Chinese Women Organizing
Cadres, Feminists, Muslims, Queers

This work describes and analyzes the new phase of women's organizing in China, which started in the 1980s, and remains a vital force to the present day.

In the process of helping women to help themselves, female activists have assumed a decisive role in negotiating social and political transformations in Chinese society. This is the first book that describes and analyzes the new phase of women's organizing in China, which started in the 1980s, and remains a vital force to the present day. The political and social changes taking place in contemporary Chinese society have, surprisingly, received scant attention. This volume enriches our understanding of the working of grassroots democracy in China by exploring women's popular organizing activities and their interaction with party-state institutions. By subjecting these activities to both empirical enquiry and theoretical scrutiny, a rigorous analysis of the exchange, dialogue, negotiation and transformation among and within three groups of political actors - popular women's groups, religious groups and the All China Women's Federation - is concisely presented to the reader.This book will be of tremendous interest to students of Chinese Studies, Political Science and Gender Studies alike.

I. Chinese Women: Organizing, Organizers, and Organizations. By Maria Jaschok, Cecilia Milwertz and Ping-Chun Hsiung. II. Contextualizing and Transcending East-West Boundaries 1. New Spaces, New Voices: Women Organizing in Twentieth-Century China. Elizabeth Croll (SOAS, University of London). 2. Chinese Queer Women (Tongzhi) Organizing in the 1990s. He Xiaopei (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex). 3. East Meets West Feminist Translation Group: A Conversation Between Two Participants. Ge Youli (Global Alliance for Workers and Communities) and Susie Jolly (Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex). III. Ethnic and Religious Perspectives
4. From Tianjin to Chengdu: Three 'Chinese Society for Women's Studies' Collaborative Projects in China. Xiaolan Bao (California State University, Long Beach) with Wu Xu (Sociology Department, University of Utah). 5. In Search of Sacred Women's Organizations. Shui Jingjun (Henan Academy of Social Sciences) IV. NGO Discourse and De-Constructing Fulian
6. The All China Women's Federation: Today's Challenges and Tomorrow's Moves. Jin Yihong (Women's studies centre, Jiangsu Academy of Social Sciences). 7. All China Women's Federation and the Evolution of Women's Non-Governmental Organizations. Liu Bohong (Women's Studies Institute of China, Beijing). 8. Searching for 'authentic' NGOs: The NGO Discourse and Women's Organizations in China. Naihua Zhang (Florida Atlantic University). V. Pockets of Space
9. The Strategy and Space for Chinese Popular Women's Organizations: A Case Study of the Shaanzi Association for Women and Family. Gao Xiaoxian (Shaanxi Women's Federation) 10. The Women's Media Watch Network. Cai Yiping(China Women's News), Feng Yuan (China Women's News) and Guo Yanqiu(China Women's News). VI. Positioning Women's Studies
11. 'Manouvering Fate' and 'Following the Call': Development and Prospects of Women's Studies in the Chinese Higher Education System. Du Fangqin (Tianjin Normal University). VII. Post-Workshop Reflections.