ABSTRACT
During the visit of United States President Bill Clinton to China in June 1998, his wife, Hillary Clinton, met with various leading voices of the Beijing women's movement. They included Xie Lihua, founder of the magazine Rural Women Knowing All; Liu Bohong, a researcher of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF, or Fulian) who was also a leading force in the Chinese publication of the American feminist book Our Bodies, Ourselves by a non-governmental group; and Ge Youli, who works for the United Nations Development Program and is also active in women's non-governmental organizations (Rosenthal 1998). In a gathering that obviously received the blessing of the Chinese authorities, Mrs. Clinton was treated to a frank, open, lively discussion of the problems facing women in contemporary China, including domestic violence, illiteracy, and rural poverty, and the ways that these women as well as other activists are seeking to resolve them. Such openness was an unprecedented opportunity for the Chinese women's movement and its newly independent voices (Laris 1998).
