THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN CHINA Wang left by the conference,"the chief editor invited a group of participants of the NGO Forum to a discussion meeting in October 1995.s The newspa- per printed the abstracts of each participant's talk under the title "Seeing the World through Women's Eyes."The topic of concentration was the concept of gender.A woman scholar expressed succinctly the major point of the discussion:"The greatest inspiration the women's conference gave to people is that we should look at things with a gender perspective."A woman writer described how her heightened gender consciousness en- abled her to discern blatant sexism in the media.She emphasized,"By raising gender consciousness,you will notice all those things you have never been aware of before."Several women stressed the urgency of adopting a gender perspective in China.They called on Chinese newspa- pers to "develop the achievements of the conference to influence the soci- ety and decision makers so that they will consider the gender issue.We should use our pens,our mouths and our minds to spread out gender consciousness.” The FWCW has surely facilitated the rapid impact of feminism on Chi- na's official media.Not only has the largest official women's newspaper in China been openly promoting a feminist gender consciousness,but women's periodicals run by the national or local women's federations all over China have also joined in the process of making a feminist discourse by printing excerpts of the documents of the conferences and articles dis- cussing plans for implementing the Platform for Action.All of this sug- gests that the National Women's Federation,the largest and official wom- en's organization in China,is moving from its former reservation and isolation from feminism to an open enthusiastic embrace of feminism. This significant change,virtually a sign of the state sanction to merge with global feminism,promises the continued growth of a women's move- ment with feminist gender consciousness and a feminist agenda in post- FWCW China. 8 See Zhongguo funiibao (October 30,1995),4. Autumn 1996 SIGNS 199 This content downloaded from 91.229.229.96 on Sat,14 Jun 2014 12:14:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and ConditionsTHE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN CHINA Wang left by the conference," the chief editor invited a group of participants of the NGO Forum to a discussion meeting in October 1995.8 The newspa￾per printed the abstracts of each participant's talk under the title "Seeing the World through Women's Eyes." The topic of concentration was the concept of gender. A woman scholar expressed succinctly the major point of the discussion: "The greatest inspiration the women's conference gave to people is that we should look at things with a gender perspective." A woman writer described how her heightened gender consciousness en￾abled her to discern blatant sexism in the media. She emphasized, "By raising gender consciousness, you will notice all those things you have never been aware of before." Several women stressed the urgency of adopting a gender perspective in China. They called on Chinese newspa￾pers to "develop the achievements of the conference to influence the soci￾ety and decision makers so that they will consider the gender issue. We should use our pens, our mouths and our minds to spread out gender consciousness." The FWCW has surely facilitated the rapid impact of feminism on Chi￾na's official media. Not only has the largest official women's newspaper in China been openly promoting a feminist gender consciousness, but women's periodicals run by the national or local women's federations all over China have also joined in the process of making a feminist discourse by printing excerpts of the documents of the conferences and articles dis￾cussing plans for implementing the Platform for Action. All of this sug￾gests that the National Women's Federation, the largest and official wom￾en's organization in China, is moving from its former reservation and isolation from feminism to an open enthusiastic embrace of feminism. This significant change, virtually a sign of the state sanction to merge with global feminism, promises the continued growth of a women's move￾ment with feminist gender consciousness and a feminist agenda in post￾FWCW China. 8 See Zhongguo funiibao (October 30, 1995), 4. Autumn 1996 SIGNS 199 This content downloaded from 91.229.229.96 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 12:14:47 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions