Thread by @amyyqin

"Half the sky" no longer. I wrote about how from the womb to the workplace, from politics to the home, women in China are losing ground at every turn. “When it came to promoting women’s rights, China used to be in the lead. But now we are falling behind."
nytimes.com/2019/07/16/wor…

Agreements promising not to get pregnant on the job. Employers denying maternity leave, re-assigning or demoting pregnant women and asking women about their marital and childbearing status in interviews. These have become the norm in Xi Jinping's China. 2/

Behind this is a looming aging crisis caused in part by the one-child policy, which itself was devastating for women (countless forced abortions & sterilizations + female infanticides.) The Party now wants women to have more babies and is pushing women back to the home. 3/

Contrast this to the Mao era which, for all its *many* faults, upended the traditional view that women belonged in the home & put them to work (at a time when many American women were hosting tupperware parties.) Now women are dropping out of the workforce at an alarming rate. 4/

At home, a 2011 court ruling has meant that millions of women have been cut out of China's property boom. “The entire deck is stacked against women in so many ways,” said @LetaHong, who did pioneering research on this subject. 5/

While China may be cracking down on feminist activism, women are making their views known in other ways. Marriage rates are falling & the birthrate is at an all-time low. @pinerpiner: “They aren’t having kids and getting married. That’s their way of pushing back." 6/

Incredible photos by @LamYikFei @GillSabrie @giuliamarchi @yancongphoto. Big thanks to my colleague @zzoemoee. And biggest, thanks to the dozens of brave women who we talked to. I came away from reporting the story feeling angry but also inspired by their amazing strength 💪 7/