a nine-episode series on China Central Television, and some of its counselors have done programs at Beijing Radio (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 47). Also providing for discussion of women's issues beyond women's movement spheres are more general academic journals, which have introduced general debates on women's issues, including articles authored by leading women's studies activists (e.g., Li Yinhe 199413; Liu Bohong 1994a),as well as articles discussing the goings-on at conferences and exchanges on women's studies (Li Xuejun 1995). And a wide variety of women's magazines provide a more popular spin on many topics of interest to women's studies and the women's movement (Ford Foundation 1997). This includes various introductions to the FWCW and United Nations women's activities found in magazines such as Marriage and Family, Women's Studies, and World Women's Vision. Marriage and Family particularly circulates to more rural areas, and many of its features are particularly geared to issues relating to rural women. Most of the letters to this magazine seeking help or just asking questions come from the countryside. Such outreach to rural areas is of particular importance given the large proportion of China's population in the countryside, and the many observations of the particularly low "cultural quality" of women there.13A magazine particularly geared to rural women, the first of its kind in China, was founded in 1993 by a China Women's News editor, Xie Lihua, with financial assistance from the Ford Foundation. As of 1995 this monthly magazine, Nongjianu Baishitong (Rural Women Knowing All), had a circulation Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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of 165,000, and it is distributed with the assistance of Fulian to rural areas throughout China. The magazine has featured articles about diverse subjects, including introducing rural women to the FWCW as well as China's laws and organizations promoting women's rights (Rural Women Knowing All 1995a; Rural Women Knowing All 199513; Si Tu 1995). The magazine additionally seeks to address the thoughts and concerns of its rural readers through publishing or answering every letter it receives from rural women. It also has a number of other rural-oriented activities, including a foundation to support rural women's education and development, activities encouraging rural women to write, and a program to eliminate illiteracy. The latter is funded by the Global Fund for Women. To promote literacy, it utilizes a textbook published by Rural Women Knowing All's own editorial staff which discusses legal and political as well as practical matters (Zhao Shilin 1994). Other women's organizations also engage in various rural outreach programs. One organization, the Rural Women's Development Association, founded in February 1993, mobilizes female urban university students to go to the countryside to provide "agricultural, medical, and legal advice." As mentioned in Chapter 3, the People's University Women's Studies Center particularly focuses its attention on its "Women's Mobile School," which goes to villages, particularly Longju village in Hebei Province, "to conduct family counseling and women and children's health protection services" (Sha Lianxiang 1995, p. 159). These programs ensure that the concepts of the urban-centered women's movement transcend urban areas and can affect the lives of China's majority of women who live in the countryside. New Issues in the Chinese Women's Movement While Chinese women's movement activists use various means to spread their viewpoints from their own elite circles to the larger population, many of the concepts that they are employing have also experienced their own process of dissemination, in this case from the international women's movement into the Chinese context. Activists are aware, in the words of one journalist, of "the dialectical relationship between the native and the foreign" (quoted in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 69), and seek to incorporate this relationship into how they integrate new issues into the movement. In this respect, the "exogenous" cultural influences of the women's movement have particularly affected the discourses it employs in the 1990s, ultimately adding to the women's movement's "cultural stock" (Zald 1996). One way that this occurs is simply through the process of translating foreign terms into Chinese, a process already discussed above with respect to " e m p ~ w e r m e n t . " ~ ~the A t same time, however, issues are ultimately still subject to state approval in terms of how and where they can be discussed and addressed-as one N G O activist noted, "In the past domestic violence, prostitution, and sexual problems were forbidden areas. However, now it Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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seems there are not any issues that cannot be discussed, some are made public each year by the Ministry of Public Security." As argued above, the increasing acceptance by the state of discussion of such previously "sensitive" issues was connected to its realization that these are common world problems, and that debates about them were not necessarily indicative of criticism of the Chinese party-state. In fact, along with leading to more systematic "naming" and analysis of problems," the introduction of new issues to the Chinese women's movement has led to new interactions occurring between the women's movement and the state as the movement seeks to introduce these issues to policy discourses. In order to assess when particular issues began to be considered in the Chinese women's movement, I surveyed the tables of contents of 196 issues of women's magazines published from the years 1984 to 1996 for various terms, in order to at least estimate when these terms began to come into more common usage. The terms were chosen using several criteria. First, I looked for terms that are clearly introductions from foreign languages, especially English. These included "reproductive health" (shengyu jiankang or shengzhi jiankang), "sexual harassment" (xing saorao), "domestic violence" (jiating baoli), "feminism" (nuquanzhuyi or nuxingzhuyi) and several of its derivations (including nuquanyundong or "feminist movement," nuquanlilun or "feminist theory," and simply nuquan, a shortened term for nuquanzhuyi), and "non-governmental organization" (fei zhengfu zuzhi but also often appearing as the English "NGO"). Second, I looked for terms that historically have been "sensitive" in Chinese politics and society, including "prostitution" (changji or maiyin), "homosexuality" (tongxinglian or tongxingai), and "human rights" (renquan). Third, I looked for terms that, while not necessarily explicit introductions from English, still might indicate a shift in the ways of thinking of Chinese women's movement activists to perspectives beyond Marxist frameworks. These included "rights" (quanli) and "gender" (xingbie or the newer translation shehui xingbie, or "social gender"). Some of these overall results can be viewed in Figures 7.1-7.4. The magazines I surveyed began publication at varying dates in the postMao period, and I surveyed them from the earliest date available.16All are published in Beijing. First, the Fuyin Baokan Ziliao (Information from the Press), is published bi-monthly or quarterly and features reproduced articles from various sectors of interest to scholars and government functionaries. The women's version was titled Funu Zuzhi Yu Huodong (Women's Organizations and Activities) from 1984 to 1993, and then its name was changed to Funu Yanjiu (Women's Studies), an interesting indication in itself of changing identities of Chinese women's activities and activists. This publication features articles from both mainstream and academic sources, such as the People's Daily and academic sociology and population journals, as well as from women-specific sources, also both Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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6

-

5

-

-1-

,-0

5

reproductive health

+- sexual harassment domestic \ iolence

-I

-.-

4-

'*

b

2

3-

5

z 2

-

1

-

0

Figure 7.1---Number of articles with terms "reproductive health," "sexual harassment," or "domestic violence" in title

Figure 7.2---Total number of articles with terms "reproductive health," "sexual harassment." and "domestic violence" in title

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8

-

7

-

w

.-2 6 .-9 5 +

-I-

-.- prostitution

t 4-

0

E

i

3-

homosexuality

1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996

Figure 7.3---Number of articles with terms "human rights," "gender," "prostitution" or "homosexualit)-" in title

Figure 7.4---Total number of articles with terms "human rights," "gender," "prostitution" and "homosexuality" in title

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human rights

-r- gender

0

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popular and scholarly. These include China WomenS News and various women's magazines. I surveyed 45 issues of this publication, 1 from 1984, and 6 each from 1986,1988,1989,1991,1992, and 1993. 1994 was when the publication changed its name to Funu Yanjiu, and in 1994 and 1995 there were 4 issues each year. Second, Marriage and Family (Hunyin yu Jiating) magazine is the publication of the Chinese Marriage and Family Research Society, which is subordinate to the All-China Women's Federation. It has a circulation of about 300,000 throughout China, mostly in provinces and counties with relatively few subscribers in large cities. It was founded in 1985. I surveyed the contents of a total of 72 issues, 2 in 1985, 1 2 in 1986, 11 in 1990, 9 in 1991, 11 in 1992, 1 2 each in 1994 and 1995, and 3 in 1996. Third, WomenS Studies magazine began publication in 1988 as Funu Yanjiu. It is subsidiary to the Beijing municipal Women's Federation. At the end of 1992 it changed its name to Nuxing Yanjiu, when it changed from being a neibu, or internal circulation publication, to an openly circulated magazine. As I discussed in Chapter 5, this change in name, while the English translation can be the same, has certain implications relating to political and economic issues facing the women's movement. The commercialization of publishing due to the pressures of the market economy has led to changes in the magazine's format." "Nuxing" contains the word for "sex" and might therefore be more alluring to a readership increasingly interested in sensational subject-matter.18The magazine's circulation at the end of 1995 was around 60,000-its subscribers are mostly urban women throughout the country. I surveyed the contents of a total of 28 issues of this publication, 5 in 1991, 4 in 1992, 1 in 1994, 1 2 in 1995, and 6 in 1996. Fourth, Collection of WomenS Studies (Funu Yanjiu Luncong) is a more scholarly quarterly journal published by the Women's Research Institute of China. One overseas Chinese observer regards it to be "the major journal in China promulgating global feminism'' (Wang Zheng 1996, p. 195). This journal was founded in early 1992, and its readers include Fulian cadres, particularly those above the county level, researchers in Academies of Social Science and universities, government officials, and students-those with a "relatively high cultural level.'' Libraries also subscribe to it. It is an open circulation publication, but its circulation is relatively low, about 2000. In 1996 it was added to a CD-ROM series of Chinese scholarly periodicals. I surveyed the contents of a total of 18 issues of Collection of WomenS Studies, 4 each for 1992-1995, and 2 in 1996. Finally, World WomenS Vision (Shijie Funu Bolan) was founded in 1993, specifically in anticipation of the coming FWCW, by a Zhongguo Funu (Women of China) editor, Shang Shaohua. It experienced a fairly substantial increase in subscriptions, from a starting number of less than 10,000 to over 50,000 by the end of 1995. An editor ascribed this increase Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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to interest in the world women's movement due to the conference's convening in China-"before, people were only interested in domestic matters. Now no one says that. People are interested in feminist activities in other countries." The magazine is primarily purchased in prosperous areas, including rural areas with money. In a December 1996 contest of the State Cultural Department, the magazine was named one of the 20 "outstanding" magazines in China, out of a total of 6000 magazines and 4 7 women's magazines published in China. I surveyed the contents of a total of 33 issues of World Women3 Vision, 2 in 1993,12 each in 1994 and 1995, and 7 in 1996. To supplement this analysis, I also surveyed three bibliographies of books published on women since Liberation in 1949 (Qi Wenying 199513; Zang Jian and Dong Naiqiang 1996; Zhang Lihua, Ru Haitao, and Dong Naiqiang 1992). These list books published as recently as 1995, and with regard to several of the key terms, they reveal no books published with the selected terms in the title, including "sexual harassment," "non-governmental organization," "domestic violence," "reproductive health," and "human rights." One book, published in 1993, is titled "Homosexuality" (Zang Jian and Dong Naiqiang 1996, p. 405), and is the only one mentioned with this term in the title. A few scattered books address "gender" and "feminism."'9 The purpose of these analyses is to document that certain terms have only been introduced to the vocabulary of the Chinese women's movement since 1992, during the lead-up to the FWCW. There are three important steps in the diffusion of new issues to a social movement: (1)its introduction, or how and why does this occur? (2) its dissemination, or who talks about it and what do they say? and (3) its acceptance by wider publics, and in particular how the state incorporates the issue into its discourses. In the case of some new issues, perhaps surprisingly, they already have had larger resonance in various locales-not only in the women's studies research community, but also in publications that seek to spread them to wider populations, and even in policy recommendations and occasional statist pronouncements. I will first look at terms specifically introduced from English: "reproductive health," "sexual harassment," and "domestic violence." Then I will more briefly address the increasing discussion of some other new terms in the movement. "Reproductive health" (shengyujiankang) This term is perhaps particularly interesting due to its clear introduction by the Ford Foundation Reproductive Health program in China, inaugurated in early 1991. It is also of great interest due to its close relationship to the state's birth-limitation policy, a policy of great significance to the state and its various economic and social objectives. Much of the attention the policy has received outside of China has been on its negative effects on women-including the phenomenon of "missing girls" (Croll Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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1995, pp. 164-168). However, Tyrene White argues that the typical view of the birth planning policy, which tends to see women only as "objects of state regulation and control" and upholds the view that "women's sovereignty over their own bodies is muted," overlooks the fact that women originally were active subjects in the formation of the policy during the Maoist period, due to their calls for availability of birth control. However, she also does argue that the policy ultimately did lead to "unintended consequences-new and stricter forms of state control" (White 1994, pp. 251-252). Wolf also looks at the birth planning policy and its negative effects on women. She concludes that "the birth planning program that promises so much for women is also run at their expense" (Wolf 1985, p. 258). It would seem to be the case that the Ford Foundation Reproductive Health Program has begun to try to challenge some of these effects. This program begins to insert explicitly feminist concepts into the policy-making process, as well as to encourage the inclusion of women's own voices as a part of this process. The program, when it was introduced in 1991, began a process of particularly funding the Women's Federation to conduct research and activities on this issue.20To this end, the All-China Women's Federation organized a process of competitive bidding for funds by the various provincial Fulians. Ultimately 20 provinces put in bids, and ten were chosen to divide the Ford funds for the project (Xiao Jiang 1992; Xiao Ming 1992). In this process, Ford was funding what is essentially a statelevel body, the Women's Federation, to do this work, but Ford officials regarded this as a necessity due to Fulian's size and scope and its "need to learn." And such learning was indeed the case, as the process entailed the introduction of a wholly new concept to the Chinese context-that of "reproductive health" itself. This was a term that was unfamiliar in this setting, and it was originally translated as "reproduction and health" (shengyu yu jiankang) (Xiao Ming 1992). Eventually the terminology was refined, however, into "reproductive health" (shengyu jiankang), which more closely links the two concepts into an integrated whole. The Western origins of the notion have been observed by its Chinese supporters, including the head of the Women's Research Institute of China, Tao Chunfang, who in her introduction to one of the books detailing the results of the Ford-funded research discussed how the "feminist movement in the West" influenced international agencies, including the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Ford Foundation, to begin "to readjust their strategies towards reproductive health, enriching its connotations and models, and developing it in a direction beneficial to women" (Tao Chunfang and Xiao Yang 1995, p. iv). The Western origins of the term, and its subsequently culturally-specific content, required numerous discussions among the chief organizers in the "guidance group" of the Chinese project just to Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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capture meanings that transcend typical Chinese scientific-oriented terminologies, because there was no "adequate Chinese translation" for the term: All the terms that can be readily understood connote singularly biomedical notions of health and fail to acknowledge the connection between reproductive health and community viability, women's power and wellbeing, material conditions, and educational opportunity. (Burris 1994, p. 206).

