Society

news and reports on contemporary social issues in Greater China

Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender & Sexuality review

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MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Chris Berry’s review of Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender & Sexuality, edited by Jamie J. Zhao and Hongwei Bao. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/chris-berry2/. My thanks to Nicholas Kaldis, our literary studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.

Kirk Denton, MCLC

Routledge Handbook of Chinese
Gender & Sexuality

Edited by Jamie J. Zhao and Hongwei Bao

Reviewed by Chris Berry

MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright July, 2024)

Jamie J. Zhao and Hongwei Bao, eds., Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender & Sexuality Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2024. Xvii + 379 pp. ISBN: 978-1-032-22729-0 (cloth); 978-1-032-22733-7 (paper); 978-1-003-27394-3 (e-book).

In their introductory essay in the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender and Sexuality, Jamie J. Zhao and Hongwei Bao acknowledge that there are already numerous monographs and anthologies in the field. However, they stake a claim for their book as an intervention rather than just a representative round-up of leading work. All the essays are new. Furthermore, although the editors aim for broad coverage, they also have what I see as four corrective interventions. Whereas, they claim, the field has favored the pre-1949 era, they aim to spotlight the contemporary. Whereas the roots of much work in area studies approaches China and Chineseness as a site of difference or even exceptionalism, they highlight work that is transnational in approach, understanding China and Chineseness as constant processes of becoming shaped and responding to transnational flows. In response to the proliferation of work on the peripheral areas of the larger Sinosphere favored by Sinophone scholarship, they center the volume on the People’s Republic of China (PRC). And finally, whereas the balance of existing work has tilted toward the social sciences, they emphasize arts, humanities, and cultural studies approaches, and, in particular, a “queering” approach that moves away from research that assumes fixed gender and sexual identities and toward work that questions them. In this review, I first briefly introduce the contents of this substantial volume of new writing, and then return to address some of the positions staked out by these four interventions. Continue reading Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender & Sexuality review →

What a professor’s firing shows about sexual harassment in China

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Source: NYT (7/25/24)
What a Professor’s Firing Shows About Sexual Harassment in China
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A top Chinese university described the conduct of a professor accused of sexual harassment as a moral failing, language feminists say downplays harm to women.
By Tiffany May and Zixu Wang, Reporting from Hong Kong

Students wearing red graduation gowns and black caps stand in a room. Several are checking their smartphones.

Graduates at Renmin University in Beijing in 2023. The university has faced public scrutiny after a graduate student complained about her professor. Credit…Wu Hao/EPA, via Shutterstock

In the video, the Chinese graduate student stared straight into the camera as she spoke. She wore a mask, but in a bold move, made clear who she was by holding up her identification card. Then she issued an explosive accusation: A prominent professor at a top Chinese university had been sexually harassing her for two years.

Shortly after the woman posted the video on her Chinese social media pages on Sunday, it drew millions of views and set off an online outcry against the professor she named, Wang Guiyuan, then the vice-dean and Communist Party head of Renmin University’s School of Liberal Arts in Beijing.

The next day, Renmin University fired Mr. Wang, saying that officials had investigated the student’s allegations and found that they were true.

The swift response by the university reflected the growing pressure that Chinese academic institutions have come under to curb sexual harassment on campus. In recent years, several schools have been accused of not doing enough to protect their students from tutors and professors who preyed on them. Continue reading What a professor’s firing shows about sexual harassment in China →

Private Revolutions review

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Source: NYT (7/5/24)
6 Years, 4 Raw Human Stories From the New China
In “Private Revolutions,” Yuan Yang follows the lives of women in a rapidly changing modern superpower.
By Michelle T. King (Michelle T. King is the author of “Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food.”)

PRIVATE REVOLUTIONS: Four Women Face China’s New Social Order, by Yuan Yang. Viking | 294 pp. | $30

There’s an unforgettable moment in Yuan Yang’s new book, when an idealistic university student is tasked with conducting a survey by going door-to-door to random addresses in Shenzhen, China’s manufacturing megalopolis.

In one poor neighborhood, the female student asks a young man, living in a tiny apartment with four other adults and a baby, to rate his current job satisfaction. His immediate reaction is to ask whether she has been sent by the Communist Party.

