Chinas #MeToo Activists Have Transformed a Generation

(Foreign Policy) By Simina Mistreanu January 10 2019 2:24 PM GUANGZHOU ChinaSophia Huangs fingers were racing over her two iPhones at a restaurant in downtown Guangzhou southern China as her food went cold. Huang had just found out that the professor Chen Xiaowu whose sexual harassment of a student ignited Chinas #MeToo movement in January 2018 had been awarded the countrys most prestigious research grant. She was furiously posting on social media while at the same texting the representatives of Chens university. He wants to resurface" she said eyes on her screens. We cant allow it." Huang is among a group of feminists working mostly out of Guangzhou who have launched and nurtured Chinas #MeToo movement. A wave of righteous anger that started on campuses has breached the heavy barriers of internet and media censorship. But for Huang and the other leaders of the movement that has meant walking a careful line: balancing the unleashed anger and frustration of women against an authoritarian patriarchal regime that has cracked down fiercely on any group that might threaten its power. Chinas #MeToo campaign has already brought real changebut it has also imposed limits on itself to avoid spurring a reaction that could end the movement while seeking ways to leverage what power it has.