Li Xiaojiang

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Li Xiaojiang (李小江; born 1951) is a Chinese scholar of women's studies who was arguably the first to bring Women's Studies to importance in post-Mao China. One of China's leading feminist thinkers and writers, she has been a professor at several colleges, as well as director of gender studies at Dalian University. As a young student, she started off at the Henan University studying western literature, until an encounter showed her how lacking women's studies scholarship was and caused her to change her major from western literature to women's studies. In 1983 her work Xiawa de Tansuo (In Search of Eve) was the catalyst for a surge of women's studies. She founded the first Women's Studies Research Centre and later a museum dedicated to women's cultural anthropology.

As a teacher she taught Chinese and western literature at Zhengzhou University, as well as at the Women's Studies Center at Henan University in the city of Kaifeng. Both universities are in the Henan Province. At Henan University she founded the Enlightenment series at the Henan People's Press. She also established a Women's Studies program at Zhengzhou University. In May 1985 she organized a class on women and domestic policy and lectured on the topic of women's self-recognition at the Women Cadres School, also in the Henan Province.^{[citation needed]} The women's rights activist Liang Jun also taught there at the same time.^[1][2][3]

Using her experiences of interviewing female revolutionaries and ordinary women during the Chinese Communist Party's early years, Li held a seminar at Columbia University about how Marxists and Maoist ideologies promoted political equality for women. An example is Chairman Mao's "Women hold up half the sky" quote to promote the idea that women should be considered just as good as men. However, in politics and in the employment sector, women did not and do not have as prominent a position as men. And, because of China's political and cultural background, even while Chinese feminists are globally linked, they face different opportunities and challenges from their Western counterparts.^[4]

Li became the general editor of the Women's Studies Research Series. She worked in the Department of Chinese in Zhengzhou University and chaired the Women's Studies Research Center. She also serves on the international advisory board for the feminist academic journal Signs.^[5]

• Henan Women's Study Center 1985—first women's research NGO since 1949^[6]
• First national-wide non-government women's conference, 1985^{[citation needed]}
• Earliest course on women's gender awareness, 1985^{[citation needed]}
• Earliest college discipline on women's issues, 1985^{[citation needed]}
• Earliest discipline framework on China's women, 1986^{[citation needed]}
• First large-scale publication of academic books on women — Women's Studies, 1987-1992^{[citation needed]}
• First women's research center in a higher education institute — Women Research Center of Zhengzhou University^{[citation needed]}
• First women's academic conference on China's mainland, 1990^{[citation needed]}

• Gap between Sexes, SDX Joint Publishing Company, 1989^[6]
• Study on Women's Aesthetic Awareness, Henan People's Publishing House, 1989
• Women's Journey — Documentary of Women's Development in the New Era, Henan People's Publishing House, 1995
• Interpretation of Women, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 1999
• Women's Studies, Henan People's Publishing House, 1992, chief editor
• Women's Study and Movement — Case Study of China, Oxford University Press 1997
• Women or Feminism? — Culture Conflicts and Identity Recognition, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2000, chief editor

• Lin, Zhang Shi. "Li Xiaojiang - Women's Studies Scholars". En.wsic.ac.cn. Retrieved 30 November 2017.
• Barlow, Tani E. The question of women in Chinese feminism. Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 2006.
• Gilmartin, Christina K. Engendering China: women, culture, and the state. Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1994.
• "Li Xiaojiang." Women of China, www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/special/9/9927-1.htm. Accessed 26 Apr. 2017.
• "Public Talk: Women's Utopia and Feminism's Coming Again by Li Xiaojiang." Public Talk: Women's Utopia and Feminism's Coming Again by Li Xiaojiang, Columbia Global Centers, East Asia, 1 January 1970
• Thakur, Ravni. Rewriting gender: reading contemporary Chinese women. London, Zed Books, 1997.
• Women of China: economic and social transformation. Place of publication not identified, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
• Xiong, Bingzhun, et al. Chinese women organizing: cadres, feminists, Muslims, queers. Oxford, Berg, 2002.
• Yang, Mayfair Mei-hui. Spaces of their own: women's public sphere in transnational China. Minneapolis, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1999.