Though she denies it, he responds, “I’m guessing they did send you, so let’s just say we are completely, utterly satisfied with everything in our lives.”

That story, which takes place in the early 2010s, highlights Yang’s concern with the fate of China’s laborers, as well as the class distinctions that structure the encounter.

In 2016, Yang returned to China, where she had spent her early childhood, to work as a journalist for The Financial Times. Over the next six years, Yang followed four young women as they navigated what she calls China’s “new social order.” All of them, like Yang, were born in the late 1980s and 1990s, coming-of-age after the “optimistic giddiness” of their parents’ generation, one characterized by increasing prosperity in the wake of Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms in the 1980s. Continue reading Private Revolutions review →

Crackdown on extreme nationalism

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Source: China Digital Times (7/3/24)
Chinese Social Media Platforms Launch Crackdown on Extreme Nationalism and Xenophobic Hate-Speech after Fatal Suzhou Stabbing
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Chinese social media platforms have announced a belated crackdown on “extreme nationalism” and xenophobic hate-speech online, following last week’s fatal stabbing at a school bus stop in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, in which a Japanese mother and child were injured by a knife-wielding man, and Chinese school bus attendant Hu Youping was killed after trying to intervene. Just two weeks earlier, four visiting American teachers were stabbed and injured by another man at a public park in Jilin, in northeastern China. Both stabbings are believed to have been motivated by xenophobic sentiment, and many online commenters have witheringly described the attackers as “modern-day Boxers,” referring to the anti-foreign rebels who launched the Boxer Rebellion approximately 125 years ago.

In the last few weeks, CDT editors have compiled numerous essays, articles, and netizen comments pointing out apparent links between the recent spate of attacks and the vitriolic anti-Japanese and other xenophobic content that is tolerated on Chinese television, social media, and even in school textbooks. It is worth nothing that several of these essays were censored and taken offline in the days following the Suzhou attack. The hate-speech crackdown announced by social media platforms this week seems to reflect a belated realization that xenophobic online content may be fueling hatred and even radicalizing some individuals to carry out offline attacks. Continue reading Crackdown on extreme nationalism →

Netizens reflect on anti-Japanese propaganda

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Source: China Digital Times (6/26/24)
Netizens Reflect on Anti-Japanese Propaganda after Stabbing at School Bus Stop
By Alexander Boyd

A stabbing at a school bus stop in Eastern China that left two Japanese nationals and a Chinese national injured is the latest instance of anti-foreigner violence to rock China in the last month. Two weeks ago, four instructors from Iowa’s Cornell College were stabbed in a park in northern China. Details of this latest attack are sparse: a Japanese mother and her child were stabbed while waiting for a school bus to Suzhou’s Japanese School, a school for Japanese children that follows a Japanese curriculum. Both sustained minor injuries. A Chinese bystander who attempted to prevent the attacker from boarding the school bus was grievously injured and remains in the hospital as of publication. On Weibo, reactions to the news ranged from despair over xenophobic propaganda to admiration of the Chinese bystander’s bravery. Particular ire focused on a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson’s insistence that this attack—like the one in Jilin—was “random”:

Cor-Universe：When certain emotions get stirred up, they can lead to murder.

吃瓜的专业群众SH：If we don’t reform our education and propaganda systems, there’ll only be more of these “Boxers” going forward.

迷路的羊羔：Xenophobic propaganda: scares off foreign business → leading to job losses→ which inspire attacks on foreigners → scaring off more foreign businesses → causing more job losses → leading to even more xenophobic propaganda → scaring off more businesses → thus more job loss … I term this an “Okamoto cycle.” [A reference to a 2022 incident in which Chinese men, the Six Okamoto Gentlemen, opened up a Japanese convenience store franchise and then pretended to be anti-Japanese to drum up business.]

千里虽遥：Random attacks happen randomly, but xenophobic social media videos that incite hatred against everyday people and businesses should be brought under control.

你的眼我的脸：Why are these “random attacks” happening so regularly?

紫雨hz-1974：Once the Boxers rise up, it’s hard to suppress them. Continue reading Netizens reflect on anti-Japanese propaganda →

Do China’s children have a crime problem?

