Leta Hong Fincher discussed her new book at a National Committee program on Monday, July 21, 2014. Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (Zed Books, 2014) by Leta Hong Fincher tells me that her book will show how women in China no longer hold up half the sky and women who don’t marry by twenty-six are suffering from this inequality. Laying out the structural discrimination against women in China speaks to broader problems with China’s economy, politics, and development.ĭr. In ‘Leftover’ Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China, Leta Hong Fincher debunks the claim that women have fared well as a result of China’s economic reforms and breakneck growth. Those gains have been eroded in the post-socialist era women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of many rights and gains relative to men. After China’s Communist revolution of 1949, Chairman Mao famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky.” In the early years of the People’s Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations with expansive initiatives including the Marriage Law and assigning urban women jobs. A century ago, Chinese feminists fighting for the emancipation of women helped spark the Republican Revolution, which overthrew the Qing empire. Former journalist Hong Fincher was largely responsible for introducing the Chinese term sheng nu, for unmarried, 'leftover' women over the age of 27, to the world with a 2012 op-ed in The New York.
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