Li Tingting posing as Rosie the Riveter to mark the anniversary of her detention with four other feminists on the eve of International Women’s Day. The sign reads: “The full name of ‘Women’s Day’ is ‘International Women’s Labor Day!’ We don’t want your care and concern, we want rights!”
BEIJING — Dressed as Rosie the Riveter, the icon of American women’s empowerment during World War II, Li Tingting’s raised fist in a photograph posted on Facebook on Monday [1] signaled defiance — one year after the authorities detained her and four other Chinese feminists on the eve of International Women’s Day [2], causing an international uproar.
But while the women and their lawyers continue to protest the lack of resolution in the public disorder charges against them, Ms. Li welcomed a victory in a cause that feminists have advocated for more than two decades: China’s first law against domestic violence took effect on March 1.
Taken together, the two issues reflected a society where there is progress even as feminists struggle to advance women’s rights amid tightening restrictions on public advocacy. They also highlight differences between younger and older feminists who share similar goals but may differ in their approach.
On Monday, Ms. Li, 26, also posted a statement sarcastically thanking the Chinese government “for pushing the feminist movement in China to another peak” by detaining the women, and vowing that the women would persist in their cause, despite being “greatly restrained.”
The five women were detained on March 7, 2015, for planning to distribute leaflets the next day warning about groping on public transit. Their case gained traction online with the hashtag #freethefive, embarrassing the Chinese government in a year of official celebrations in New York for the 20th anniversary of the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women, attended by President Xi Jinping of China and his wife, Peng Liyuan.
Ms. Li (also known as Li Maizi), Wang Man, Wei Tingting, Wu Rongrong and Zheng Churan were released on bail after a five-week incarceration that their lawyers said included ill treatment, medical neglect and harassment.
A year later, the charges against them remain, leaving them in legal limbo, their lawyers said. At the end of February, the lawyers issued a joint statement [3] addressed to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the National People’s Congress, which is meeting in Beijing, calling the case a miscarriage of justice and asking why the prosecution had not withdrawn it.
“From then until now, not a single legal body of state has answered our questions,” Ge Wenxiu, a lawyer for Ms. Wei, said in an interview.
“This time we’ve sent our statement to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate because, in the Chinese system, investigating the limits to legal activities is done by the procuratorate,” Mr. Ge said.
Advocating feminism “in a mild way,” as others had for decades, had failed, and Chinese feminists needed “a more intense way” to achieve their goals, she wrote on Facebook in English to explain a high-profile approach [4] that began in 2012 and has included actions such as appearing in bloodied bridal gowns, occupying men’s toilets and wearing giant paper underpants.
“Like all the social movements, the Chinese feminist movement has experienced climaxes and bottoms,” Ms. Li wrote. “Although it is greatly restrained at present, we believe that the feminism activists in China will promote it with our wisdom and brave heart.”
For Ms. Li, the new law was an achievement. She welcomed it, though her comments were measured, reflecting perhaps greater impatience and ambition among younger Chinese feminists. For example, many openly lobby for gay rights in a way older generations did not.
“It’s definitely good to have this law,” she said in an interview. She was happy that the law covered cohabiting partners, not just married couples. But she had concerns, including the fact that the law does not clarify whether it also protects same-sex partners.
To older feminists and lawyers who had long campaigned for legal measures against domestic violence, it was important that the “Anti-Family Violence Law” [5] for the first time makes it possible for victims to obtain protection orders from abusers easily and quickly. On March 1, the day it took effect, the first such order was granted, to a Ms. Gu in Beijing whose husband had beaten her for 35 years, the Legal Evening News reported.
For Qi Lianfeng — a lawyer who represented an American woman, Kim Lee [6], who in 2013 was granted a divorce [7] in Beijing on grounds of abuse by her husband, Li Yang — the law broke ground by defining domestic violence.
The definition says, “Domestic violence as defined by this law is when people within a family beat, tie up, abuse or limit personal freedoms, or regularly verbally abuse or terrorize, causing physical or mental harm.” It includes violence against women, men, children, the elderly and the disabled.
For Zhang Rongli, a law professor at China Women’s University, the law was “really big progress.”
“In traditional and patriarchal countries like China or India, it’s really big progress that people can be punished for this violence,” she said in an interview.
There had been significant pushback, Ms. Zhang said. Some warned the new law would cause family disharmony.
“Some people are saying it will create problems, for example in the education of children,” she said. Corporal punishment of children is common in China. “Some even say that we’re changing Chinese tradition! This is absurd.”
Ms. Zhang said the government was moving fast to spread word of the law with education and training. She was set to travel to Inner Mongolia soon to train court and police personnel in how to put it into effect, she said.
Some of the measures the lawyers and Ms. Li said the law should have included are those addressing sexual violence in a marriage such as rape, abusive economic control and the denial of medical treatment, “a big problem,” according to Mr. Qi.
Didi Kirsten