Guest Editor's Introduction

Since the mid-1990s, gender activists and organizations have been at the forefront of a burgeoning civil society in China. With funding from overseas agencies, including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Ford Foundation, Oxfam Hong Kong, members of the All China Women’s Federation (a “mass organization” affiliated with the Chinese state, which is responsible for protecting women’s interests; henceforth “Women’s Federation”) and those of newly established women’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as well as individual scholars and activists, have made major contributions to social development, gender equality, and the improvement of the situation of Chinese women. To date, overseas commentators have paid considerable attention to the work of Chinese feminist philosophers and women’s studies scholars, and to the emergence of a network of women’s groups and activists working in urban areas, especially Beijing. However, there have been very few English-language studies published on the work of activists and organizations in the area of gender and rural development. In addition, few of the writings of activists and scholars in this field are available in English. This is despite the fact that, first of all, the majority of the population live in rural areas, and the most serious forms of gender discrimination and disadvantage are faced by rural women; and second, organizations, activists, and scholars in the field of gender and rural development are making major contributions to scholarship and to gender activism and the improvement of women’s lives. Indeed, both in terms of the funding they receive and the impact they have on society, the development projects and other activities run by women’s activists and groups in rural areas are at least as significant, if not considerably more significant, than women’s activism in Beijing and other urban centers.