Words and Women: bell hooks

If feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression, and depriving females of reproductive rights is a form of sexist oppression, then one cannot be anti-choice and be feminist. A woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion while affirming her support of the right of women to choose and still be an [...]

Closer Look: Xiaolu Guo

“You know it’s illegal to possess two passports as a Chinese citizen?” I saw her take out a large pair of scissors and decisively cut the corner off my Chinese passport. She then threw it back out at me. It landed before me on the counter, disfigured and invalid. Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese filmmaker [...]

China’s International Women’s Day in Pictures

A quick rundown of how International Women's Day looked from the perspective of women in China - in pictures. Chinese news outlet Global Times provided a timely reminder of International Men's Day | image from: twitter  Global Times, a daily newspaper owned and published by the state-affiliated People's Daily, decided International Women's Day (known as [...]

Words and Women: Vera Nazarian

A woman is human. She is not better, wiser, stronger, more intelligent, more creative, or more responsible than a man. Likewise, she is never less. Equality is a given. A woman is human. ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration Words and Women is a regular feature that spotlights short quotations from influential women activists, [...]

Identity, Breast Implants, and Wanting More from Life: Lijia Zhang on her Debut Novel Lotus (interview: part I)

Inspired by her grandmother’s deathbed confession of being sold to a brothel, Lijia Zhang injects her cutting social criticism into her first novel, Lotus. The book delves deep into the sex industry in contemporary Shenzhen, following a young migrant woman, Lotus, who is eager to escape her life as a prostitute. A strong believer in [...]

We Should All Be Feminists: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of my favourite authors. She's certainly my favourite African author and I believe she is the best female writer of our time. Her fiction is poetic and hugely powerful. She weaves enchanting and wonderfully moving stories about the reality of Nigerian life. Adichie was named one of the twenty most important fiction writers [...]