In Chengdu, Chinese women build feminist spaces within political limits

In a modest bookstore tucked into a quiet corner of Chengdu, Shen Shen arranges volumes by Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir on shelves that have become something like a refuge. She opened Laishuxia in August 2023, naming it carefully, choosing a space that would, as she puts it, "take root." At 42, she runs what may be China's most visible feminist bookstore—a place where women gather to discuss menopause, artificial intelligence bias, and the shape of a more equal world. But every decision she makes is calculated. Every event is announced to police in advance. Every conversation stays within invisible boundaries.

The paradox of being a woman in contemporary China is written into these precautions. Women are more educated than at any point in the nation's history, yet their presence in the workforce has collapsed. Since 1990, female labour participation has fallen by more than 20 percent. State-sponsored childcare has shuttered. The burden of caring for an aging population has landed disproportionately on women's shoulders. Meanwhile, the government has grown visibly alarmed by women who refuse the script: those who decline marriage, who speak against sexism, who organize. The word "feminist" itself is not forbidden, but "gender antagonism"—anything that might be read as stoking division between men and women—is treated as a threat. Feminist social media accounts vanish regularly, erased by censors responding to complaints of incitement.

Chengdu, though, operates differently. Far enough from Beijing that the old proverb applies—"the mountains are high, and the emperor is far away"—the city has developed a reputation for social ease. Here, a cautious feminist revival is taking shape, not through confrontation but through the careful construction of spaces. Across town from Shen Shen's bookstore, Zhang Wenjia, 28, opened Rearview Mirror last year with her partner. The bar is dimly lit, its walls decorated with images of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Virginia Woolf. It admits only women. Zhang wanted to create what she calls an "oasis of calm," a place where women could relax without the constant negotiation of mixed-gender dynamics. When a man called the police shortly after the bar opened, Zhang explained that as female proprietors they feared harassment. The officers accepted this reasoning, though they left with a warning about "lesbian stuff." The bar remains open. Several others like it have opened in Chengdu in recent years.

He Jiayu and Bai Yuanjie launched GiCD—Girls in Chengdu—in April 2024, a social network that has grown to hundreds of members. What began as casual meetups has evolved into a weekly schedule of rock climbing, film screenings, and craft workshops. Bai wanted a space free from sexual harassment and the constant prospect of being approached romantically. "I think every woman understands what I mean," she says. Like Zhang and Shen Shen, He and Bai are deliberate about framing their work. They emphasize practical benefits rather than political ideology. They stress that they do not promote anything that could be read as "gender antagonism."

This represents a strategic shift from the 2010s, when small groups of women took to streets to protest domestic violence and sexual harassment. Those activists were detained, surveilled, harassed. Today's independent women have learned to reframe their work. Instead of naming what is wrong with patriarchy, they celebrate what is right about womanhood. Instead of direct confrontation, they build solidarity. Li Maizi, one of China's most prominent feminist activists, left the country in 2023. She describes the past decade as increasingly restrictive, with rights-based organizing drawing swift government attention. "Many feminists have adapted their strategies," she says. "Instead of direct confrontation, some create women-centred spaces that focus on solidarity, support, and empowerment. I see this less as a retreat from feminism and more as a strategic adaptation to a tighter political environment."

For Shen Shen, there is no contradiction between avoiding explicit politics and believing in gender equality. "Feminism," she says, "more than anything, teaches women how to respond to all crises and challenges with wisdom." In Chengdu, that wisdom has taken the form of bookstores and bars and social networks—spaces that exist in the margins, that ask permission, that frame themselves as practical rather than ideological. They are not what feminism looked like in other countries or other eras. But they are what it looks like now, in a place where the mountains are high and the emperor is watching.