Therefore, even terminological barriers had to be overcome in order to begin to create mutual understandings and progress on the project. Such understandings were promoted by the various activities conducted by the project. These included conferences in various locales to discuss the grant process as well as to formulate research methods and discuss results. Also at these conferences, trainings were conducted in the rather new qualitative research methods being employed as part of the project. Various articles were published, particularly in the Fulian Research Institute-run journal Collection of Women's Studies, regarding the project and its procedures, thus introducing a larger audience to the concept of "reproductive health" (e.g., Jiang Xiuhua 1994; Xiao Jiang 1992; Xiao Ming 1992). Additionally, various books on the subject of the research were eventually published, discussing research results as well as larger philosophical and methodological issues relating to them.21In this way, information on "reproductive health" was disseminated to various sources, and particularly to the women's studies community. Specific linkages were created between the Reproductive Health Program and the women's movement. In particular, this program introduced a much more gender-conscious notion of health into the Chinese setting, particularly by involving the Women's Federation. And this process explicitly included the introduction of "feminist viewpoints" (nuquanzhuyi guandian); the program in reproductive health explicitly focused on women themselves, whose very bodies are at the center of the policy and its implementation. Fundamentally, this standpoint derives from the conception of "reproductive health" itself, which might be said to have its origins in rather "Western" notions of individualism. In particular, "reproductive health" is largely defined in terms of various "rights" (Tao Chunfang and Xiao Yang 1995, pp. v-vi). It is a more wholistic concept that incorporates women's "total reproductive life cycle" (Xiao Ming 1992), and social and cultural as well as medical components. One aspect of the Ford Foundation's program in China has been various discussions on ethical issues, and two of the principles adopted in these discussions are that "The family planning programs and their implementation should respect persons," and that "The right of women and men to informed consent or informed choice should be Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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respected" in family planning matters (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1995, p. 2). This emphasis on "rights" of individuals vis-A-vis a state-promulgated policy indicates at the very least a shift in the thinking of some of those affected by as well as implementing the policy. And it focuses in particular on women-another conference of the Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics emphasized women's equal status, as well as the argument that "Reproductive health is a women's right" (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1994, p. 2). Views such as these help explain the ultimately wider usage of Reproductive Health Program funding in China -to not only support this particular project, but also other activities of the women's movement. In the words of Ford's program officer in Beijing from 1991 to 1995, Mary Ann Burris, this was due to the need for an "empowered women's movement" to support the reproductive health project. To some extent, the increasing acceptance of concepts such as these within the Chinese women's movement community has been caused, not surprisingly, by their relationship to the international sphere. I have already noted the discussion of Tao Chunfang of the acceptance of feminist principles regarding the issue of reproductive health by various international agencies. It would seem that such acceptance would also make the Chinese state more willing to acquiesce to consideration of such concepts as women's rights in reproductive health. And such a view would indeed seem to be the case: According to the Women's Federation, using the medical sociology point of view to research women's issues is a kind of new endeavor,, it oDens u~ and widens the sphere of women's studies. Reproduction and health are relating to the broad issue of women's personal rights and interests. It increasingly is receiving the attention of each country's government, women's organizations, world health organizations, and international society (Xiao Ming 1992). A

Thus, we are once again seeing that viewing issues as "common problems" in a global context makes them more apt to become acceptable issues to the Chinese party-state. Also, the view of this project as a "new endeavor" is of significance, for it highlights the novel forms of methodology employed by the project. This includes forms of participatory and action research (Burris 1994), particularly employed in the part of the project conducted in poor counties in rural Yunnan province.22These included the formation of inter-departmental "guidance groups" intended to create more communication among the various departments of the Chinese state responsible for family planning and health issues, and these groups utilized both "nominal" and "focus" group processes to determine through discussion the most important factors involved in improving reproductive health in rural Yunnan (Wong et al. 1994, pp. 258-260). In particular, this research method was regarded as useful in incorporating local and women's concerns-by working at the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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county level, and by including local-level Fulian cadres who are usually part of implementing policy but rarely of forming it. Other methods sought to expand these methods as well by training students of Icunming Medical College to conduct a survey of some 5000 men and 200 women in 70 villages; using village-level focus groups to engage village women in "Chengjiang and Luliang [the targeted counties in Yunnan] in open-ended discussions of health and other concerns; and publishing a photo novella that provided women with cameras to record their health and work realities through their own eyes, and through the resulting photographs to express their own concerns and aspirations" (Li et al. 199413, pp. 227-233).23Such research methods are fairly rare in Chinese women's studies, which to some extent has "fetishized" the value of quantitative analysis in a context where qualitative research methodology can encounter cultural and political difficulties (Chen Yiyun 1 9 9 4 ~ ) . However, the introduction of such methods via the Ford project has had important implications for politics as well as culture. In particular, Ford's strategy of utilizing "participatory, inclusive work" challenges conventional Chinese ways of policy formulation, particularly the tendency of hierarchical bureaucracies to not collaborate on such processes, even when more than one such agency is involved in the same policy. As one Chinese observer discussed the lessons learned from the project: Presently domestic research on women's reproductive health is mainly in biological medicine or population statistics and measurements, so it generally is accomplished by a single discipline. Although this research is successful in looking at fixed population trends and explaining the interrelated aspects of male-female inequality and health, it easily causes researchers to ignore women's viewpoints in society's most basic levels. This then causes it to be difficult to go deeply into understanding women's actual circumstances, and difficult to find the point of departure for improving women's substantial environment (Xiao Yang 1995, pp. 25-26).

However, the Ford Foundation program in China has sought to overcome typical disciplinary boundaries by moving to develop a dialogue on social, ethical, legal, and policy issues in reproductive health between physicians, scientists, sociologists, population policy experts, psychologists, philosophers, ethicists, lawyers, women's rights activists, women's work experts, women's studies experts, family planning programmers, health care administrators, journalists, and other experts with the focus on the ethical basis of reproductive health and family planning policy, and to draft ethical guidelines or ethical principles and action recommendations submitted to policy-makers and law-makers (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1993, p. iii).

Such a "multi-sectoral" approach (Li et al. 199410, p. 220) is a part of the conception of "reproductive health" as a "totalistic process" (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1994, p. I), and incorporates many Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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academic disciplines and aspects of the problem, rather than just population or medical experts. Because of this goal "to bridge bureaucratic divides between vertically-organized institutions" (Li et al. 1994a, p. 214), the Ford-sponsored program encouraged not just changes in policy plans and outcomes, but also in the forms of the Chinese state itself, by introducing forms of intersectoral cooperation. Additionally, the Reproductive Health Program had the effect of calling for the Chinese state to be more accountable to its various legal commitments, both domestic and international, with regard to women's rights (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1993; Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1994). The explicit connections between reproductive health and women's rights in the program promoted such accountability. Such accountability was also encouraged due to the candid desire of the program to influence state policy through its research findings. In particular, the Ford-sponsored Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics featured not only the creation of various "ethical principles" to guide policymaking, but its conference reports also included "action recommendations" in an effort to have an impact on state policy and practice (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1993; 1994; 1995). This was enhanced by the fact that the interdisciplinary nature of this particular program included decision-makers from various governmental organs, including the State Family Planning Commission and the Women's Federation, as well as journalists, and researchers from academies of social science, universities, and NGOs. In this way, one program goal in which "needs identified at local levels inform policy at higher levels" could be implemented (Li et al. 1994a, pp. 213-214). This goal has included "making the formulation of reproductive health policies able to fully express women's opinions and voices" (Xiao Yang 1995, p. 26), in a setting where there has been a tendency to overlook such voices: Policy makers must acknowledge and examine their assumptions that rural women do not know enough to act on their own behalf, or are too resigned to d o so. Certainly these women lack a great deal of health knowledge, and may follow customs that are detrimental to their own health. It is a mistake, however, to attribute their passivity, fatalism, and "reticence to s ~ e a k "to traditional culture alone ....Traditional culture is not the major hindrance here, but rather weaknesses in the health care system and deficiencies in the way services are designed for, and delivered to, women. Under such circumstances, the issue is perhaps less that women are unwilling to speak, but that policy makers have no mechanism to hear what women are saying (Wong et al. 1994, p. 276)."

In this respect, the program is viewing women as active subjects with the ability as well as the right to influence decisions that affect their own health and bodies. By incorporating women more thoroughly into the policy process, the hope is that such stereotypes will ultimately cease to influence state decisions. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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With these observations in mind about the intended empowerment of women through the Reproductive Health Program, we might be left to wonder, why would the Chinese state allow such a program, with its seeming challenges to state authority, to be instituted in the first place? The answers to this question might come from various locations-from the Chinese state's clear yearning for the ultimate success of the population policy, to the existence of a scarcity of economic resources at the state level (as discussed in Chapter 5 ) to the corresponding desire of the state to find supplementary sources of funding (including those from abroad), and the continuing state hand in the formulation and implementation of the Ford program itself. And the program is often discussed in terms of the success of the family planning policy. Statist ends are also evident in the occasional calling forth of ideas that women's improved status does tend to lead to reduced population g r o ~ t h . ~ ' T a Chunfang, o the head of the Women's Research Institute of China and an important participant in Ford's reproductive health programming in China, notes that "In the past 20 or 30 years, people have yet to fully recognize the far-reaching and lasting effectiveness of raising the social status of women in order to check population growth and improve the well-being of mankind" (Tao Chunfang and Xiao Yang 1995, p. iv; see also Tao Chunfang 1994, p. 16). In other words, there has been a tendency to localize reproductive health discourses through relating them to the pre-existing population policy. Justifying women's status in a way that ultimately appeals to statist ends is a useful-and safermeans of introducing new discursive forms. However, this does not undermine the change in general perspective that Ford's Reproductive Health Program entails, for it does center women in a way that the population policy previously did not do. The increased awareness of the adverse effects of population policies on women is evidenced in one of the "ethical principles" adopted at one of the conferences of the Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics: In any action or decision-making concerning reproductive and sexuality, women's autonomy should be respected and enhanced. Women are the independent subjects of their own body and life. They have the capacity to make responsible decisions and informed choices based on their own reproductive health and sexual lives. Women are the major bearers of adverse consequences of overpopulation and the primary targets of population control programs, their experiences should be considered, their voices be heard, and their participation be promoted in making decisions in reproduction and sexuality (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1994, p. 3).

