Chinapower

In this episode of the ChinaPower Podcast, Dr. Leta Hong Fincher joins us to discuss the legal and social status of women in China. Dr. Fincher, who has written widely on gender issues in the PRC, reviews the history of Chinese marriage and divorce policies with an eye towards China’s contemporary feminist movements. She speaks to how the privatization of housing in the 1990s led to widening gender income gaps and the way women are increasingly discriminated against in the workplace. She highlights, amidst China’s ongoing demographic struggles, the plight of so-called “leftover women,” or sheng nu, who are faced with growing government and societal pressure to marry and start families. Dr. Fincher concludes by discussing the future of feminism in China, emphasizing the resilience and popularity of feminist movements despite the challenges they have faced. Dr. Leta Hong Fincher is a journalist and research associate at Columbia University’s Weatherhead East Asian Institute. A sociologist by trade, she focuses