Betraying Big Brother by Leta Hong Fincher

Featured in the Washington Post and the New York Times. Overall, I’m impressed by both Fincher’s insights and the structure of this work – together providing an insightful study that anyone can learn from.A feminist movement clashing with China’s authoritarian government. Though reading Fincher’s previous book – Leftover Women – will definitely provide great context for this read, it’s not entirely necessary as Fincher’s writing is incredibly clear and accessible. To further explain their impact, Fincher lays out China’s historical and political background and how the rise of the feminist movement intersects with other resistance issues (such as labor rights and online censorship).

Despite its small size, Fincher expertly details the imprisonment and activism of China’s Feminist Five and how their actions have reverberated throughout the country. I have nothing negative to say about this book. Queen Leta Hong Fincher has returned and once again I am STUNNED by her short but powerful examination of feminism in China. Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness through online campaigns resembling #MeToo, and describing how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles, Betraying Big Brother is a story of how the movement against patriarchy could reconfigure China and the world. Through interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists, Hong Fincher illuminates both the challenges they face and their “joy of betraying Big Brother,” as Wei Tingting-one of the Feminist Five-wrote of the defiance she felt during her detention. In Betraying Big Brother, journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular, broad-based movement poses the greatest threat to China’s authoritarian regime today. But the Feminist Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists and online warriors that is prompting an unprecedented awakening among China’s urban, educated women. The Feminist Five became a global cause célèbre, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf, and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages.

On the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days.

– Betraying Big Brother Summary and Thoughts Any major demographic shift as a result of women choosing to reject marriage and children-or perhaps even to rise up collectively against the Communist Party’s oppression-will inevitably reverberate throughout the global economy. Nearly one out of every five women in the world lives in China-more than 650 million women in total.

Betraying Big Brother by Leta Hong Fincher