Editor’s Note: This story is a part of As Equals, CNN’s ongoing collection on gender inequality. For details about how the collection is funded and more, take a look at our FAQs.
CNN
—
On May 8, Hong Kong is predicted to usher in a new chief: John Lee, a police veteran-turned-security chief who will run, unopposed, for the metropolis’s prime place as the solely candidate backed by China’s ruling social gathering.
The option to endorse Lee – a hardline safety official recognized for overseeing heavy crackdowns on the metropolis’s large professional-democracy protests in 2019 and who has little policymaking experience when in comparison with the metropolis’s previous leaders – means that national security may continue to be prioritized above all else in the years to come back.
Activists and students additionally say the transfer will solely additional hinder civil liberties and human rights, together with one which has already come beneath fireplace: the metropolis’s embattled gender motion.
“If John Lee adopts the Mainland China model of managing civil society, this may bring about a further onslaught of Hong Kong’s once vibrant civil society,” says Diana Fu, Associate Professor of political science at the University of Toronto. “In the mainland model, civil society groups that advocate for liberal rights – including gender equality – are seen as conduits of Western influence.”
“Gender awareness has to be promoted from the bottom up,” mentioned Petula Ho, an area feminist scholar. “But it’s like the whole of society has given up on this issue.”
The previous a number of years have not been good for feminism and gender rights in Hong Kong. The professional-democracy protests that rocked the metropolis additionally noticed ladies protestors reportedly trolled online and sparked #ProtestToo, a uncommon #MeToo-style sub-motion the place 1000’s gathered following allegations of sexual assault by the police. One grievance, filed by a young person who accused officers of gang rape throughout the protests, was dropped by the Department of Justice on account of “contrary evidence.”
While praised for the active involvement of women protesters, the professional-democracy motion itself has additionally been criticized for sexism. Female authorities officers, law enforcement officials and critics of the movement confronted sexualized insults and threats; frontline ladies protesters have been idealized as martyrs, which some feminists have condemned as it presents ladies as solely being of worth in their sacrifice.
“[The pro-democracy movement] has this populist element which has made it more patriarchal and more difficult for diversity and gender issues to exist,” mentioned Ho, who has researched these dynamics and advised CNN she’s confronted assaults on social media for her critiques.
Beijing’s crackdown on Hong Kong has made it more tough to advocate for any causes, not to mention gender-associated ones.
Since the implementation of the national security law in 2020, over 50 civil society teams, from commerce and lecturers unions to pupil organizations, have disbanded. And more than 180 people (together with activists and professional-democracy figures who’ve advocated for gender points) have been arrested since the legislation was enacted in June 2020, in line with a tracker run by ChinaFile journal.
Following an overhaul of the metropolis’s electoral system to make sure loyalty to the Chinese state, pro-Beijing lawmakers and councilors now dominate the metropolis’s legislature. After the reforms, more than 200 district councilors have both resigned or been disqualified and plenty of have been arrested on nationwide safety grounds, forcing out virtually all opposition.
Those ousted embrace Tiffany Yuen, a former district councilor with a background of selling ladies’s rights and Raymond Chan, Hong Kong’s first lawmaker who publicly recognized as homosexual, in addition to three different homosexual and lesbian district councilors.
Kenneth Cheung, a type of councilors, democratically elected into workplace by voters in 2019 earlier than he was disqualified by authorities, mentioned the expulsion of professional-democracy politicians will additional scale back avenues for gender advocacy in the authorities.
Cheung mentioned many researchers and workplace employees engaged on gender-associated initiatives with professional-democracy lawmakers are actually unemployed, and there may be now fewer progressive illustration on these points in public boards. The closing of progressive media shops corresponding to Stand News has already weakened protection on these matters, he added.
“When I look ahead at the next five to ten years, I feel depressed,” Cheung mentioned, explaining that democracy and progressive causes are intrinsically
linked. “Before, democratic politicians would raise issues about marginalized communities or invite questions. In the coming era, we probably won’t see this anymore.”
Political modifications have additionally hampered the gender activism of Lily Wong, a intercourse activist and former member of the now-disbanded professional-democracy group Demosisto. In 2020, Wong co-based a YouTube channel exploring sex-related topics known as “Faan Hou ABC,” with Yuen and one other professional-democracy activist Ho Ka-yau.