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Source: NYT (6/26/24)
China’s Anguished Debate: Do Its Children Have a Crime Problem?
China has been considered relatively progressive on juvenile justice. But several high-profile killings have prompted calls for the law to come down more harshly on minors.
By Vivian Wang, Reporting from Beijing

A framed black-and-white photograph of a young girl sits on a desk, near some pieces of fruit.

A photograph of Gong Xinyue in her bedroom, in her village in northwestern China. Credit…Andrea Verdelli for The New York Times

For nearly two years, Gong Junli has been waiting. Since his 8-year-old daughter, Xinyue, was stabbed multiple times and her body left in a grove of poplar trees in northwestern China, he has imagined her killer finally being brought to justice.

But justice is complicated when the accused is also a child.

The boy who the police say killed Xinyue was 13 years old at the time. As his trial opens on Wednesday, it will try to answer a question gripping Chinese society: How should China deal with young children accused of heinous crimes?

Countries around the world have long struggled to balance punishment and forgiveness for children. But the debate is especially notable in China, where a history of relative leniency toward young offenders stands in stark contrast to the limited rights of adult criminal defendants. For decades, the government has emphasized educating and rehabilitating juvenile offenders, rather than imprisoning them.

Recently, though, a backlash has emerged. Following a spate of high-profile killings allegedly committed by children in recent years, many Chinese have called for the country to come down more harshly. And the government has responded. Xinyue’s killing is one of the first cases known to go to trial since the government lowered the age, to 12 from 14, at which children can be prosecuted on charges of murder and other serious crimes. Continue reading Do China’s children have a crime problem? →

#MeToo journalist sentenced to 5 years

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Source: The Guardian (6/14/24)
China #MeToo journalist sentenced to five years in jail, supporters say
Sophia Huang Xueqin, who reported on #MeToo movement and Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, sentenced along with labour activist Wang Jianbing
By  in Taipei

Sophia Huang Xueqin, a freelance journalist who reported on China’s MeToo movement and the Hong Kong democracy protests, has been sentenced to five years in jail. Photograph: Thomas Yau/SCMP/Getty Images

A Chinese court has sentenced the prominent #MeToo journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin to five years in jail and the labour activist Wang Jianbing to three and a half years, almost 1,000 days after they were detained on allegations of inciting state subversion, according to supporters.

On Friday, supporters of the pair said the court had found them guilty and given Huang the maximum sentence. The jail terms would take into account the time they had already spent in detention. A copy of the verdict said Huang was also deprived of political rights for four years and fined $100,000 RMB (£10,800). Wang faced three years of deprivation of political rights and was fined $50,000 RMB.

Huang told the court she intended to appeal, the supporters said.

“[The sentence] was longer than we expected,” said a spokesperson for the campaign group Free Huang Xueqin and Wang Jianbing, asking to remain anonymous for safety concerns. “I don’t think it should have been this severe, and it is completely unnecessary. So we support Huang Xueqin’s intention to appeal.”

Just one day’s notice was given of Friday’s hearing, and the public and media were kept away by a heavy police presence of both uniformed and plain clothed officers, as well as court workers and large barriers. The closed-door trial began in September last year, two years after their arrest. Continue reading #MeToo journalist sentenced to 5 years →

Taiwan’s declining birthrate forces schools to close

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Source: The Guardian (6/14/24)
Empty classrooms, silent halls: Taiwan’s declining birthrate forces schools to close
Authorities fear looming economic crises caused by an expanding elderly population without enough workers to support them
By and Lin Chi-hui in Taipei

Chung Hsing private high school in Taipei, Taiwan, which closed in 2019 due to low enrolment. Dozens of schools, colleges and universities are closing their doors due to population decline. Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

In the courtyard of the Chung Hsing private high school, desks and chairs are piled high like a monument or an unlit bonfire. Mounds of debris cover the play area, as two construction workers pull more broken furniture from empty classrooms, throwing them towards a pickup truck.

The central Taipei private school closed in 2019 after failing to reverse financial problems caused by low enrolment, and was sold to developers. The school was an early victim of a problem now sweeping across Taiwan’s educational institutions: decades of declining births mean there are no longer enough students to fill classrooms.

