This year’s March 8 United Nations International Women’s Day theme was “Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow.” Over time, the holiday for women—which has been celebrated in China as a half-day holiday since 1950—has been commodified by advertisers as a day to hit the shops. In previous years, Chinese women have used the day to protest the closure of feminist groups and social media accounts, or pushed back against the holiday being minimized as “Girls’ Day” or commodified into “fests” such as “Goddess Day” or “Queens’ Day.”
This year, two high-profile cases of trafficking and spousal abuse in Jiangsu and Shaanxi have galvanized Chinese women to draw attention to the ongoing problem of the abduction and trafficking of women and girls. Although social media censorship of 2022 Women’s Day posts has been particularly intense, with images and articles sometimes disappearing within minutes of being posted, there has been an outpouring of posters and artwork, personal recollections, poetry, careful analysis, and entreaties to take action and speak out.
CDT’s 2022 Women’s Day coverage includes a round-up of the ways that Chinese citizens are continuing to pressure the authorities to take trafficking seriously, an analysis of recent demographic and family-planning policy trends, and a translation of “25 Things Men Can Do For Women on Women’s Day,” (Number six: “Don’t ask stupid questions like, “Why is there a Women’s Day, but not a Men’s Day?”)
Below is the first part in our series featuring the posters, banners, collages, and other artwork created by Chinese women to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022, and to continue drawing attention to cases of abused and trafficked women. Compiled by Project Light, a podcast dedicated to telling women’s stories, this collection of “Stories of Women” was quickly deleted by censors, but has been archived and translated by CDT editors:
Center: “Fight gender-based violence”
Left and right: “March 8, 2022 International Women’s Day”Hashtag: #Fight gender-based violence
Top: “International Women’s Day”“Born to be free”
Right: “I don’t want to be coddled as a ‘girl.’”
Center: “I don’t want to be put on a pedestal as a ‘goddess.’”
Left: “I want the rights due to women.”Large text: “Throw off the shackles!”
Small text:
“Wading through this blood and filth
Weighted down by ten-thousand pound shackles
Inscribed with patriarchy, violence, and suffering
We stand in this bleak and desolate world
We are twenty-first century sentient beings
Subsisting in his darkness
We have machines and institutions
But no civilization.
The key, the key…
Where is the hammer that would smash these chains?”Center, red: “Lethal Weapons”
Center, black: “How do these common everyday objects become instruments of violence against women?”
Bottom: “The above images are drawn from incidents of gender-based violence that made the news in 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022.”Center: “We are not commodities”
Left: “International Women’s Day”
“#FightGender-basedViolence”“Stop Trafficking”
“We are not commodities”
“March 8, 2022 – Women’s Day”Top: “International Women’s Day”
Bottom: “They shut her in the kitchen, confined her to the bedroom,
and then marveled that her field of vision was limited.
They broke her wings and then lamented that she couldn’t fly.
May we have a more open future and never be forced back into this status quo.”#ProhibitAllFormsOfViolenceAndViolationOfWomen
Left: “March 8 – Happy ‘Queen’s’ Day”
Right: Love yourself and buy, buy, buy
Care for women and be grateful to mothers
Kind, beautiful, gentle, vivacious, mysterious
Don’t ask about the world, better to live a quiet life
Take her in out of kindness, neighborly concern, government subsidy
Family harmony, divorce “cooling-off” period, relax and give birth to threeUpside down, at top: “International Women’s Day”
Center: “Genesis Gate”
Bottom: “Title: ‘The Origin of Humanity’”Wall graffiti: “Caring about girls is caring about the nation’s future.”
Hashtags at top:
#CallingTheWholeNationTo ReflectOnCulturalAndSystemicRootCauses
#ProhibitAllFormsOfViolenceAndViolationOfWomen
Words within the male silhouette: “Traffickers, domestic violence, stigma, hospitals, family planning, civil affairs, public security, women’s federation, law, dowry, bride price, male heir, Fengxian county, Dongji village, clan, country, power, city, province, child-rearing, patriarchy, nationality, rich and poor, objectification.”Center: “Cultural, Systemic, and Legal Root Causes”
Mountain of words: “Traffickers, domestic violence, stigma, hospitals, family planning, civil affairs, public security, women’s federation, law, dowry, bride price, male heir, Fengxian county, Dongji village, clan, country, power, city, province, child-rearing, patriarchy, nationality, rich and poor, objectification.”[Chinese]
With translation by Joseph Brouwer.