The advocacy of such views by women's movement activists is a sign of their increasing aspirations to truly make the family planning program more compatible with women's autonomy and rights.

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Sexual harassment (xing saorao) This term is another that is clearly new in China, as well as undoubtedly having been introduced from abroad and in particular the United States. The Chinese WomenS Encyclopedia defines it in this way: Men violating women's wishes, through language or action initiating sexual teasing behavior or expressions against women. In the West, sexual harassment mostly occurs in work places, but in China, the most prominent and the most typical sexual harassment is happening in public places. Owing to social morality and public opinion regarding the assuring of women's sexual dignity and sexual rights, enough attention cannot be given to this. Owing to fear of retaliation, losing one's job, and every kind of possible way of making things difficult, women facing sexual harassment adopt the way of passively turning big problems into small problems and small problems into nothing at all, so as to defend their own reputation, public image or moral image. In China, the justice system's vocabulary is still without the word "sexual harassment"; for such actions it determines the nature of the action and words declarations of guilt as "behavior which takes liberties," "insulting women," "hooliganism," etc. In the West sexual harassment is also one of the newest forward-thinking issues that the law is facing. Sexual harassment, the word's emergence, is beneficial in fostering women's sexual rights consciousness and sexual dignity (Lu Yueshan 1995a, p. 295).

This discussion of the issue covers several aspects of "sexual harassment" that are particularly relevant to the contemporary Chinese women's movement: the novelty of the term in China (as evidenced by the legal system lacking a term for it), its existence in the West as well, a differentiation between its manifestations in China and in the West, and its connection to the realization of women's "rights." As might be guessed, the term "sexual harassment" is another linguistic import into China. Its Chinese version, xing saorao, is a fairly literal rendition of the English. The term's newness in China is also evidenced by some observations that many Chinese might still be unfamiliar with it.26 The timing and sources of such an importation are not as evident as in the case of "reproductive health"; however, it is fairly apparent that it is a recent introduction to Chinese-as witnessed by its absence until 1992 in my survey of magazine tables of contents. The foreign origins of the term are discussed in an article in World WomenS Vision from 1995, which discusses Catharine MacIGnnon's formative role in the term's creation in the United States, and her idea that "sexual harassment is a kind of sexual discrimination" (Fan Haiyan and H u Yong 1995). In fact there was a series of articles in World WomenS Vision regarding sexual harassment's existence in the United States, especially in 1994-including discussions of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas matter as an important factor in creating worldwide attention and opposition to the phenomenon of sexual harassment (Tang Can 1994), legal questions relating to the issue (Xiao Shuqiao 1994), Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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females committing sexual harassment against male subordinates (Jiang Deshun 1994; Ning Zhong 1994), and the Navy Tailhook incident (Tai Cangsu 1994). Other magazines have also covered sexual harassment as a foreign issue (Dong Qing 1995). Given this context, much attention to the issue in the Chinese media, not surprisingly, notes its existence as a global-level issue. One article from Marriage and Family introduces the concept in the context of reporting on an international conference that had occurred in Hong Kong in 1994, regarding various violations against women, including sexual harassment, and notes that "sexual harassment is a worldwide problem" (Zhang Xianyu 1995). And of course the rising interest in this issue came at just the same time that China was gearing up for the FWCW. One activist discussed how she instituted a survey on the problem after returning from attendance at an NGO preparatory meeting in Argentina, indicative of the trip opening her eyes to this particular problem. It was a topic of discussion at a conference in the lead-up to the FWCW co-sponsored by the China Marriage and Family Research Society, the non-governmental Women's Research Institute, and the People's University Women's Studies Center (Chinese People's University 1995a). Another article in Marriage and Family on the issue notes that "Recently on the Chinese mainland it has been exposed again and again that the issue of 'sexual harassment' is more or less becoming a social hot issue. Actually it was already so in European and American countries ten years ago" (Zhou Jian 1994, p. 30). In much of the literature, a particularly interesting linkage is often drawn between sexual harassment as a global problem and the implications of this fact for women's movements, women's rights, and women's social status-and then connections are drawn to China's situation as well. In several discussions of sexual harassment, authors have explicitly linked increased discussion of the problem with increased rights-consciousness on the part of women around the world, including in China. For instance, in a paper presented at the Women's Research Institute's workshop at the N G O Forum, one N G O activist concerned about sexual harassment connects it to the Nairobi Strategies and notes that Sexual harassment is an issue that involves women worldwide. The attention paid to it indicates that currently women are re-examining their life situations and legallcivil rights. With deeper development of the reform and opening policy of China, the issue of sexual harassment has become prominent and is of common concern. Since the Women's Hotline was started in 1992, calls involving sexual harassment have increased (Le Ping

1995). Other observations have been strikingly similar. For instance, the World Women's Vision article introducing the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas affair regards it as an important reason for "Discussion regarding sexual harassment rapidly spreading in the whole world, and leading to many Third Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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World women (including those in China), through all recognizing this word at the same time, having the first consciousness of their own sexual rights and sexual dignity" (Tang Can 1994). In another article in the more scholarly Collection of W o m e n 3 Studies, this one about sexual harassment's existence in China, the same author notes that "it was only after 'human rights' and 'equality' value concepts were extensively admitted and applied in gender spheres that people, especially women, then paid attention to it" (Tang Can 1995, p. 31). Another fairly regular analyst of the problem, Tong Xin, notes with a co-author in Marriage and Family magazine that Sexual harassment is in these few years starting to be a hotter topic of conversation, but that does not equate to the problem only existing in these few years. The raising of this issue indicates that people increasingly regard their own sexual rights as important, and is a sign of progress in social morality.

And they also note that this prompted them to pay attention to this issue in a survey of "citizenship morality" that they were involved in conducting (Tong Xin and Zhang Hui 1995). This increasing discussion of the issue, as well as the proliferation of social surveys on it, is indicative of the process of "naming" of the problem occurring, and with sexual harassment this is a particularly important factor. In particular, regarding it as a gender-specific offense and as sex discrimination, rather than just as unwelcome and rude behavior, systematizes the problem and links it to notions of "rights." It can then be connected to the state's own discourses on gender equality. There are other linkages to statist discourses as well. For instance, the problem's "widespread existence" is sometimes attributed to typical discussions regarding the social dislocations caused by reform and the subsequent amorality increasingly existing in the populace (Tang Can 1995, p. 34; Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 18). And there have been discussions of the issue that seek to differentiate between its forms in China and in the West. One example can be found in the opening quotation of this section, which emphasizes workplace harassment in the West, but its more common existence in public spaces in China. One article notes survey results finding similar phenomena, where "public places are the places where women are most easily suffering sexual violations" rather than on the job, although the latter situation also is admitted (Zhang Xianyu 1995, p. 50); however, the reasons for such an emphasis may be more complex than actual data reveals. The power relationships existent in the workplace that are absent from anonymous encounters on the street or on the bus might make victims more reluctant to discuss episodes of abuse occurring in the former setting. And, politically speaking, it might be more difficult to admit that sexual harassment is a wide problem in the workplace because this would further undermine communist notions of the promotion of gender equality in what is theoretically supposed to be a workers' paradise. In this sense, "cultural" specificity can be linked to power relationships existing between state and society. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Additionally, there have been some discussions of the problem seeking perhaps to make it less of a divisive gender issue, possibly to downplay the role of "contradiction" in contemporary Chinese social relations. One fairly early article on the issue argued that men too suffer sexual harassment, using data showing that over 16% of male university students claim unwilling sexual behavior with other males, and thus argued that "sexual harassment is a violation of all people's human dignity" (Pan Suiming 1992).27Someof my interviewees also described the phenomenon in genderneutral terms, such as seeing it as "interference between people of different sexes" or "language, behavior, etc. between the sexes leading to the other party's discomfort." One NGO activist referred to sexual harassment as simply "a kind of power." However, there is a very clear awareness among many activists, as I have already shown, that sexual harassment can primarily be regarded as a gender-specific issue relating to women's rights. Such views are actually very common. For instance, one researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences noted that "sexual harassment reflects one phenomenon of women's problems (funu wenti)," the latter term of which has been common language in the People's Republic. This indicates a certain ability to localize the issue into Chinese discourses on women, but these discourses are also being expanded in the process. One way that this has occurred is through an emphasis on the issue being closely tied into "women's sexual rights," as well as to their general rights as persons, thus echoing some of the themes in the new discussions on reproductive health. One Marriage and Family article notes that sexual harassment is "mostly suffered by women," and that it "is not just a cultural problem, it even more is a problem of the two sexes' equality in power and rights" (Zhou Jian 1994, p. 32). Such a view therefore goes beyond views of lack of morality in China's transitional society, and relates it to persisting gender inequalities under the CCP. One lawyer working for an NGO described it as "uncivilized behavior, which is derived from patriarchal society (nanquan shehui), and which uses women as tools." Such viewpoints among N G O activists in particular are once again evident of something of a division of labor in the Chinese women's movement. NGOs have been in the forefront of addressing the issue of sexual harassment, and in particular in addressing it as a gendered issue with negative implications for the realization of women's rights-for instance, by arguing at the N G O Forum that "all harassers are males" (Le Ping 1995). There has been particular attention to this issue at the Women's Hotline, one of the leading Beijing NGOs, with much discussion among the Hotline's volunteers of how to conceptualize it and what constitutes sexual harassment. The statistics of the Hotline are cited in an article on the subject in Marriage and Family magazine (Zhang Xianyu 1995), and one author who has written and reported on the subject, Tong Xin, is a volunteer at the Hotline. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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There have been efforts to address the issue, both by raising individuallevel consciousness and as a political/legal problem. In a report at the Women's Hotline's workshop at the NGO Forum, one activist noted as a suggestion for dealing with the problem that "Women should have more awareness of their own rights and improve their own abilities for self-protection. When encountering sexual harassment, they should protect their personal dignity and proper rights by means of law and in the meanwhile ask for social help and support" (Le Ping 1995). One way that such consciousness has been raised is through discussions of the issue in women's magazines. For instance, Women's Studies magazine featured an article, translated from the American popular women's magazine Glamour, regarding how to deal with sexual harassment, focusing primarily on a verbal solution (Nuxing Yanjiu 1996). And Marriage and Family discussed the fact that "In recent years, there has been a daily increase in the numbers of our country's women facing the phenomenon of sexual harassment," and highlighted the particular case of a rural women who sought out the magazine's editorial office to help her deal with her sexual harassment problem: This publication thought that her rights and interests should be protected, and she certainly could find an appropriate argument for her case. But two years passed and there were many complications, she went to higher authorities and told of her misfortune. With regard to issues of sexual harassment, our country's marriage law and other laws are still really without civilized regulations, but can there really not be another way to resolve this? Sympathizing with her, we only can tell her story to our readers, in the hope that knowledgeable people can provide instructions for assistance (Xin Ruzhong 1995, pp. 18-19).

In this way, the magazine is being utilized as a means of raising consciousness as well as of attempting to assist a particular woman in need. The stress in that article on inadequate legal solutions is also a common concern among activists working on this question. One article on the topic notes that "The main sufferers of sexual harassment are females, but our country's first comprehensive basic law defending women's rights and interests, the 'Law on the Protection of Women's Rights and Interests' has not yet stipulated this problem" (Zhang Xianyu 1995, p. 51). The Women Judges' Association has begun saying that there is a need for sexual harassment legislation. And the Women's Hotline has noted that women calling and complaining about workplace harassment "ask about whether there are legal norms about these people's behavior, that will protect women's legitimate rights and interests. Presently, China's law does not have pledges that women will not receive sexual harassment, and this is a problem that should provoke the attention of legal circles" (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 18). At the Women's Hotline's N G O Forum panel, similar issues were addressed by an activist and professor who has done much research on the issue. She noted that Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Framing in the Chinese Women's Movement N o definition of sexual harassment is included in our national laws, neither are there laws, items, or provisions which can be used, nor are there specific measures to urge the workplace to work out regulations to control sexual harassment. Therefore effective measures cannot be taken to prevent and combat sexual harassment, and this leads to the threatening of the basic existence and employment rights of women victims ....I suggest that our government use the experiences of other countries to formulate practical law provisions to effectively prevent and combat sexual harassment; to supervise various social organizations in the formulation of specific rules for the purpose of banning sexual harassment in the workplace; strengthen publicity and education among the public in the sense of correct awareness toward sexual harassment; establish some support structures to give victims psychological, physiological, and legal help (Le Ping 1995).