Like much of east Asia, Taiwan is struggling to achieve the “replacement rate” needed to maintain a stable population. That rate is 2.1 babies per woman, but Taiwan hasn’t hit that number since the mid-80s. In 2023, the rate was 0.865.

Demographers and governments fear looming economic crises caused by a growing elderly population without enough working taxpayers to support them. In Taiwan, the impact of shrinking generations has already started affecting military recruitment, and now is flowing on to enrolments at schools and universities. Continue reading Taiwan’s declining birthrate forces schools to close →

China is testing more driverless cars than any other country

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Source: NYT (6/13/24)
China Is Testing More Driverless Cars Than Any Other Country
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Assisted driving systems and robot taxis are becoming more popular with government help, as cities designate large areas for testing on public roads.
By Keith Bradsher (Reporting from Wuhan, China)

A Baidu driverless robot taxi with nobody in the front seats traveling in Wuhan, China, last month.Credit…Qilai Shen for The New York Times

The world’s largest experiment in driverless cars is underway on the busy streets of Wuhan, a city in central China with 11 million people, 4.5 million cars, eight-lane expressways and towering bridges over the muddy waters of the Yangtze River.

A fleet of 500 taxis navigated by computers, often with no safety drivers in them for backup, buzz around. The company that operates them, the tech giant Baidu, said last month that it would add a further 1,000 of the so-called robot taxis in Wuhan.

Across China, 16 or more cities have allowed companies to test driverless vehicles on public roads, and at least 19 Chinese automakers and their suppliers are competing to establish global leadership in the field. No other country is moving as aggressively.

The government is providing the companies significant help. In addition to cities designating on-road testing areas for robot taxis, censors are limiting online discussion of safety incidents and crashes to restrain public fears about the nascent technology.

Surveys by J.D. Power, an automotive consulting firm, found that Chinese drivers are more willing than Americans to trust computers to guide their cars. Continue reading China is testing more driverless cars than any other country →

Gaokao security

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Source: SCMP (6/11/24)
Why armed China police and extraordinary security surround key national gaokao exam
Teachers are kept under watch in secure facilities as they draft national test and exam papers are printed in designated prisons
By Alice Yan in Shanghai

China’s most important examination for the future career prospects of students is subject to unprecedented levels of security. The Post explains why. Photo: SCMP composite/Baidu/Sohu

Mainland social media has hailed the fact that test papers for China’s most important examination – known on the mainland as gaokao – are drafted under strict security and printed in designated prisons.

The university entrance examination enjoys the highest security classification in the country to ensure fairness and justice for every person who takes the test, the state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Success or failure in the test is widely recognised as being a key factor in deciding a young person’s future.

More than 13 million people, the majority of whom were secondary school graduates, took the examination this year, the highest number in China’s history, making the competition more intense than before.

The importance of the landmark exam is underlined by the measures in place to protect its integrity. Continue reading Gaokao security →

Lying down or impossible to get ahead

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Source: China Digital Times (6/10/24)
Quote of the Day: “Not So Much ‘Lying Down’ as Finding It Impossible to Get Ahead”
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Today’s quote of the day derives from netizen backlash to the Communist Youth League’s (CYL) recent video broadside against “lying down”—referring to the much-discussed phenomenon of people slacking off, quietly giving up, or dropping out of the rat race as a means of coping with a hyper-competitive society that treats workers as “huminerals” to be relentlessly exploited and ultimately discarded.

The video, widely circulated on the Chinese internet, was titled “CYL Central Committee: ‘Only a Tiny Minority Are Truly Lying Down, While the Vast Majority Are Working Tirelessly.’” This was followed by an online survey that asked viewers to choose whether they were among the “tiny majority who lie down” or “the vast majority who work tirelessly.” To the amusement of many online observers, and at odds with the propagandistic tone and intent of the video, fully 93 percent of respondents confessed to being among that “tiny majority” of slackers, while only seven percent identified themselves as card-carrying members of the “vast majority” of indefatigable workers.

