Symbiosis and solidarity: International contexts and the Chinese women's movement in the 1990s

In the 1990s, new forms of organizations have emerged in Beijing and elsewhere in China to promote women's rights and interests. Given that the main wave of organizational growth occurred after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent governmental repression, how can the advent of these self-described “non-governmental” women's groups be explained? Based on interview and documentary research, this dissertation makes two particular arguments about the rise of an increasingly independent women's movement in contemporary China. First, it looks at how this movement has developed in a symbiotic relationship to the Chinese Communist party-state. In contrast especially to civil society or corporatist models of societal organization vis-à-vis the state, this particular movement can be better characterized by its quasi-autonomous relationship with a state that is experiencing an ongoing legitimacy crisis. Viewing the relationship as symbiotic best characterizes how new Chinese women's organizations exist in a space that is both subordinate to and influential on the party-state.; Second, the dissertation examines how this situation has especially developed in a context of increasing international influence on the Chinese women's movement and on how women's issues are viewed by both activists and the party-state. These international influences can be viewed as examples of processes of “transnationalism” or “globalization” occurring in many contemporary locales worldwide. In the Chinese case, the convening of the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing as well as increased availability of foreign funding sources for Chinese women's groups has led to new political and economic opportunities, the development of “non-governmental” forms of organizing, and the advent of new “issue agendas” in movement framings, including concerns for reproductive health, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. Both movement activists and the Chinese state have engaged in a learning process whereby such international influences have facilitated the development of women's groups in symbiotic existence with the party-state.