“Leftover” Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China

A century ago, Chinese feminists fighting for the emancipation of women helped spark the Republican Revolution, which overthrew the Qing empire. After China’s Communist revolution of 1949, Chairman Mao famously proclaimed that “women hold up half the sky.” In the early years of the People’s Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations with expansive initiatives such as assigning urban women jobs. Yet gains made by women in the past are now being eroded in China’s postsocialist era of breakneck economic growth. A combination of factors – skyrocketing house prices, legal setbacks to married women’s property rights, a widening gender income gap, and a media campaign against “leftover” women (shengnü) – has contributed to a fall in the status and material well-being of Chinese women relative to men. In her recent book, ‘Leftover’ Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China​, Leta Hong Fincher debunks the claim that women overall have fared well as a result of China’s economic reforms and breakneck growth. Come hear her speak of the structural discrimination against women and how it is creating broader problems with China’s economy, politics and development.

Leta Hong Fincher is the first American to receive a Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at Tsinghua University in Beijing. An award-winning journalist, her research on gender and China’s urban property market has been cited in many news organizations, including The Economist, New York Times, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, BBC and CNN. Dr. Hong Fincher received her master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.

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