Such open advocacy regarding the issue does point out that it has achieved a certain acceptance in China, at least in women's movement circles.

Domestic violence (jiating baoli) An article on sexual harassment notes that the phenomenon's occurrence in the workplace can be regarded as a form of "civilized violence" (wenming de qiangbao) (Zhang Xianyu 1995). There has been a general increase in interest in issues relating to violence against women during the 1990s, and in particular in "domestic violence" (jiating baoli). During the 1980s, there was increasing media and state attention to the question of violence against women, with the issues discussed including infanticide, rape, forced marriage, the abduction and selling of women, and wife-battering. However, discussion was more on a case-by-case basis rather than as a systematic problem, and in many instances "a certain amount of physical violence" was seen as "normal marital behavior." The problems tended to be regarded as manifestations of post-Cultural Revolution social strains rather than as gendered problems with their roots in patriarchal value systems (Honig and Hershatter 1988). Thus, the term "domestic violence" does not appear in any of the surveyed magazine article titles until 1993, and this article, in World Women's Vision, was in reference to an American case of domestic violence (Ye Weiling 1993). In the 1990s, however, there did begin to be greater attention in China to domestic violence as a worldwide women's problem, and one affecting Chinese women as well. Globalization can once again be viewed as playing a part in the framing of the problem as a global issue, and not just a condemnation of women's status in China. The newness of the topic of "domestic violence" in China is evidenced by explicit descriptions of it as such. The Women's Research Institute describes it as "a new topic in women's studies" (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 11).A researcher at CASS noted that "the concept is permitted to exist-it reflects women's family condition." Such a view on it being "permitted" is in line with other observations regarding the state Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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sanctioning which issues are discussable. Moreover, other interviewees noted the relatively recent awareness of the problem's existence in Chinaone journalist and NGO activist noted that "in China, domestic violence extensively exists, and moreover China does not pay attention to it, or at least in the past it did not pay attention to it, but now it is starting to feel it is a problem." Another N G O activist and women's studies advocate had a similar outlook: "In the past, China thought it did not have domestic violence, but now it also feels it is a problem." One N G O volunteer noted that "Chinese people don't think that husbands beat wives. This is due to traditional concepts. However, during reform and opening, psychologists began to know about this issue." Such opening was greatly enhanced in the 1990s, as China prepared to host the FWCW. In fact, it is evident that one of the major sources of such elevated awareness of this problem is the women's conference, both directly in terms of contact by Chinese activists with N G O preparatory meetings and discourses, and indirectly due to the Chinese women's movement's generally more open stance toward the international women's movement in the leadup to the conference. Activists who attended preparatory meetings abroad were able to come into contact with this issue, and the way that it is dealt with in other countries. For instance, one activist was favorably impressed by a battered women's shelter she visited in Finland during a preparatory meeting. Another noted that, while violence against women, including domestic violence, has long existed in China, "It wasn't until after the United Nations appointed Beijing as the host of the 1995 Fourth UN World Conference on Women that our mass media began to expose and criticize violence against women" (Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 88-89, 269). The foreign origins of the term "domestic violence" have been observed by Chinese scholars, two of whom noted the lack of "clear knowledge" on the issue in China, but that "In recent years, foreign scholars have given this 'trivial matter' a name, 'domestic violence,' and have widely and successfully commented upon it, by writing articles and publishing books. We have just passed through the International Family Year, and Chinese scholars are now also using the term" (Tong Xin and Q u Wen 1994, p. 37). Such "naming" of the issue in China has been drawn from numerous foreign sources. One activist and researcher, Liu Bohong, attended a seminar at Rutgers University on "Women, Violence, and Human Rights" in 1994, and was able to write about her experiences in Chinese publications, thereby disseminating her experiences to a wider audience. In the publication Collection of Women's Studies she wrote a brief article introducing the content of the conference, and she especially detailed the wide variety of discussion topics at the meeting, including international legal measures on women's human rights, feminist activities to halt violence against women, international networks preparing for the Beijing conference, and selfdefense techniques to resist violence (Liu Bohong 199413). In an article in Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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the more popular-level women's magazine Women's Studies (Liu Bohong 1995), the same author especially focused on domestic violence as a manifestation of violence against women, discussing the fact that while she was in the United States the O.J. Simpson murder case was unfolding, displacing the World Cup in television news coverage, and greatly arousing the concern and indignation of American feminists. She uses this case as a way of discussing domestic violence statistics in the United States, but also as a way of introducing the notion of violence against women as a global issue. She concludes by discussing measures taken at the international level by various women's organizations-including discussions at the 1993 Vienna human rights conference that "violence against women is against women's basic human rights,'' as well as other transnational activities mobilizing women to fight violence. In this article, Liu also discussed the particular attention paid to violence against women at the 1993 Asia-Pacific Regional N G O Forum Preparatory Meeting in Manila, and asked Why were the women of the Asia-Pacific Region so attentive toward the violence problem? Is this a regional problem or a global problem? What are the causes producing this kind of phenomenon? More than a year has passed, and in exchange activities with foreign women's NGOs, we are continuously seeking answers to these questions.

After attending the American conference in 1994, she concluded that "Violence against women is not a regional problem but a global problem, this is my sincere learning after going to the United States" (Liu Bohong 1995, p. 9). Similar to sexual harassment, there have been some efforts to treat the issue of domestic violence in China in a gender-neutral fashion. For instance, the Chinese WomenS Encyclopedia defines "violence in the family" (jiating nei de baoli) as "Pointing to brutality, even mutually injurious behavior, in the family between husband, wife, son, daughter, or other relatives" (Lu Yueshan 1995a, p. 257). Additionally, there have been various efforts to culturally contextualize the issue in the Chinese case. In particular, numerous observers have noted that prior inattention and lack of concern about this problem is rooted in Chinese views regarding the disinclination of most Chinese to discuss family problems in public (e.g., Tong Xin and Q u Wen 1994; Zhongguo Xinwen She 1996a, p. 37). This may also account for the general lack of regard for the problem by the Chinese Communist state, given various arguments by feminists scrutinizing that state's general reluctance to truly revolutionize patriarchal family forms (e.g., Johnson 1983; Stacey 1983). Some Chinese women's movement activists have particularly noted continuing notions of secrecy regarding intra-familial relations as a problem inhibiting open discussion and addressing of the problem of domestic violence. Chinese activists often specifically mention traditional Chinese sayings regarding airing family Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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matters in public. A university lecturer who attended an NGO Forum preparatory meeting in Finland and there visited a refuge for battered women noted in a letter to her mother about her visit that One of us asked "What happens if a woman's husband comes to the Refuge to make trouble?" This would be quite common in China. For example, Mum, if you dared to ask one of your friends who had been beaten by her husband to stay for a night or two, I would not be surprised if her husband came to make trouble. But this never happens at the Espoo Refuge, because it is regarded as a disgrace to beat your wife. But in China, if a husband beats his wife, it's nobody else's business. Next year at the Beijing '95 conference domestic violence will be one of the hot topics. What do you think about it? (quoted in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, p. 89)

These views about the lack of chances to openly talk about domestic violence are, ironically, not that different from notions about privacy in the home that have affected the addressing of the issue in the West, although the cultural bases for the norms are very different. Much of the basis for the Chinese situation is rooted in concepts of "face," as is evident in this observation by Wang Xingjuan, head of the Women's Hotline, that Faced with domestic violence, many wives take a "grin and bear it attitude. Some accept the idea of "following the chicken when married to a chicken and the dog when married to a dog-for good or for evil" and blame everything on fate. Some believe divorce to be shameful and worry about gossip behind their back. One woman caller said, "I lost face after the divorce." Others face homelessness after the divorce, because when they were married, the husbands' units provided housing or they were living with the in-laws (Dong Fang-se 1994).

Here it can be seen that along with facing traditionalist notions about marriage and reputation, women are also confronting structural constraints to divorce due to housing allocation procedures in the communist system. However, there are perspectives that are beginning to change these views, and these are largely due to the influence of the women's movement. A Women's Research Institute publication notes with regard to this issue that Traditionally conditioned women tend to yield to the old saying "Family ugliness should never be spread outwards," and therefore avoid any interpersonal communication and changing of ideas on this question. They behave inwardly and even cower in both working and living, showing few of the female attributes of pride, energy, and independence (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 41).

This problem in women's liberation in post-1949 China has begun to change the viewpoints of some women's movement activists. In particular, it would seem that the greater awareness of domestic violence and other forms of violence against women as problems of worldwide concern to the women's movement has made Chinese women's movement activists more Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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likely to discuss them as well. It has contributed to reformulated notions about what is properly discussed and addressed, in part because it has given a name to the problem. Such naming has especially led to a wider view of the problem as gendered. The Women's HotlineNomen's Research Institute has stressed women as victims of this sort of violence (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 41; 1995, p. 11).A wider definition of the problem has also begun to emerge-with it being seen in mental and sexual forms of abuse as well as physical ones (Lu Yueshan 1995a, pp. 257-258; Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 41). An article in Collection of Women's Studies defines "domestic violencev-an indication of the relative novelty of the concept in China-this way: This article in employing the term "domestic violence" (jiating baoli) is particularly referring to family behavior with the husband using violent means to encroach on the wife's physical rights. Of course we also cannot omit that in real life there also exists behavior that exerts violence on the husband, but physiological and natural strength differences between men and women makes the behavior of men carrying out violence against women become the primary issue. Moreover, the harm is relatively greater ( M a Zhiguo and Du Peng 1995, p. 20).

This view adopts a more essentialist view of domestic violence, seeing it more as a problem deriving from physical difference between men and women than one indicating a fundamental violation of rights. However, there are Chinese analysts who adopt the latter position, as in this article from Women's Studies: A wife suffering her husband's beatings and maltreatment is already not only a private matter in certain families or between certain husbands and wives. It is a kind of social phenomenon. By explaining it in light of contemporary civilization, it can be see that tender feelings are only a sheer cover in the husband and wife relationship, for carrying out abusive behavior still continues....Rescuing fettered women is undoubtedly an important link in women's liberation. Here, the important premise is women's own awakening (Wang Honglin and Zang Yongjie 1996, p. 24).

There are similar viewpoints being adopted among many in the women's movement community, beginning to view the eradication of domestic violence as a significant part of women's liberation. Views regarding the causation of the problem vary. Some approaches tend to emphasize what might be regarded as more standard explanations, ones which do not explicitly regard the gendered quality of the problem. Instead, these look at typical examples of causes of marital friction-such as extramarital affairs and "psychological pressure" caused by "modern life" (Dong Fang-se 1994), alcohol-related problems (Nickerson 1995), or the husband wanting a divorce and the wife not agreeing. Others, however, do look at the problem in terms of the nature of gender relations in Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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China. Often these interpretations are phrased in terms familiar in the Chinese Communist setting. For instance, Wang Xingjuan has viewed "husbands' ingrained feudal ideologies and their male chauvinism" to be one cause of domestic violence, noting that In remote villages, the peasants are uneducated and ignorant. They hold onto feudal ideas that are several thousand years old, believing that man is the lord and master of the family, and woman is his private possession whom he can abuse as he pleases. Therefore, wife-beating is customary in many localities (quoted in Dong Fang-se 1994).

