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Holding Up Half the Sky
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Tao Jie

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Zheng Bijun

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Shirley L. Mow

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Holding Up Half the Sky

Chinese Women Past, Present, and Future
Edited by Tao Jie, Zheng Bijun & Shirley L. Mow

Translated by Amy Russell. Foreword by Gail Hershatter.

Mao Zedong's famous statement that "women hold up half the sky" marked a new recognition of Chinese women's contributions to their society—but only today is there a rich and extensive body of research by Chinese women about women in China.

Drawing together work by many of China's most distinguished women scholars, this collection presents twenty-one essays that address issues relating to women in the workplace, women's education, and women's role in marriage, family, and in cultural and political life. With statistics and accounts otherwise unavailable in the West, they reveal a feminist activism among China's women that is breathtaking both for the problems it confronts and for the spirit of the struggle it embodies.

"An indispensable resource for anyone interested in China, in women, in international women's issues and in women and development. These studies subtly revise the standard perceptions of Chinese women as a historically subordinated class liberated by twentieth-century political movements and provide a richer dimension to our knowledge of Chinese women. The essays offer a trove of information, analyses, and interpretations that illuminate how women in China have 'held up half the sky'—and still do."

—Shirley Geok-lin Lim, author of Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands

"Holding Up Half The Sky is a must-read for anyone interested in new feminist scholarship by and about Chinese women today. Instructive . . . enlightening."

—Judy Young, author of Unbound Feet: A Social History of Chinese Women in San Francisco

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