ABSTRACT
Women's organizing in Beijing at the end of the 20th century can only be understood in the context of events of the preceding century or so, and how this has affected women's hopes, expectations, and goals in the China of today. At the same time, it also can only be understood in the context of the post-Mao reform atmosphere in China, and how this environment has altered state policy and social practice with respect to treatment of women. Women's organizing emerges not only as a call to realize promises of gender equality, or “nannu pingdeng”, frequently reiterated by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, but also as a response to clear backsliding in women's status under marketizing economic reforms. As a result, women activists are able to use the Party's own discourses on gender equality to usually implicitly and sometimes explicitly criticize the Party's achievement, or lack thereof, of its stated goals regarding gender relations. This is one way that the contemporary movement can be seen as “symbiotic” in its relationship with the party-state.
