Tag: Women and Girls

China Charges 28 People, Months After Brutal Beating of Women

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HONG KONG — A group of men caught on camera violently beating several women at a barbecue restaurant in June were charged on Monday, part of a wider investigation into the criminal activities of a local gang in the Chinese city of Tangshan. More than a dozen officials and police officers are also under investigation for corruption, more than two months after the brutal attack unleashed a torrent of outrage over violence against women. The government has emphasized that the episode, which shocked the nation, was related to broader “evil…

Strong Stance on China and Peng Shuai Helps Land WTA a New Title Sponsor

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The WTA has been an outlier in its approach to China. The ATP, which operates the men’s tennis tour, has not suspended its Chinese tournaments, and other professional leagues, including the N.B.A., have been reticent to confront Chinese authorities directly. Peng has reappeared in recent weeks and given some controlled interviews, claiming that she deleted the social media post herself and that she had been misunderstood and had not made sexual assault allegations. But the WTA, still lacking direct contact with Peng, has maintained its position. “We’ve been watching very…

‘Chained Woman’ Spurs Social Media Movement in China

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The Chinese government faces a quandary: how to convince its people that what it said about a chained woman is true. Since a short video of the woman chained in a doorless shack went viral in late January, the Chinese public has taken the matter into its own hands to find out who she is, whether she is a victim of human trafficking and why the apparently mentally ill woman had eight children. The public thought it couldn’t trust a government that was not truthful about her identity and that…

Your Monday Briefing: South Africa’s Parliament Burns

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Good morning. We’re covering a fire in South Africa’s Parliament, a breach in the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea, and possible changes to women’s rights in China. South Africa’s parliament burns A large fire damaged much of the Houses of Parliament on Sunday. Officials warned that the damage to the historic complex would be extensive. Officials said the fire spread from an office space on the third floor of a building adjacent to the old National Assembly building. Cape Town’s Fire and Rescue Service spokesman warned that…

China Moves to Overhaul Protections for Women’s Rights, Sort Of

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The announcement was presented — in official news reports, on social media — as a major victory for Chinese women. The government was set to overhaul its law governing women’s rights for the first time in decades, to refine the definition of sexual harassment, affirm prohibitions on workplace discrimination and ban forms of emotional abuse. For many women in China, the response was: Hm, really? The proposed revisions are the latest in a series of conflicting messages by the Chinese government about the country’s growing feminist movement. On paper, the…

Can #MeToo Survive Chinese Censorship?

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It’s a musical that follows Georges Seurat, the French 19th-century artist who was best known for his pointillist painting “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.” The musical is about what you gain and sacrifice as an artist, and how to be an artist when you don’t feel like there’s anything left for you to make. After watching the first act, I’ll be honest — I wasn’t sold on Sondheim. I went out for intermission, and I start talking with friends who felt the same way. We just didn’t get it,…

She Is Breaking Glass Ceilings in Space, but Facing Sexism on Earth

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Col. Wang Yaping is a pilot in the People’s Liberation Army’s Air Force. She is a space veteran, now making her second trip into orbit. She is set in the coming weeks to be the first Chinese woman to walk in space as China’s space station glides around Earth at 17,100 miles per hour. And yet, as she began a six-month mission last week at the core of China’s ambitious space program, official and news media attention fixated as much on the comparative physiology of men and women, menstruation cycles,…

As Chinese Women Seek to Crack Male Professions, Schools Stand in the Way

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When Vincy Li applied to a prestigious police academy graduate program in China, she knew her odds of success were low. After all, the school set quotas, typically capping the number of female students at no more than a quarter of the student body. But her chances were even lower. When the school released admissions results earlier this year, just five out of 140 students who had tested into the program — less than 4 percent — were female, even though more than 1,000 women had applied. And the lowest-scoring…

Man Whose Attack on Ex-Wife Was Livestreamed Gets Death Penalty in China

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A court in China gave the death penalty to a man who murdered his ex-wife while she was livestreaming, a case that shocked the country and ignited calls for better safeguards against domestic abuse. The man, Tang Lu, committed “utterly cruel” criminal acts, the court in Sichuan Province said in Thursday’s verdict, which was handed down after a one-day hearing, according to official news reports. The case had drawn intense attention in China, where the legal system has been criticized for failing to protect women from domestic violence, even after…

China’s Abortion Vow Sparks Worries About Limits

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On social media on Monday, after some state-backed news outlets highlighted the line about abortion in the guidelines, some users wondered whether more restrictions were on the way. “Contraception can fail, so not finding a partner is the safest bet,” said one popular comment on the Weibo social media platform. In general, many women are deeply suspicious of how the government will try to boost the country’s anemic birthrates, said Lu Pin, a Chinese feminist activist. Earlier this year, the government imposed a cooling-off period for couples seeking divorce, which…