A counselor at a women's N G O dealing with some domestic violence issues has noted similar causes: "Violence is a relatively important issue. There was a feudal society for too long, and many people believe in husband-wife relations characterized by obeying orders, and male chauvinism (dananzizhuyi)." Another NGO leader, Chen Yiyun, has argued that one important cause of marriage problems is that "In many cases, men cannot handle strong women" (quoted in Nickerson 1995). There is also a common perception that domestic violence is on the rise in contemporary China. Various surveys in recent years have sought to show this. For instance, the Women's Hotline has been fairly active in such work, and has participated in researching and demonstrating increases in violence in the 1990s, with the problem being particularly severe in rural areas (Dong Fang-se 1994). However, two articles in Marriage and Family magazine focused on urban instances. Research by the Beijing City Marriage and Family Research Society, and reported by leading women's studies researcher Li Yinhe, has demonstrated that "Beijing's domestic violence level is still relatively high'' (Li Yinhe 1994a). And Women's Hotline statistics have shown that domestic violence even occurs in homes with "very high cultural levels'' (Wang Xingjuan 1995a). These views of increased violence have been part of research results that have taken place in the framework of a generally increased interest in women's studies in the post-Mao era, enhanced even further by the lead-up to the FWCW. In addition to the research results already mentioned, there has also been a survey on the subject by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Population Institute, in cooperation with the Women's Hotline (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 11),which has become part of a general report on women's status (Research Group for Women's Status in Contemporary China 1995). Domestic violence was one of the issues on the agenda at a conference in March 1995 jointly sponsored by the China Marriage and Family Research Society, the non-governmental Women's Research Institute, and the People's University Women's Studies Center (Chinese People's University 1995a). In May 1994, the All-China Women's Federation sponsored a small conference on domestic violence, with panelists drawn from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Chinese University of Politics and Law, the Beijing People's Court, and the Women's Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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Research Institute of China (Tong Xin and Q u Wen 1994), which is indicative of a rather new acknowledgement of the issue by China's largest women's organization. The Guangdong Provincial Women's Federation also began to deal with the problem more explicitly in the 1990s (Zhongguo Xinwen She 1996a), further evidence of such acceptance of the issue's salience. Important in all of these discussions were deliberations regarding how best to alleviate the problem. Some research particularly sought to focus "on ways to deal with domestic violence that suit Chinese conditions" (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 11).However, there has also been a conspicuous interest in learning from the world women's movement on this issue. Liu Bohong has noted that Women are the major sufferers of violence, and eliminating all forms of violence against women will still rely on women's own awareness and wisdom, on women's unity and struggle, and on women's efforts to take men by the hand. It will also rely on the intervention of state forces and the cooperation of international society (Liu Bohong 1995, p. 10).

This highlights all three levels at which Chinese women are beginning to work on this problem: individual consciousness, the state, and NGO activities. First, there is increasing recognition of the centrality played by women's own consciousness in opposing violence. For instance, Liu Bohong stresses the importance that attending the Rutgers conference had on awakening her own feelings on the issue, as well as showing her the various ways that feminists from many locales are from "micro to macro" levels making efforts to eradicate violence against women. Efforts at the micro level include women's self-defense courses (Liu Bohong 1995, p. 10). At a workshop of the NGO Forum one Chinese legal expert proposed various measures to oppose violence, including the need to engage in education and discussion on the issues, as well as to "further improve the quality of women themselves, encourage women subject to maltreatment to raise their self-consciousness and teach them to fight bravely against violence" (Chen Mingxia 1995). Various means of such consciousness-raising have begun to exist. For instance, the popular-level magazine Women's Studies published an article on the subject featuring a questionnaire on "Will you become an abused wife?" with various questions assessing risk as well as details on typical cases of violent behavior (Wang Honglin and Zang Yongjie 1996). And the Rural Women Knowing All textbook for women's literacy includes information on laws on promoting women's rights and interests, including the expression "oppose domestic violence" (fanduiiiating baoli) (Zhao Shilin 1994). The Women's Hotline advocates the view that although Fulian and the Ministry of Civil Affairs are available to assist women in need, "the support that such organizations can afford is limited and could hardly solve all Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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problems. Only the women themselves can best protect and help themselves" (Women's Research Institute 1994a, p. 42). One such way that such self-protection can be promoted is through women's greater legal knowledge of their rights (Dong Fang-se 1994). Thus, the view of the need to raise women's awareness in opposing violence can be supplemented by greater legal and state intervention. A report given at the Women's Hotline workshop at the NGO Forum provides this advice for how to help abused women: "Make them recognize that asking for help from the outside is selfprotection, not a shame. They should demand support from the Women's Federation, the trade union, and related law departments if necessary." This report featured policy suggestions such as "Put into effect the laws on protection of women" as well as to "Establish public prosecution for domestic violence" (Tong Xin 199513). These views are interesting in that they rather explicitly find fault with the ways in which the state is currently implementing laws on women's issues. Another NGO Forum presentation also stressed the need to "perfect legal measures" and to "urge governmental action" on domestic violence (Chen Mingxia 1995). Others look at the ways that existing legal frameworks can be employed to fight violence (Ma Zhiguo and Du Peng 1995). In this way, a new problem is framed but it is done so in a way so that its solution is potentially compatible with existing institutions. Similarly, another paper at the Women's Hotline panel at the NGO Forum examined the successes of People's Conciliation Committees in mediating cases of domestic violence, and that "Because of their prominent results, the People's Conciliation Committees of China have been regarded as one of the guiding principles of comprehensive management by the U N law organization and appreciated as 'the Asian experience' by law circles worldwide" (Li Bing 1995). Such a relativistic approach to domestic violence is also evidenced in a case in the film "Through Chinese Women's Eyes," in which a Shanghai woman being abused by her husband seeks recourse with her local Fulian, and the means of resolution is by shaming the husband at his work unit (Yang 199710). There are increasing views among N G O activists, however, that these types of measures are inadequate. New proposals are more "hybrid" in nature, particularly showing an interest in the types of domestic violence shelters prevalent in Western countries. N G O activists have been particularly active in discussions on domestic violence in China, which is similar to the situation on sexual harassment, and NGOs are seen as the likely supporters of such institutions as shelters. For instance, the Women's Hotline has appealed for the establishment of shelters to aid abused women (Tong Xin 199513). Others have also stressed the particular role that NGOs can play in founding shelters (Chen Mingxia 1995). One N G O activist argued that "outside people don't pay attention to the violence, but NGOs do." However, there do continue to be obstacles to such attention. One N G O established a hotline and "emergency room" for Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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women victims of domestic violence in 1994. However, it soon discovered that such women were in need of legal counsel that was beyond its areas of expertise. A domestic violence shelter was established by a businessman in Shanghai in 1996 (Chai Jijun 1996; Ge Shannan 1996); however, it reportedly was rapidly closed down by the local government for varying reasons, including domestic and media attention focused upon it, and the view that it was "inappropriate" for such an institution to be run by an individual rather than a governmental department (Human Rights in China 1997, p. 28). A "self-funded" shelter for battered women does exist in Wuhan, and women from all over China have come to it for safety (Elliott 1998).

Other New Issues Other discourses, while not clearly being introduced from foreign contexts, have received expanded attention in the Chinese women's movement of the 1990s. Like the new terminologies being employed in the 1990s, these discourses are also significant in that they show expansions in the forms of thinking and analysis employed by women's activists in China. Especially in the context of a previously state-dominated women's movement, such new issues are important to engendering a sense of agency for women's movement activists. As can be seen in Figures 7.3 and 7.4, the issues of "human rights," "gender," "prostitution," and "homosexuality" received increased coverage in women's magazines after 1992. These issues are of particular significance because they are either previously "sensitive" issues or issues largely not addressed in the Chinese women's movement, or both of these. I will here very briefly discuss these four issues, plus a fifth, "women's studies." "Human rights" (renquan)is a sensitive issue in China for obvious reasons. Its linkages to Tiananmen Square and other rationales for foreign critiques of the Chinese regime are evident. However, the Chinese state itself does foster a discourse on human rights, one that is largely relativist in content (see, e.g., Ye Lou 1996; Zhu Muzhi 1996). As Chinese activists were preparing to host the FWCW, they began employing notions of "women's human rights" in their own discourses. A definition of "women's human rights doctrine" (funu renquan shuo) in the Chinese Women's Encyclopedia describes it as "One new kind of women's theory before and after May 4th [1919]. It says that it thinks women should enjoy people's rights (ren de quanli), that these rights exist and are innately possessed, and cannot be deprived by others without cause or reason." The definition goes on to note how those supporting this theory "generally are influenced by the human rights thinking of the European theorists Mill, Rousseau, etc." And it concludes by listing some of these rights that women should enjoy in order to have "complete human dignity," including "the free rights of political participation, education, marriage, and employment" (Lu Yueshan 1995b, p. 19). Interestingly, while noting the Western influence on these forms of thinking, the definition closes with "rights" that are often Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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stressed by Chinese statist discourses as those granted to women under the CCP. In this way this concept of "rights" is consistent with its general conception in the Chinese political tradition, where rights are granted by the state to citizens to enable them to better contribute to state needs and interests (Nathan 1985). There has been expanding discussion of women's human rights in the 1990s' especially within women's studies. Some articles on the topic did seek to link these discussions to the international discourse on women's human rights. A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences legal expert writes that "Human rights are already becoming one of the major issues of concern in the issues of universal concern to contemporary international society" (Chen Mingxia 1992, p. 24). Another article examines the struggle for women's human rights as a global process, and regards violations against women's human rights as a common worldwide problem. However, even this perspective stresses the need for "cultural suitability" of such rights (Huang Lie 1995). Most of the discourses in the Chinese women's movement on women's human rights have been very compatible with general Chinese statist discourses on human rights, adopting a largely relativist outlook. For instance, a Beijing University law professor discusses rights as a "class category'' in "class society" (Ma Yinan 1993). Another article on the subject focuses on "subsistence rights'' as the basis of women's human rights (Zhang Huifang 1994). The article by the CASS lawyer, Chen Mingxia, adopts the typical Marxist view of rights as not being innate, but rather an outcome of society's level of economic development. She also examines "state protection" (guojia baozhang) of various women's rights under the CCP, and uses a typical technique of "vertical comparison" to note that In a short 40 years, our country has had remarkable achievements in various aspects of protecting women's human rights. Our country's women enjoy human rights that cannot be compared with the old society, and they also receive the state's special protection. But in aspects of protecting human rights, there still is much work to do.

She goes on to detail some of this work, including the need to address differences among localities in the protection of women's human rights, where in some places problems of physical protection still persist. She specifies some of these issues, including the kidnapping and selling of women and female infanticide, a very sensitive issue, and then recommends various measures to improve protection of women's human rights (Chen Mingxia 1992). The Beijing University law professor, M a Yinan, also makes suggestions for improving women's human rights legislation, expressing the belief that there are "areas where legislation is insufficient, contrary to the common view that women's legislation is complete and systematic." She argues for the need to "enhance the content of women's substantive human rights'' through better legal implementation (Ma Yinan 1993). Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Framing in the Chinese Women's Movement Another observer notes that women's human rights in "Eastern countries," along with those in the "global West," are "at a distance far from human rights, and are also rather distant from equal human rights with men. Chinese women will struggle for human rights without stopping" (Zhang Huifang 1994). In line with this call to Chinese women, some NGOs have adopted these discourses. For instance, a brochure on the Jinglun Family Center says that it is "dedicated to strengthening family functions and to promoting democracy, gender equality, health and harmony in family life. The Center seeks to enhance the basic human rights of women and children in accordance with relevant policies, laws, and regulations promulgated by the Chinese government and the United Nations" (Jinglun Family Center 199'). Such views, along with those of legal scholars on the need for better implementation on laws relating to women's human rights issues, are indicative of an effort to use existent Chinese legislation and international commitments to improve the substantial conditions of women's human rights. Second, another relatively new area of interest is that of "gender." The conventional term for "gender" in Chinese is xingbie, which literally means "sex difference." However, there is an increasing interest among women's activists in gender as a social category, rather than viewing it as a biological category. This is evident in the very new term being employed by some activists-shehui xingbie, or "social gender." One discussion of this translation notes that There is no exact term for gender in Chinese that adequately conveys the social constructed aspect of the English term. In recent years, the term gender has been translated into Chinese as xingbie or, shehui xingbie. Xingbie, which also is used to mean sex, does not adequately convey the contingency implied in the English term. Shehui xingbie, meaning literally "social sex," still has a close affinity to biological sex. The concept of gender as developed by Western feminists is viewed as culturally specific and Western by many Chinese women activists and scholars in women's studies. However, a familiarity with Marxist materialism enables many educated Chinese to also perceive human beings as socially constructed and environmentally determined (Hom and Xin Chunying 1995, p. 145).

