On the eve of International Women's Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global cause celebre, 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 China's 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 China's 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." 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.

How the Feminist Five and the rise of China's feminist movement are challenging China's authoritarian government

About the Author
Leta Hong Fincher is a journalist who has written for the New York Times, Guardian, Ms. Magazine, the BBC and CNN and is the author of Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China.

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Book Information
ISBN 9781786633651
Author Leta Hong Fincher
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Verso Books
Publisher Verso Books
Weight(grams) 212g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 156mm * 17mm