Kelley wrote:
>
> At 04:42 PM 10/4/03 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >China still doesn't allow independent trade unions, generally considers
> >feminism irrelevant, despite the deeply patriarchal lineage of Chinese
> >culture, etc.
>
> A young woman from China was in one of feminist theory courses in grad
> school. If you asked her, there's no need for feminism in China. She
> provided a litany of examples of how women were already emancipated.
>
If you read two books that go back to the period of the Civil War, _Fanshen_ and Jack Belden's _China Shakes the World_, it becomes visible (a) why China still 'needs' a feminist movement but (b) why from inside China it would appear that "women were already emancipated." A sense of emancipation (for anyone) is historical, not absolute, and exists in terms of comparisons with what has been and what is.
Carrol