A row about toilets reveals a lot about women’s place in China
Progress is possible, but activism is discouraged
THE #MeToo movement struggles in China. On November 2nd, Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis star, publicly accused Zhang Gaoli, a former deputy prime minister who retired in 2018, of sexual assault. It is the most high-profile #MeToo allegation made in China since the campaign took off globally in 2018, and the first time a senior Communist Party official has been implicated. There has been no official response to Ms Peng’s post, but censors swiftly removed it from Chinese social-media sites and blocked online discussion of it and the #MeToo hashtag.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “The long wait”
From the October 30th 2021 edition
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