Many interviewees expressed their belief that "gender" (xingbie) is more social than biological. A professor at the China Women's College regarded "social gender" as "a very important concept, I regard it as a very fundamental question in women's theory." Some activists have described this increasing awareness as a direct result of internationally-oriented experiences. One noted that "Originally, I simply did not have gender consciousness (xingbie yishi), but then every day I spoke with people at the women's conference, and I then became conscious. It really is like this-the women's conference established my gender consciousness." Another attended a United Nations "gender sensitivity training," and asserted that "now I know that gender is social. After this training, I completely u n d e r ~ t o o d . " ~ ~ Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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And one activist highlighted the increasing role that "gender" plays in Chinese women's studies by describing her opinion that there are three factions in Chinese women's studies: (1)traditional Marxist women's viewpoints; (2)feminism possessing a gender point of view (juyou xingbie jiaodu de nuxingzhuyi); and ( 3 ) feminism not possessing a gender point of view (meiyou xingbie jiaodu de nuxingzhuyi). This view really stresses the significance of the adoption of shehui xingbie by women's studies and women's movement activists-it transcends Marxist frameworks of analysis for women's oppression, and begins to establish new, more diverse discourses on the subject. Third, "prostitution" is not a new term in China, but it has been receiving increasing attention in recent years among women's studies scholars and activists. Once again, the problem is sometimes discussed with reference to its existence in other countries as well, such as a description of it as "a problem that has existed in China since ancient times, the same as in the West" (Si Liang 1995). NGOs and women's movement activists have particularly been active on this issue-especially the Women's Research Institute. WRI was a leader in early discussions on this issue (Wang Xingjuan 1992), and it sponsored a conference that was "the first occasion for theory to publicly face the sensitive social issue of prostitution" (Women's Research Institute 1995, p. 6 ) . It has cooperated with various agencies assisting prostitutes, and at its workshop at the N G O Forum it introduced a newer physiological, psychological, and social rescue model for dealing with the problem (Wang Jinling 1995). Fourth, women's NGOs have also been on the forefront of addressing homosexuality, previously a taboo topic in China, and women's studies activists have been leaders in researching the topic with respect to both men and women.30While this is still quite a sensitive subject in China, as is evidenced by the general lack of success in attempts to begin a gay rights movement there, there has been increasing discussion on the topic in recent years, as well as a more accepting view of it adopted by some women's movement activists, a significant development in a country that until recent years denied the existence of homosexuality within its borders.31 There still exist numerous, "relativistic," less accepting views about homosexuality among the women's studies community. For instance, the Chinese Women's Encyclopedia discusses "homosexuality and sexual morality" (tongxinglian yu xingdaode): Love between people of the same sex is homosexuality. By general thinking, it is a socially existing but abnormal phenomenon of sexual relations. Despite the longstanding history of the phenomenon of homosexuality, each society varies in its moral evaluation of homosexuality. In the vast majority of nationalities and countries, it is illegal and immoral, and generally receives contempt ...Some countries prohibit homosexuality. But also, some people emphasize that homosexuality should not offend public taste, and will not encourage sexual crimes. By emphasizing freedom, Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

Framing in t h e Chinese Women's M o v e m e n t under the premise of not harming other people or society, homosexuals demand voluntary adult relations and the right to be loved freely by a partner, and they appeal for equality with other people (Lu Yueshan 1995a, p. 311).

Although this discussion of the issue closes with the possibility of a more open stance, in recent decades China has tended to adopt the former viewpoints, regarding its immorality or abnormality. However, even this view is justified in a global context. Some women's movement activists also adopt such a generally negative perspective, one seeing it as "a kind of abnormality," and another noting that "Individually I don't approve of it ...For human development it really is not beneficial, but for individuals it is a personal matter." In general, there has also been relative closure in discussions of the subject of homosexuality. For instance, a journalist noted that "In Chinese newspapers, you still cannot openly talk about homosexuality, at least in official newspapers." A professor also noted that people know that there are homosexuals in China, "but you don't learn about it in official newspapers." An NGO activist, who was active in the Chinese translation of O u r Bodies, Ourselves, felt that attitudes regarding homosexuality, in China are homophobic. China's mainstream culture does not admit homosexual culture. When we were discussing the Our Bodies, Ourselves copyright with the Boston group, I told them that in China there is a publishing inspection system, and I felt we may not be able to publish it, because you cannot publish pornography. But there are standards of distinguishing pornography-what is pornography and what is medicine? The rule is that anything depicting technique is pornography, in one section of Our Bodies, Ourselves there are many technique questions and the lesbian chapter has many sex questions. When we were talking with them, they didn't agree to cut any of the content. But we asked, if the publishing system does not agree to publish these, are you willing or not to make a concession? At last they said we can delete this one chapter and we reached an agreement. The publishers have already taken this chapter and they want to discuss it, we still don't have the final wording for it. It's not that homosexuality cannot be a subject of scientific research, and it's not that we cannot discuss homosexual issues. It is a sexual behavior, but the question is to what extent to speak about it. A given society only has development to a certain level with respect to identifying with pluralistic cultures, so to accept the minority group, to have the kind of ability to admit homosexuality, is a process.

She notes that one aspect of such a process is that "In China, discussing AIDS and homosexuality is very difficult, but from the point of view of the prevention and cure of AIDS, you can discuss 'gay' issues. It is a strategic problem, how to raise and discuss problems." Besides strategic considerations, another component of such a processua1 view of the acceptance of homosexuality in China is with respect to the role that international ties have played in Chinese women's movement Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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activists becoming more tolerant. Numerous activists have noted the role that participation in preparing for the FWCW and the N G O Forum had in making them more understanding of homosexuality. For instance, a university lecturer who, while at an NGO Forum preparatory meeting in Finland attended a party at a local Lesbians' Club, wrote a letter to her mother about this experience and concluded that, "In fact, lesbians are human beings like you and me. They have the right to their own way of life and kind of family" (quoted in Wong Yuen Ling 1995, pp. 87-88). Others also had similar experiences. One lawyer who attended a preparatory meeting in Manila, noted that "I can understand homosexuality, it should not be suppressed, this is a way of freedom in life, I don't oppose it. I feel disgusted with everyone saying that it is not normal-when I went to the Philippines I saw homosexuals, and I felt it was really good." A university professor noted a similar experience when she attended a preparatory meeting in Argentina: "This gave me a big impression of homosexuality. In Argentina, I realized it is extremely normal. Before, I thought it was not normal, but now I am able to respect them." Another activist noted that her change in viewpoint came when she began feminist activities: "At the beginning, I did not understand homosexuality, I was not too familiar with it. When I started doing women's activities, I knew female homosexuals, both Chinese and Western. If man and woman are not good together, then women should be together." Such viewpoints have also to some extent been contributed to Chinese discourses by the Ford Foundation program. For instance, a Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics conference on sexually-transmitted diseases emphasized that "The public should be educated to give up their prejudice or bias against homosexuality," especially with respect to STDIHIV education and prevention (Program in Reproductive Health and Ethics 1993, p. 8). And a newsletter on AIDS awareness, distributed hand to hand in Beijing and elsewhere, features contact information for homosexuals (Aizhi Action 1995). Both of these practices can thus be seen to be adopting the "strategic" approach to discussing homosexual rights, with respect to linking them to an issue that can be discussed in China. However, there have been other signs of more accepting attitudes as well. An article in Marriage and Family magazine by Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo, who have also written a book on the topic (1992), discusses the varying interpretations of homosexuality, as a crime, as immoral, as an illness, as a sexual abnormality, and, finally, as a lifestyle. They argue that the latter viewpoint is the most logical one, and note increasing Western tolerance of homosexuality as a lifestyle, concluding that "China is a country with an ancient culture, but it can also be drawn into this trend, and step by step move towards tolerance and a new civilization. Precisely because we are considering this possibility, we still have confidence in the future of the ancient culture" (Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo 1995). Such a view of the Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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possibility of cultural change is complemented by other views discussing the general existence of homosexuality across cultures and history, with China being part of this. These arguments essentially take the view found in the Chinese Women's Encyclopedia, regarding the cross-historical and cross-cultural condemnation of homosexuality, and turn it on its head, using the argument that the phenomenon has existed throughout history and in many different cultures as a means of legitimating its current reality. In an article in WomenS Studies magazine, gay rights activist Wan Yanhai discusses various American research results regarding the genetic and physiological origins of homosexuality, finding that "if homosexuality is innate, then unequal rights for homosexuals are irrational," and concludes on a note of hope "for these struggling, suffering people" (Wan Yanhai 1995). Thus, popular-level women's magazines are starting to feature more tolerant attitudes, with international comparisons being part of their approach. The Women's Hotline is an N G O in Beijing that has dealt with homosexual issues and written about them in its various publications. Although some of its writings on the topic tend to discuss pedophilic cases, which are bound to reinforce stereotypes, they also do address the pain that can occur when one person in a marriage reveals that he or she is a homosexual (Wang Xingjuan 1995e). In one account of a call to the Hotline from a married woman involved with another woman, the counselor urged the woman to return to her family, but also noted that "Some countries even have homosexual organizations and activities to strive for social acceptance. China has only adopted a concept of not offending public decency or influencing the social order, but many factors have relaxed attitudes toward this issue" (Ding Ning et al. 1995, pp. 167-173). Other Hotline calls have dealt with transsexuality, and have even encouraged callers to look into the possibility of sex-change operations (Huang Hengyu et al. 1995, pp. 200-204; Wang Xingjuan 1995e, p. 27). Such viewpoints are indicative of changing attitudes toward this issue and the role played by the women's movement in such transformations. Finally, as I have already discussed in Chapter 3, "women's studies" is itself a foreign import into China (Lu Yueshan 1995b, p. I), one which originally was somewhat controversial as to its possible "bourgeois" origins (Zhu Qing 1987, p. 25), but which gradually received acceptance. The term was originally introduced into China in 1982, in a review of a Japanese book (Wan Shanping 1988, pp. 459-460). It eventually became the basis for a new, more independent discourse on women than the statesponsored one of Fulian (Barlow 1994). As can be seen throughout this chapter, women's studies has been the basis of a discussion on women's issues that seeks to transcend the academic sphere and affect women's own lives, both through consciousness and through policy. Other new terminologies are entering the Chinese women's movement as well. These include terms such as "non-governmental organization" (fei Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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zhengfu zuzhi), discussed in Chapter 6, as well as things like "sustainable development" (chixuxing fazhan), "feminization of poverty" (nuxing de pinkunhua) (Hom and Xin Chunying 1995), "sexism" (xingbiezhuyi) (Lu Yueshan 1995a, p. 320), and "sexual discrimination" (xingbie qishi) (Lu Yueshan 1995c, p. 41). Additionally, as I discussed in Chapter 4, "feminism" (nuquanzhuyilnuxingzhuyi) is achieving more widespread discussion and even acceptance than it did prior to the 1990s.

CONCLUSIONS Created in part by contact with the international women's movement, the Chinese women's movement of the 1990s has a new repertoire of what IZlandermans (1988, p. 182) terms "reactive demandsm-which are "changes that fit in with the dominant ideology of a society." In particular, the Chinese women's movement has taken advantage of a statist commitment to gender equality, heightened as a result of the FWCW, and used it to raise new issues in the Chinese context. Such "naming" of problems has been facilitated by increasing foreign contacts, especially among NGO groups, but has also occurred using the framework of persisting state-level guarantees to promote women's issues. In the case of reproductive health this has particularly featured the employment of existing Chinese state institutions in new ways, while for sexual harassment and domestic violence it has featured calls for better implementation of China's currently existing laws protecting women. While these measures do not lead to enhanced democratic means of rule per se, they may contribute to enhancing the rule of law in China, an important prerequisite for the realization of democratization. The introduction of new issues to movement discourses also reveals a general widening of tolerance on the part of the state of discussion of previously "sensitive" issues, one hallmark of the symbiotic relations existing between state and movement.

NOTES For an analysis of some of the cultural continuities present in the 1989 student movement, see Esherick and Wasserstrom (1994). Gamson and Meyer (1996, p. 285) look at "collective action frames" as defining "people as political agents of their own history." E.g., see Lu Yueshan (1995~); Tang Can (1995). For more on the vicissitudes of the "politicization" of women's issues in contemporary China, see Wang Zheng (1996; 1998).

