ABSTRACT
Dru Gladney has presented a conference paper on the symbolism of the protests, which has a good deal to say about the importance of gender and sexuality. Looking at student beliefs and practices relating to gender can thus tell us a great deal about the political and cultural assumptions they shared with the rulers whose authority they sought to undermine. Chai Ling has been less controversial but less emphatic in her insistence that Chinese students struggled for changes in cultural and social relationships. Invariably described in both Western and Chinese accounts as frail-looking, Chai's role in the student movement belied the description. Neither Chai nor any of the other women leaders at the time criticized the way virtually all the top male Chinese student leaders reveled in the sexual clout that went with their prestige and power. The goddess demonstrated the hollowness of the conception of feminine strength and highlighted the dependence of the student movement on the Chinese government.
