num_pages: 240
description: How the Feminist Five and the rise of China's feminist movement threatens China's authoritarian governmentOn the eve of International Womens Day in 2015 the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global cause clbre with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Feminist Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers labor activists performance artists and online warriors that is prompting an unprecedented awakening among Chinas urban educated women. In Betraying Big Brother journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular broad-based movement poses the greatest threat to Chinas authoritarian regime today.Through interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists Hong Fincher illuminates both the challenges they face and their joy of betraying Big Brother as Wei Tingtingone of the Feminist Fivewrote of the defiance she felt during her detention. Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness through online campaigns resembling #MeToo and describing how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles Betraying Big Brother is a story of how the movement against patriarchy could reconfigure China and the world.
language: English
title: Betraying Big Brother: The Feminist Awakening in China
publisher: Verso