Leta Hong Fincher is the author of Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (2014). She recently completed her PhD in Sociology at Tsinghua University. She has a Master’s degree in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree, magna cum laude, in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University. Her research on “leftover” women and the property market in China has been cited by many news organizations, including The Economist, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and National Public Radio. She is an award-winning former journalist with extensive experience in China and the United States. 

Last Updated: April 5, 2021

Books

12.12.19

Betraying Big Brother

Leta Hong Fincher
Verso: On the eve of International Women’s Day in 2015, the Chinese government arrested five feminist activists and jailed them for 37 days. The Feminist Five became a global cause célèbre, with Hillary Clinton speaking out on their behalf and activists inundating social media with #FreetheFive messages. But the Five are only symbols of a much larger feminist movement of civil rights lawyers, labor activists, performance artists, and online warriors prompting an unprecedented awakening among China’s educated, urban women. In Betraying Big Brother, journalist and scholar Leta Hong Fincher argues that the popular, broad-based movement poses the greatest challenge to China’s authoritarian regime today.Through interviews with the Feminist Five and other leading Chinese activists, Hong Fincher illuminates both the difficulties they face and their “joy of betraying Big Brother,” as one of the Feminist Five wrote of the defiance she felt during her detention. Tracing the rise of a new feminist consciousness now finding expression through the #MeToo movement, and describing how the Communist regime has suppressed the history of its own feminist struggles, Betraying Big Brother is a story of how the movement against patriarchy could reconfigure China and the world.{chop}

Conversation

03.18.15

Dark Days for Women in China?

Rebecca E. Karl, Leta Hong Fincher & more
With China’s recent criminal detention of five feminist activists, gender inequality in China is back in the spotlight. What does a crackdown on Chinese women fighting for equal representation say about the current state of the nation’s political...

Books

07.31.14

Leftover Women

Leta Hong Fincher
A century ago, Chinese feminists fighting for the emancipation of women helped spark the Republican Revolution, which overthrew the Qing empire. After China's Communist revolution of 1949, Chairman Mao famously proclaimed that "women hold up half the sky." In the early years of the People's Republic, the Communist Party sought to transform gender relations with expansive initiatives such as assigning urban women jobs in the planned economy. Yet those gains are now being eroded in China's post-socialist era. Contrary to many claims made in the mainstream media, women in China have experienced a dramatic rollback of many rights and gains relative to men.Leftover Women debunks the popular myth that women have fared well as a result of post-socialist China's economic reforms and breakneck growth. Laying out the structural discrimination against women in China will speak to broader problems with China's economy, politics, and development.—Zed Books {chop}

Sinica Podcast

06.16.14

The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China

Kaiser Kuo, Jeremy Goldkorn & more from Sinica Podcast
This week on Sinica, Kaiser and Jeremy are joined by David Moser and Leta Hong Fincher, newly-minted Ph.D. and author of Leftover Women, a book which gazes into the state of women’s rights in China, and documents the way state-sanctioned propaganda...

Viewpoint

04.23.14

From Half the Sky to ‘Leftovers’

Mei Fong & Leta Hong Fincher
The three-plus decades since the inception of the ‘one child’ policy have resulted in a huge female shortage in China. The country is now seriously unbalanced, with 18 million more boys than girls. By 2020, there will be some 30 million surplus men...

Conversation

03.19.14

What Should Michelle Obama Accomplish on Her Trip to China?

Orville Schell, Vincent Ni & more
Orville Schell:  Looking at the challenges of rectifying U.S.-China relations and building some semblance of the "new kind of a big power relationship" alluded to by presidents Obama and Xi at Sunnylands last year, will most...

Viewpoint

02.04.14

In Slickness and in Wealth

Leta Hong Fincher
Under the harsh glare of a studio spotlight, bride-to-be Tong turns her face until it is almost completely in shadow. Tong is posing for a three-day session of wedding photographs at Shanghai’s premier Princess Studio, where couples spend between 3,...

Conversation

11.19.13

What Will the Beginning of the End of the One-Child Policy Bring?

Leta Hong Fincher, Vincent Ni & more
Leta Hong Fincher:The Communist Party’s announcement that it will loosen the one-child policy is, of course, welcome news. Married couples will be allowed to have two children if only one of the spouses is an only child, meaning that millions more...

Sinica Podcast

05.31.13

The Abuse of Children

Jeremy Goldkorn, Leta Hong Fincher & more from Sinica Podcast
{vertical_photo_right} After a few weeks grousing about the state of Chinese humor, sex, and Bill Bishop, we turn our gaze to the plight of the nation’s children, and the stories of child abuse and maltreatment which have filled the mainland...

Sinica Podcast

06.01.12

All-Sinica Federation of Women

Mary Kay Magistad & Leta Hong Fincher from Sinica Podcast
Considering that this was the week Zhang Ziyi found her name dragged through the mud on the Bo Xilai scandal, there couldn’t be a more topical subject for Sinica than the double standards that are often applied to women in China, and the way Chinese...

Recommended Links

via
New York Times
10.11.12

In 2007, the Women’s Federation defined “leftover” women (sheng nu) as unmarried women over the age of 27 and China’s Ministry of Education added the term to its official lexicon. Since then, the Women’s Federation Web site has run articles stigmatizing educated women who are still single. 

Topics: Society