A number of interviewees noted openings in the Women's Federation caused by exposure to international feminism.

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I will discuss both homosexuality and family planning below, and look at some of the openings that have occurred even in these very "sensitive" areas. And men as well-over 2 0 percent of callers to the Women's Hotline from September 1992 to August 1993 were men. See Women's Research Institute (1995, pp. 4, 7-81, in which the Women's Research Institute discusses its discovery that its training classes of female officials was a way for it to obtain financial resources. X.L. Ding discusses the ways in which publishing of book series provided a relatively simple, minimally supervised means for the "counterelite" to spread some of its views. He argues that such publishing was a means for intellectuals to increase their "social influence" and make some money in the process (Ding 1994a, pp. 65-67). lo In 1990, the Women's Research Institute, of which the Women's Hotline is a

part, published a series of translations of books that the Institute's head, Wang Xingjuan, had obtained from the United States. This book series was titled Nuxing de Shiiie Yicong (Women's World Translated Series), and featured books on varying topics including health and employment. l1 Conference 29 March 1996. l2 "Male-female equality" (nannu pingdeng) has been a common discourse under

the CCP. l3 Women's "low quality" (suzhi cha) is a common refrain in the women's movement, as is the desire to promote its raising. l4 This can be a process of complex cultural and linguistic negotiation. Sperling

(1997, pp. 278-280) looks at the absence of certain feminist terms in Russian, and the sometimes controversial effects of their adoption into the discourses of the Russian women's movement. Sharon Hom (1993) looks at translating English feminist terminology into Chinese, and Wang, Lee, and Fischer (1994)look at the problems of translating terms like "public sphere" and "civil society" into Chinese. l5For a different context, the late-communist Soviet Union, Zdravomyslova argues that "the very fact of naming an SMO a 'party' symbolized new political opportunities for the establishment of a multiparty system" (1996, p. 127, emphasis added). In the case of post-Mao China, new "names" for social problems indicates a wider discourse on women's issues emerging from multiple sources, including the international women's movement. l6 This was admittedly a rather random survey (in a non-scientific sense) of tables of contents, based on what I myself possess and what is available through American libraries. I also admit that the methodological soundness of this survey is also diminished by the fact that some of the magazines in question did not begin publication until after 1992. However, this does not negate the fact that most the issues Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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in question also did not appear in magazines also published during the 1980s until after 1992. For instance, Marriage and Family began publication in 1985, but it only began discussing both sexual harassment and domestic violence after 1994. There is also the fact that some issues seemed to have declined in their levels of discussion after 1995. However, content analysis for 1996 consisted of just a few issues of the magazines in question, and may thus not accurately reflect the actual discussions over the course of that and subsequent years. l 7 The editor of Nuxing Yanjiu pointed out that the magazine would soon be losing its funds from the municipal Fulian, and would need to rely on advertisements and subscriptions for support. To this end, the magazine began publishing a more reader-friendly cover with a color photo on it. l8Jianying Zha (1994) looks at some of these issues, particularly the use of sex to sell publications. l9 Further evidence of the FWCW leading to the introduction of many new terminologies into the jargon of the Chinese women's movement can be found in two lexicons published particularly to aid Chinese women in participating in the conference and its discussions. See Hom and Xin Chunying (1995), and Qi Wenying (1995a).

20 Such research can potentially add to the "credibility" (Klandermans 1988, pp. 184-186) of the issue of reproductive health in China, with its empirical rather than ideological emphasis. Other new issues have also been adopted as "research" topics, as I will show below. 21 Tao Chunfang and Xiao Yang (1995), Wang Shaoxian and Li Zhen (1994), and Zhao Jie et al. (1995) are all books published regarding this topic and utilizing Ford Foundation support.

22 See Wang Shaoxian and Li Zhen (1994). The importance of rural outreach in this project should be highlighted. 23 The photo novella was published as Zhongguo Yunnan Nongcun Funu Ziwo Xiezhen Ji (Visual Voices: 100 Photographs of Village China by the Women of Yunnan Province) (Wang 1995). And the concepts of "reproductive health" have also been disseminated beyond the Yunnan project in, for instance, a textbook promoting rural women's literacy published by Rural Women Knowing All magazine discussing "reproduction and health" (Zhao Shilin 1994), and there is a feature on the issue in each issue of the magazine as well. It is likely that attention to this question in this magazine derives from the fact that it received its start-up funding as well as continuing funds through the Ford Foundation Reproductive Health Program. In fact, so far this issue has received more attention in this rural women's publication than in other popular women's magazines-all the articles cited here on the topic are from Collection of Women's Studies, the most scholarly of the magazines surveyed.

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24 Wong et al. (1994b) look at the focus group research that sought to incorporate rural women's own views into policy formulations. 25 For one such Western feminist viewpoint, see Dixon-Mueller (1993).

26 E.g., "Sexual harassment is a term coming from abroad, and is still fairly unfamiliar to the vast majority of people in our country, but it is a major social problem perplexing Chinese and foreign women for the 21st century. In Western countries, sexual harassment has already generated media and public attention" (Zhang Xianyu 1995). And in an interview, one professor noted that "We didn't know this term until recent years-and maybe many people don't know this term." 27 The author does not deal with the implications of these observations-namely, admitting that homosexuality is more widespread in Chinese society than most people are willing to admit. I will further discuss that issue below. 28 Similarly, Valerie Sperling notes that the Russian women's movement was challenged by the lack of an equivalent term for "gender" in Russian (Sperling 1997, pp. 278-280). 29 Wang Zheng (1996) also looks at the increase in gender discourses and gender consciousness as a result of the FWCW.

30 Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo (1992) discuss male homosexuality-and the same authors are doing a study of female homosexuality in China. Li Yinhe is a prominent CASS sociologist working on numerous new women's issues, including domestic violence (Li Yinhe 1994a). Two books published in Hong IZong by sociologists discuss both gays and lesbians in China (Wu Chunsheng and Zhou Huashan 1996; Zhou Huashan 1996). 31 O n efforts relating to China's fledgling gay rights movement, see Ching Chi (19931, Hong IZong AFP (1995), Pingguo Ribao (19981, Wan Yanhai (1998), and Wong (1994). In 1994, there was some publicity regarding the publication of China's "first book on homosexuality" (Zhongguo Xinwen She 19941, which is curious because the Li and Wang study of male homosexuals was published two years before, in 1992 (Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo 1992).

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

PART IV

Conclusions

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

CHAPTER EIGHT

Conclusions

While the 1990s to some extent continued patterns of women's movement emergence that began in the Initiating Phase of the 1980s with the early founding of women's studies in China, the 1990s Popularizing Phase featured important new developments. In particular, increasing ties to international or exogenous forces had a significant impact on the extent of women's organizations, their types, and the issues that they were interested in addressing. These forces led to an expansion of women's organizations not directly tied to the All-China Women's Federation, and therefore to an increasing diversity of voices speaking on behalf of women's also diverse needs and interests. The provision of international funding through the Ford Foundation and the experiences provided by the Fourth World Conference on Women led to the emergence of a whole new cluster of women's movement activists, a group that is interested in women organizing themselves to promote social change, rather than depending on the Chinese party-state to improve women's condition. Despite these new developments, however, this movement has continued to exist in a context that is still very much non-democratic and dominated by a state with hegemonic aspirations vis-a-vis social formations. To this extent, the movement is symbiotic in its relationship to that state.

SYMBIOTIC SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE In the evolution of the Chinese women's movement from potential conflict at Manila in 1993 to the official-level recognition in 1998 shown by the ability of various "non-governmental" women's advocates to meet with Hillary Clinton, the Chinese party-state has especially undergone a learning process whereby it has recognized that certain types of social movement formation are not a threat to its own authority as the ruler of China, and that a relationship of cooperation can exist between social forces and the state. The concept of "symbiosis" describes just such a social movement, and it is characterized by a number of features. Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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First, symbiosis indicates a situation of negotiation. In the case of social movements, this means the state and a given movement's organizations engage in compromises as to what might comprise acceptable activity on the part of the movement. This necessitates a wider notion of what constitutes a "social movement" beyond notions of "contention" or "protest activities." Instead, social movements might engage in a wide range of activities that seek to promote social change through varied means, some of which are not disruptive and even may not be especially interested in institutional politics, which is usually the emphasis in political opportunity structure approaches. A movement might desire to influence state policy but not the form of the state itself, or it may seek to pursue entirely socially-based forms of change like those emphasized by "discursive communities." It may do so through forms of organization that are not necessarily mobilizational in a large-scale sense. The Chinese women's movement has been typified by just such forms of organization. While not featuring mass-membership types of groups characterizing women's and other movements in democratic contexts, the Chinese movement has instead primarily featured groups that are more service-focused and voluntary, such as the Women's Hotline and the Jinglun Family Science Center, or groups that are more scholarly in nature, such as women's studies centers at various universities. These types of groups are participating in activities that are not directly impinging upon state power and authority, but instead are providing assistance to women in need and increasing the theoretical and practical knowledge base regarding women's issues. Their activities, while not oppositional to the state, are nonetheless ones in which the state generally has itself not engaged. Since women's issues are something that the state itself has claimed to be concerned about, groups have been able to utilize this concern to assist in their own development. Second, symbiosis designates a relationship of mutual influence. While a symbiotic social movement is dependent to some extent on state forbearance for its existence and for the range of activities that it is able to pursue, at the same time it is able to change the state's views of particular issues and perhaps even expand the types of issues that are considered to be valid to be discussed in a given context. At the same time, the state affects the movement by circumscribing its channels of action as well as the types of discursive forms it may employ. In the case of the Chinese women's movement, such mutual influences were evident throughout the 1990s. In particular, the preparations for the FWCW led to new views of what it meant to be a "non-governmental organization," and changes in the state's view of such organizations from potentially oppositional to potentially cooperative. And the influences of NGOs extended beyond the increasing acceptability of their mere forms of organization to expanding the discourses of the Chinese women's Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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movement itself. New issues, such as reproductive health, sexual harassment, and domestic violence, have been added to the agendas of the movement, and these have largely been introduced from the international women's movement to China through the lens of Chinese women's NGOs. In turn, N G O discussion of these issues, and their nature as global "common problems" has led to the state itself taking an interest in them, and therefore to the even greater legitimacy of their discussion in the Chinese context. Third, symbiosis indicates a relationship of permeation. The movement is not in a clear-cut relationship of opposition to the state, nor is it always easy to discern who are the movement actors and who are the state actors. Indeed, sometimes movement actors are state actors wearing different hats by participating in movement organizations. This may particularly be useful in resource-poor situations where state actors are able to use certain of their official-level assets in their movement activities. These assets may include tangible items such as office space, research materials, printing facilities, and telephones, as well as intangibles like a good political reputation or network contacts with other interested persons. In China, it is indeed often difficult to untangle which activists are of the movement and which are of the state. Some of the most committed Career Activists have their full-time work in the Women's Federation or as journalists with women's publications, but also employ their interests and talents for the benefit of non-governmental groups. Other Career Activists are either retired from state-level work units and now able to pursue women's movement activity full-time, or else they are employed by state-level units but able to devote most of their energies to women-oriented activities. And many Voluntary Activists found women's work through association with universities and their women's studies centers, which of course in China are closely tied to the state as well. Finally, symbiosis denotes a condition of reciprocal benefit, or "mutual need" (Kurokawa 1997, p. 76). The state realizes that certain social movement activities may actually be beneficial to its own goals and interests. Domestically, this can occur through social movements performing activities that the state may not be able or willing to pursue but may still see as valid or necessary. The existence of such activities, particularly those of a type performed by service organizations, can further legitimize the state itself, particularly if groups are closely linked to the state as described above. Internationally, the existence of non-state groups can promote an impression that a given country is willing to tolerate independent forms of organizing on the part of its citizens. Reciprocally, even though they have to work in cooperation with the state and their activities may be circumscribed as a result of this relationship, social groups can also gain from this connection. They obtain a measure of political legitimacy which promotes their safe operation. And this provides activists with a way of acting upon Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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their social concerns and interests, as well as a way of influencing the state through direct or indirect channels. In China, the state has clearly realized that it has more to gain than to lose from the existence of new forms of women's organizations, especially since these organizations have been careful to act within state-approved confines. Many N G O activists clearly believe that they are doing work that the state does not do, and the state can thus regard their activities as supplemental to rather than in contradiction with state-level ways of assisting women. While that does not always lead to harmonious relations between the state-level Women's Federation and other women's groups, it still ultimately helps promote the claimed goal of the state to favor women's equality. At the same time, at the international level, foreign observers can see that the Chinese state has permitted relatively independent forms of organization to help women, and especially due to increased attention to the condition of Chinese women as a result of the FWCW, the state may view allowing the groups to exist as a positive influence on its international image. On the other side, women's movement activists no doubt are aware that it is to their advantage to not overtly criticize or alienate the Chinese party-state, but rather to act in a more conciliatory manner. Such activity enables them to pursue their activities with a minimum of statist interference, and even perhaps allows them to express views that may ultimately influence state policy regarding women's issues. While symbiotic social movements may exist in any political context, their conditions are perhaps especially relevant to non-democratic ones. Negotiation of course is evident in the fact that, due to the absence of guaranteed rights of free speech and organization, social groups depend on state willingness to allow them to exist, and groups can affect this willingness through their own conduct. If they are not disruptive, the state may be more willing to allow them some organizational autonomy. Mutual influence can be seen in how groups, while often not directly interested in influencing the state, may nonetheless have an impact upon the state's views of the problems they are seeking to address. This provides for some social input in politics even in non-democratic situations. Permeation may indeed enhance such input, for in such cases social movement actors are themselves often part of the state and can therefore be especially effective in altering state policies and preferences. Finally, reciprocal benefit is perhaps a necessary feature especially in non-democratic contexts, for it can influence the outcome of the negotiation process and the extent to which the state allows social actors to function. It is in this sense that the concept of "symbiosis" has comparative implications, as well as contributing to a greater understanding of state-society relations in contemporary China. In particular, it encourages a focus on social movements that do not necessarily seek to change the existing political order, but rather hope to enact social changes within a given regime. It Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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points out ways that social actors can seek to promote their interests and commitments while working within state-sanctioned confines. Thus, the "political opportunity structure" of such a movement may indeed depend more on very general political signals, and especially on whether the state is likely to repress a particular type of organizing, than on particular alliances of state elites. A movement which is a "discursive community" may thereby exist in multiple political contexts. And it is relevant to study social movements using perspectives that transcend their explicit attempts at democratizing local regimes, but instead focus on their own specific ambitions in particular contexts. Such perspectives not only examine movements' goals vis-A-vis a given non-democratic regime, but also their organizational and discursive forms in diverse societies and polities. Organizationally, symbiotic movements are likely to engage in non-mobilizational forms of activity that nonetheless can have ways of altering social relations. Discursively, movement framing efforts rely on making demands that are legitimate within a given political order. With respect to China, the concept of "symbiosis" is relevant to the debate among China scholars in the early 1990s regarding prospects for "civil society" in China. It is partially consistent with notions of "institutional parasitism" advocated by X.L. Ding in its advocacy of a context-specific view of state-society relations in post-Mao China. But it also goes beyond Ding's approach in attempting to look at ways that state attempts to maintain its power and legitimacy while also allowing for the emergence of some independent social organizations. Additionally, it seeks to account for the role played by local-level structural conditions for organization, such as the need of social groups to have supervisory work units, in describing Chinese social movement formations. And, rather than focusing on brief-lived moments of dissent such as Tiananmen Square, or more selfinterested types of protest such as those of the "sent-down youth" or the "water refugees," symbiosis seeks to account for more lasting ways that social groups can make claims and pursue their interests and even their rights in contemporary Chinese society. In particular, the women's movement in the 1990s has been characterized by an increasing sense of "collective identity" that women activists seek to employ in their self-directed activities to change women's general condition in China today. Their activities exist in symbiotic relation to the Chinese state, a condition which has come to exist through exogenous as well as endogenous causes.

