By Kris Li
The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.
The Beijing Declaration is not only crucial for global women’s empowerment, but also a starting point for China’s gender-focused communities after the start of economic reformation. Many NGOs and media outlets active on gender equity issues in China from the early 2000s to the late 2010s can trace their origins back to 1995. For example, an NGO that would become a well-known Chinese We media Feminist Voice in the future, was founded by a group of female journalists in Beijing after the Fourth World Conference on Women.
The first case of gender discrimination in employment in China was ruled in 2015, two decades after the declaration.
Thus, the feminist movement in China was in its infancy during the late 1990s and early 2000s, and it began to claim more public space in the 2010s as it became more visible online. It was a long path, as “sexual harassment” was first included in China’s legislation only in 2005, 10 years after the birth of the Beijing Declaration, and the first case of gender discrimination in employment in China was ruled in 2015, two decades after the declaration.
However, since Xi Jinping’s administration reached power in 2012, women’s rights in China have experienced a backslide. From 2012 to 2024, China’s World Economic Forum gender gap index ranking has dropped from 69 to 106, with women’s representation at the ministerial level declining to 4.3% compared to the 11.5% share during 2010-2016. In 2022, for the first time in 20 years, no female members were picked for the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Notably, Xi consistently emphasizes women’s traditional gender roles within families, as his leadership expects them to perform unpaid domestic labor and adhere to “traditional moral principles”. At the 12th National Women’s Congress of China in 2023, “gender equality as a basic national policy” was not mentioned in the opening ceremony for the first time in 20 years. Xi’s speech at the congress did not affirm the contribution of working females like his predecessors usually did; instead, it called for “a new culture of marriage and childbirth.”
While misogyny is a human rights issue, an even more direct threat to Chinese women, LGBTQ+ groups, and their allies’ political rights and personal safety is the increasing repression of civil society. In 2013, the Chinese authorities implemented strict social control and began to shut down NGOs. In July 2015, many Chinese human rights lawyers and activists were arrested nationwide in what was known as the 709 Crackdown. In 2016, Law on the Management of Foreign Non-Governmental Organizations’ Activities within Mainland China was adopted, forcing many international NGOs to leave China beginning in 2017.
As offline space for activism significantly reduced in China, feminist activism moved online.
Gender-related NGOs and activists were among the first victims. In 2015, the Feminist Five, 5 activists and NGO leaders planning a sexual harassment awareness event for International Women’s Day, were detained by Beijing police around March 6. This was brought to the attention of a wide international society and sparked protests in other countries. As offline space for activism significantly reduced in China, feminist activism moved online.
However, online discussions and campaigns around feminism began to be perceived as a threat to national security after the Chinese #MeToo movement in 2018. Ironically, that was also the year when China’s constitution was changed to allow Xi to stay in his position. #MeToo in China started in January 2018 to request anti-sexual harassment mechanisms in higher education institutions, yet related information was censored quickly from social media. Weibo, one mainstream social media platform that has a highly developed censor system and fast response to authorities’ instructions, removed the hashtag #MeToo later that month. Feminist Voice, the media that was highly active in the movement, was banned for their content released for 2018 International Women’s Day, and their intent to demand transparency and start a lawsuit did not lead to any result. In the summer, as the movement had expanded to other industries, the government fully banned it.
Chinese authorities intensified their opposition to and censorship of online feminism, some netizens pushed back. At the beginning of 2020 and the COVID-19 quarantine, the feminist community protested online since feminine hygiene products were considered “unnecessary” to be included in the resources sent to hospitals in Wuhan, and some local authorities shaved the hair of female medical staff that were sent to Wuhan nationwide, using their “sacrifice” as a patriotic propaganda. During this chaotic period, the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), the CCP’s youth branch responsible for maintaining political stability on campuses, introduced two virtual streamers: a boy figure symbolizing the Party and the revolution that founded the PRC, and a girl figure representing the land, embodying a common female personification of the national territory. Many users who had already criticized CYLC’s misogyny, started to leave sarcastic questions to the account of the female figure, Jiang Shan Jiao (meaning “the beautiful national land”): “Do you also have period? Do you also need to give birth to children? Do you dare to leave home alone during the night?” As usual, the related comments were removed, and that pair of new mascots was never mentioned by the authority again. However, it is possible that the CYLC administration failed to grasp the sarcasm and instead reinforced its belief that feminism is a “national threat”.
Two years later, CYLC claimed “extreme feminism is endangering our internet.” The year 2022 was unforgettable for Chinese civil society since, besides large-scale political violence and human rights violations under the Zero-COVID policy, it was also a year marked by human trafficking and gender-based violence from the State. At the beginning of 2022, the Xuzhou chained woman incident revealed the situation of a trafficked woman with mental disability in East China, who was chained in a shed after giving birth to 8 children over the years. The common trafficking of women and girls in China, and the cruelty in this case, sparked a wide-range online campaign that encountered censorship and an information lockdown from the local government. A female netizen who tried to visit the survivor were arrested and beaten by local police, and forced to disappear later. Several months later, the 2022 Tangshan restaurant attack happened. At a restaurant in North China, a group of men violently assaulted four women after their resistance to sexual harassment. While triggered internet users organized online campaigns to raise awareness of gender-based violence, authorities and their supporters claimed it was only a security accident that had nothing to do with gender.
As a response to the online feminist movements, the Chinese authority further defines feminism and LGBTQ+ rights as ideological threats. A source in Beijing said: “Before (late 2022 and 2023) when the police called an end to our drag show, they usually had an excuse, for example, the neighbor complained; now they would directly tell us ‘it reflects wrong ideology.’”
This was followed by a nationwide crackdown on gender-related NGOs. Beijing LGBT+ Center, one of few that survived the period of 2013-2015 when many queer related organizations became invisible in China, closed in 2023, after years of political and financial pressure from the Ministry of State Security. Pineapple in Action was an online organization founded by a group of young females, gender minorities, and allies in late 2020. It focused on gender-based violence in China. Since a large community quickly gathered around them, for 2023 International Women’s Day, they planned a reading group in Guangzhou as their first offline event yet without further political intention. However, the local police questioned most volunteers once they announced their event, and Pineapple in Action was put under investigation since they were suspected of having relations with Taiwan and Hong Kong. It officially closed in the summer of 2023.
The 30th year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration should be a moment to remind us of Beijing’s betrayal of women’s rights.
After witnessing years of state violence against Chinese gender-focused NGOs, activists, and feminist political prisoners like Huang Xueqin, the 30th year anniversary of the Beijing Declaration should be a moment to remind us of Beijing’s betrayal of women’s rights. To remember their gender equality vision during the socialist revolution period, and to meet human rights principles, the Chinese government must fulfill its promise from 30 years ago at the Fourth World Conference on Women.
Kris Li (MPP '26), Human Rights Expert from China; Student Ambassador, Carr Center
UN Women - flickr