Columnist, pop psychologist, and WeChat blogger Tang Yinghong (唐映红, Táng Yìnghóng) put an interesting spin on the survey, cautioning that while most of the respondents were probably jesting, the CYL was likely correct in declaring that only a tiny minority were inclined to “lie down” because slacking off is a luxury that only the privileged few can afford. The vast majority of Chinese young people, Tang wrote, are simply too busy struggling to make a living to even contemplate dropping out or slowing down: Continue reading Lying down or impossible to get ahead →

Chengyu for Xi Jinping’s New Era

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Scroll down for Part 2.–Kirk Denton

Source: China Digital Times (5/14/24)
Chengyu for Xi Jinping’s New Era (Part 1)
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Xi Jinping’s New Era has inspired the creation of a host of “new chengyu”: idiomatic, often four-character, literary expressions that are the kernel of a larger tale. The following New Era chengyu are all references to infamous incidents that have taken place within the last calendar year. Consistent with much of CDT’s 2024 coverage, the chengyu introduced below center on economic pain: impoverished farmers, distressed creditors, penny-pinching landlords—even cash-strapped police departments. Many also focus on official malfeasance: petty despotism, official greed, and wanton enforcement of the law. Without further ado, here are the five entries that make up Part 1 of CDT’s “New Era chengyu” compilation:

Yunhao Blocks the Plow (云浩止耕, Yúnhào zhǐ gēng)

Ji Doesn’t Know the Law (纪不懂法, Jì bù dǒng fǎ)

Repaying Debt With Prison Time (以刑化债, yǐ xíng huà zhài)

Calculating Damages by Lantern-Light (提灯定损, tídēng dìng sǔn)

Fishing the High Seas (远洋捕捞, yuǎnyáng bǔlāo) [Chinese]

Yunhao Blocks the Plow (云浩止耕, Yúnhào zhǐ gēng)

In April of this year, an undercover reporting team captured a shocking incident in Inner Mongolia’s Kailu County: village cadres blocking villagers from plowing fields on the eve of the make-or-break planting season. The reporters were with the state-run outlet Reports on China’s Three Rural Issues (中国三农发布, Zhōngguó sānnóng fābù) and they had traveled to Kailu after receiving a mass of complaints from villagers that officials were prohibiting them from planting—unless the villagers agreed to pay extortionate fees. The provenance of the dispute dates back two decades, when a nearly 1,000 acre (5600 mu) parcel of land was contracted out to villagers on a thirty-year lease. Since then, through diligent irrigation and stewardship, the land has been transformed from a palace where “even rabbits wouldn’t shit” to a viable corn field. But this year, local cadres were demanding that villagers pay an extra 200 yuan per mu tax before being allowed to plant—a fee that villagers insisted was illegal. The undercover state-media reporters captured footage of cadres blocking plows, accusing villagers of illegally occupying public land, and chiding them that calling the police was useless. One official, the village deputy Party secretary Ji Yunhao, was particularly egregious in his conduct, threatening villagers, “So what if 110 [China’s 911 emergency hot-line number] officers arrive? The higher-ups ordered me to collect money, so that’s what I’m going to do.” Ji was relieved of his position after the video attracted public criticism. However, there has been no official statement on Ji’s seemingly falsified resume, which came to light after his bullying behavior went viral. Continue reading Chengyu for Xi Jinping’s New Era →

An army of eyes and ears

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Source: NYT (5/25/24)
Xi Jinping’s Recipe for Total Control: An Army of Eyes and Ears
Reviving a Mao-era surveillance campaign, the authorities are tracking residents, schoolchildren and businesses to forestall any potential unrest.
By Vivian Wang (Reporting from Beijing)

Two people dressed in black, with red accents like a hat and armband, stand on a sidewalk looking at a city street.

Volunteers from a neighborhood committee keeping watch on a Beijing street in April. “Stability maintenance” — a catchall term for containing social problems and silencing dissent — has increasingly become a preoccupation in China under Xi Jinping. Credit…Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times

The wall in the police station was covered in sheets of paper, one for every building in the sprawling Beijing apartment complex. Each sheet was further broken down by unit, with names, phone numbers and other information on the residents.

Perhaps the most important detail, though, was how each unit was color-coded. Green meant trustworthy. Yellow, needing attention. Orange required “strict control.”