GLOBALIZATION AND DOMESTIC SOCIAL MOVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES As I discussed in Chapter 2, many accounts of the effects of globalization on domestic politics seek to show how these processes alter the nature of domestic political, social, and cultural patterns. In particular, many of these Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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accounts look at perceived effects such as state decline, cultural hybridity, and the emergence of global civil society, all of which point to the increasing influence of exogenous forces on local states, cultures, and societies. Such influences particularly seek to demonstrate the ways that international norms and globalization processes often challenge domestic sovereignty. However, I have here sought to instead show how exogenous influences are localized, and the ways in which local actors, both state and movement, can utilize these influences to further their own agendas. The process of symbiosis is also affected in important ways by international influences, and it is through this process that local forces mediate the forces of globalization. First, exogenous influences contribute to state learning processes that can allow particular types of social organization without diminishing its own power or authority. To some extent the emergence of such groups is indicative of the state not being able to meet its citizens' needs, as is proposed by some theorists who feel that globalization is leading to "state decline." For instance, in the case of the Chinese women's movement, women have generally been adversely affected by the post-Mao policy of "reform and opening" and in particular by the marketization of the Chinese economy. The Chinese state, while at least rhetorically committed to women's equality, has been less able or willing to ensure such conditions in the context of the reforms. So social forces have stepped into the breach. However, they do this largely in cooperation with statist elements and with the ultimate sanction of the state in terms of what is acceptable activity on their part. In this sense, the learning process that the state has undergone has led to the emergence of a movement-specific opportunity for the women's movement. Key international factors have led to a diminished likelihood of repression for that movement. In particular, the international spotlight focused on the Chinese women's movement by the FWCW, combined with the Chinese party-state learning that criticism of women's issues is not necessarily criticism of the state itself, has led to a widened scope for action on the part of the Chinese women's movement. In more general terms, it is important to understand how international influences might decrease the chances that a state might seek to repress a given social movement, thus opening new political opportunity structures. International attention may increase the margins of safety for a local-level social movement. Second, exogenous influences may also expand the availability of economic resources for social movement activities. International foundations and agencies have in some cases provided new sources of operating funds for social movement groups. In China, this has particularly been evidenced by the fact that the expansion of non-Women's Federation women's groups in the 1990s has coincided with the institution of Ford Foundation programs supporting such groups, and they have in some cases been able to Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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exist solely through the provision of such funds. This funding can therefore increase the organizational possibilities available to interested activists, even in non-democratic contexts. Indeed, the types of non-mobilizational activities pursued in these contexts may depend more on readily available economic resources than forms of mass protest. At the same time, reliance on such international funding can have problematic aspects in that it can influence women's groups to stress particular types of activities in order to obtain funds, and it also has the potential to create conflict among groups competing for financial resources. Third, exogenous influences can affect the domestic-level mobilizing structures of social movements in various ways. They can expand the existence of "micromobilization contexts" by providing new contacts and networks with elements of "global civil society." This can occur through international conferences, academic exchanges, or personal ties. However, while local groups can have increasing international ties, they also need to continue to negotiate local contexts for organizing. This is where concepts of "global civil society" encounter some difficulties, because of the origins of notions of "civil society" in Western contexts. The fate of the Chinese debate on civil society is a good example of the need for caution in the cross-cultural applicability of the term. Chinese social organizations are at best quasi-autonomous, depending on official-level recognition from a state-level work unit for their legality and legitimacy. However, Chinese women's movement activists have clearly been influenced by their expanded international ties in the 1990s in their efforts to create a concept of "NGO" activity in China that is relevant to Chinese forms of organization but still true to the international-level meanings of the term. Finally, with respect to cultural opportunities and framing, it is evident that, while the widespread existence of truly transnational social movements is questionable, many domestic-level social movements are becoming more cosmopolitan entities. The diffusion of "global" forms of culture has provided significant new discourses and grievance frames to local movements. While this could have significant subversive implications for local politics, particularly those that are non-democratic, in many cases such global discourses are symbiotically accepted into local contexts in a way acceptable to the state. In China, this was evidenced in, for instance, the fact that concepts of "reproductive health" have been seen as compatible with the improved implementation of the state-led family planning policy. In general, globalization processes can provide significant measures of exogenous influence on local-level social movements, even if such influences are ultimately mediated by local social, political, and cultural forms. In particular, globalization can expand movement opportunities at all levels, by changing state views of particular social movement activities and thus diminishing the likelihood of repression, by expanding resources Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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available to movement groups, by enhancing social networks, and by altering movement discourses. In some cases this can lead to a movement utilizing its international ties to target its own state, as in Keck and Sikkink's "boomerang" model, but in other cases it contributes to learning processes on the part of both state and movement that can promote symbiotic cooperation.

A PERSISTING SOCIAL MOVEMENT? THE CONTEMPORARY CHINESE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH The phenomenon of a newly emerging, symbiotic women's movement in the China of the 1990s is admittedly a very new one. And there is some evidence that much of the expansion of the movement during the lead-up to the convening of the Fourth World Conference on Women was caused directly by the greatly expanded opportunities for organizing provided by that event, and there was a clear decline in foundings of groups after the conference was completed. In this sense, the period between 1992 and 1995 can be regarded as an "episodic" increase in opportunities for women's movement emergence and activity in China. This period was also characterized by an increase in discussion of particular new topics of discussion in the movement. However, there is also evidence that many of the changes that occurred prior to the conference have had lasting implications. As I discussed in Chapter 5, while there were no significant foundings of new women's groups following the conclusion of the FWCW, this conference was viewed to be a "success" by both the movement and the Chinese state and this promoted the ability of existing groups to continue in their activities. And some of the new issues have received lasting attention-for instance, domestic violence was one of the topics of discussion when Chinese movement activists met with Hillary Clinton in June 1998. And this meeting is in itself evidence of the persisting concern for women's issues and the enduring nature of these women's movement activities. An important question for further research is the ways that the movement's existing organizations have changed over time, and how their activities have expanded or contracted in response to a potentially changed environment. While most evidence points to a continued symbiotic relationship characterized by relatively independent activity on the part of the movement, deeper analysis might reveal the ways that such symbiosis can persist in situations of changed opportunities, and how its learning processes provide lasting lessons. Another aspect of the contemporary Chinese situation that would be benefited by further research is to examine the prospects for alternative social movements in China today. Other potential movements have had varying degrees of success in the China of the 1990s, although perhaps Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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none have had the level of development of the women's movement, which is itself perhaps indicative of the central importance of the exogenous opportunity of the women's conference in providing a very tangible "movement-specific opportunity." These movements include the labor movement, one with some similarities to the women's movement in its relationship to the state, but which has had far less success in initiating the open organization of independent unions. The gay rights movement is another movement that has had some attempts to independently organize suppressed by the state-most notably the closing down of the "Men's World'' salon by authorities in 1993. Perhaps the movement with the most similarities to the contemporary women's movement is environmentalism. Like women's issues, the state has made rhetorical claims to be concerned about protecting the environment, but it usually does not match such claims with concrete action. However, various groups have been established, usually under state auspices, to promote environmental awareness and protection. Such organizing is an issue, however, that has received very little attention by Western social scientists, and further research on how concerned Chinese are able to act on China's environmental crisis would be a valuable endeav0r. Despite the short history of the contemporary Chinese women's movement in its current form, its existence is important evidence of changes underway in Chinese state-society relations. In particular, it provides a counter-example to typical stereotypes of a Chinese Communist regime completely unchastened by international human rights standards, and instead shows that in part the women's movement in China has been able to expand because the Chinese party-state has undergone a learning process whereby it has realized the nature of many women's issues as global "common problems'' means that their discussion is not criticism of or opposition to the state itself. In this way, the Chinese women's movement has particularly been able to capitalize on the fact that the Chinese state has itself made numerous promises to promote gender equality, promises that have existed since liberation in 1949 but which have been heightened in the 1990s, largely because of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the Chinese state's desire to make a favorable international impression. Because of these promises and the international nature of women's issues, the women's movement has been able to gently raise certain issues that previously were taboo, and to still appear cooperative, rather than confrontational. And in this way, a symbiotic women's movement has come to exist that, at least to some extent, is reflective of an enhanced participatory ethic in the evolution of Chinese state-society relations, as well as of the continuing power and authority of the Chinese Communist party-state.

Copyright 2002 by Sharon Wesoky

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