A queer feminist anthropologist exploring the realities of culture, gender, and sexuality in contemporary Asia
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.
There are a bunch of ways to measure gender equality. While some believe that giving women the right to vote solved that problem long ago, women are still a long way from equal representation in politics. Why's equal representation important? Women politicians are far more likely to hold women's best interests at heart. Without women's participation in [...]
International Women's Day began as a day of women's protest in Europe and the United States. Celebrating this socialist holiday largely died out in the US, while communists in China have been commemorating Women's Day annually since 1922. The tables have turned this year. Women in the US are striking today, while working women in China are enjoying a half-day off work.
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, [...]
British actor and pioneer of the UN’s HeForShe campaign, Emma Watson has faced criticism for the publication of a photo in which her breasts are partially exposed. The image is one of a series taken by acclaimed fashion photographer Tim Walker, with styling by Jessica Diehl. It accompanied Watson’s recent cover story interview for Vanity [...]
We have to free half of the human race, the women, so that they can help to free the other half. Emmeline Pankhurst I shall never while I live forget the suffering I experienced during the days when those cries were ringing in my ears. Emmeline Pankhurst Read on '1908-1917 Imprisoned suffragettes', mashable
Yesterday I was locking up my bike when a policeman barked at me. He was fifty metres away. He started walking towards me, and yelled again. No words, just sounds. Then he whistled. A high piercing tone designed to scare me off. He clapped his hands three times, loudly, and shouted again, a sound equivalent [...]
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 [...]
The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet. Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist and radical feminist. She was credited with bringing "the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse" (Flood). Responsibility to yourself means refusing to [...]
Pyone Thet Thet Kyaw is a Rakhine Burmese woman who works for the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) in Yangon, and runs her own dressmaking start-up in her spare time. As the founder and head designer at Virya Couture, she teaches vocational skills to underprivileged women, helping them overcome poverty.
Zhēn de Gender 