A police officer inspected the wall. Then he leaned forward to mark a third-floor apartment in yellow. The residents in that unit changed often, and therefore were “high risk,” his note said. He would follow up on them later.

“I’ve built a system to address hidden dangers in my jurisdiction,” the officer said, in a video by the local government that praised his work as a model of innovative policing.

A police chart showed the details of one building’s residents. The New York Times blurred personal information. Credit…Tongzhou Propaganda Department via Douyin

This is the kind of local governance that China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, wants: more visible, more invasive, always on the lookout for real or perceived threats. Officers patrol apartment buildings listening for feuding neighbors. Officials recruit retirees playing chess outdoors as extra eyes and ears. In the workplace, employers are required to appoint “safety consultants” who report regularly to the police. Continue reading An army of eyes and ears →

New Technologies of Gender webinar

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SOAS webinar on ‘New Technologies of Gender in Chinese Digital Entertainment: How Algorithms Rewrite History‘ with Professor Geng Song (Hong Kong University)
Date: Monday, 13 May 2024
Time: 8am to 9.30am, EDT / 1pm to 2.30pm, BST
All welcome, but registration required.

Abstract

In this talk, inspired by Teresa de Lauretis’ Technologies of Gender, Professor Geng Song explores the role of new gender technologies, in both the literal and Foucauldian sense, in Chinese digital entertainment.

Enabled by the democratization of narration, ordinary individuals create online fiction that transforms into various digital formats, such as short videos, TV/web dramas, animations, and games. These creative works not only express the desires, fantasies, and frustrations of ordinary people, but their popularity has also been capitalized upon by platforms and entertainment production companies.

A common thread in these productions is the incorporation of affective technological innovations, including affective computing, mood tracking, sentiment analysis, and social robotics. In the era of the “algorithmic turn,” platforms utilize automated systems to analyze users’ emotional expressions and encourage specific behaviors, leading to the regulation of emotions.

In light of this, this talk delves into the flattening of history and re-adaptation of long-standing Chinese literary and cultural tropes in digital narratives and how new meanings and emotional transformations are created. For example, the matrilocal husband, once seen as a threat to masculinity, now represents neoliberal manhood.

Online stories address the crisis of masculinity by emphasizing the “pleasure point” and offering emotional outlets for male readers, serving as an escape from societal anxiety about success. The narrative pattern is intensified by algorithms on online literature and entertainment platforms. This talk thus explores, from a gendered perspective, the interplay between subjectivity, neoliberalism, and AI technology in the context of contemporary China. Continue reading New Technologies of Gender webinar →

Women quietly find a powerful voice

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Source: NYT (5/6/24)
In China, Ruled by Men, Women Quietly Find a Powerful Voice
Women in Shanghai gather in bars, salons and bookstores to reclaim their identities as the country’s leader calls for China to adopt a “childbearing culture.”
By Alexandra Stevenson

Du Wen sits on a motorbike parked outside a bar at night, with another women sitting on a chair next to her.

Du Wen at Her, the bar she started last year, in Shanghai. “I think everyone living in this city seems to have reached this stage that they want to explore more about the power of women,” she said. Credit…Qilai Shen for The New York Times

In bars tucked away in alleys and at salons and bookstores around Shanghai, women are debating their place in a country where men make the laws.

Some wore wedding gowns to take public vows of commitment to themselves. Others gathered to watch films made by women about women. The bookish flocked to female bookshops to read titles like “The Woman Destroyed” and “Living a Feminist Life.”

Women in Shanghai, and some of China’s other biggest cities, are negotiating the fragile terms of public expression at a politically precarious moment. China’s ruling Communist Party has identified feminism as a threat to its authority. Female rights activists have been jailed. Concerns about harassment and violence against women are ignored or outright silenced.

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has diminished the role of women at work and in public office. There are no female members of Mr. Xi’s inner circle or the Politburo, the executive policymaking body. He has invoked more traditional roles for women, as caretakers and mothers, in planning a new “childbearing culture” to address a shrinking population.

But groups of women around China are quietly reclaiming their own identities. Many are from a generation that grew up with more freedom than their mothers. Women in Shanghai, profoundly shaken by a two-month Covid lockdown in 2022, are being driven by a need to build community. Continue reading Women quietly find a powerful voice →