The channel initially took off on account of its professional-democracy stances, however was in a position to seize a wider viewers by linking points about intercourse and gender to democracy and liberal values.
“Compared to the 2014 Umbrella Movement, more women were accepted on the frontlines in 2019, which was a big change,” Wong advised CNN, including that whereas she too, like Ho, condemned the sexist conduct by some protesters, the motion did positively affect individuals’s attitudes in direction of ladies in different methods. “Although issues like gender were secondary, I think these secondary issues still progressed.”
When Yuen was charged with allegedly violating nationwide safety final 12 months, nevertheless, the ladies shut down the channel. “In the coming years, I think people will be more cautious when it comes to engaging with political causes,” Wong mentioned.
CNN put to the authorities the problems with shrinking civil society area, Carrie Lam’s file on gender initiatives and the allegations of sexual assualt by the police.
“The allegation is no further from the truth,” a authorities spokesperson advised CNN, including that the rights of Hong Kong residents are “protected in accordance with the law” however that “many freedoms and rights are not absolute, and can be restricted for reasons including protection of national security and public safety.”
In response to allegations of police misconduct, the spokesperson mentioned legislation enforcement businesses take actions based mostly on “evidence,” are accountable for sustaining public security, and can “exercise professional judgment to take appropriate actions, including using the minimum force as necessary.”
No remark was made about the out-going chief, Lam.
Hong Kong, nonetheless ready for its feminist rebellion
The future for progressive politics might look bleak now. But when it involves feminism and gender equality, Hong Kong has lengthy been a challenging setting.
Unlike in different elements of the world, the #MeToo movement failed to get mainstream acceptance right here. Hong Kong has carried out nicely on some gender equality metrics. The 2021 report from the Women’s Commission – set as much as promote the growth of ladies in Hong Kong – reveals that over the previous decade ladies outnumbered males in greater education schemes funded by the University Grants Committee, and that their participation in some fields {and professional} roles had additionally grown.
However, many feminists say greater illustration has not translated into real equality and society stays deeply patriarchal.
Take sexual violence which Hong Kong’s Women’s Foundation described as a “pervasive, deeply concerning problem”. A 2021 survey by the Hong Kong Women’s Coalition on Equal Opportunities discovered that almost 40% of respondents (37.5%) say they skilled sexual violence in their lifetime – up from 15% when the survey was last conducted in 2013. Fear of being blamed and never believed have been reportedly two of the principal causes victims don’t search assist.
The Women’s Foundation, citing authorities figures, additionally published an infographic in 2019 that included particulars corresponding to “only 55% of women are in the workforce” and “Hong Kong has a gender pay gap of 22%”
In widespread tradition, sexist tropes, corresponding to the stereotype of the “Kong girl” – a lady from Hong Kong who’s materialistic and pampered – additionally proceed to proliferate.
Even when the metropolis had a feminine chief govt, Carrie Lam, few noticed her tenure as a win for ladies’s rights. Not solely did Lam overlook the situation of gender in her public addresses all through her time in workplace, she has additionally been accused of using the fact that she is a mother to deflect criticism of her actions.
“She used her image to justify certain actions and present herself as a good mother, as if by virtue of being a mother that [a positive] implication is there,” Ho advised CNN. “But then of course people really don’t think she’s motherly at all, she is somebody who we think is against ethics of care.”
Some would possibly say that Hong Kong in latest occasions has seen more progress on LGBTQ+ points than on ladies’s rights, however China’s hardening stance on LGBTQ+ activism on the mainland has additionally began to trickle down into Hong Kong politics, sparking issues over a new surge in conservatism.
In the run as much as the Gay Games – a global sporting, arts and tradition occasion organized for the LGBTQ+ neighborhood – some pro-Beijing lawmakers have condemned the event which is because of happen in November 2023, calling it a “threat to national security” and a guise by which to advertise political causes.
While the LGBTQ+ neighborhood has seen some legal victories in latest years, the metropolis has no legal protections towards discrimination on the foundation of sexual orientation and gender id, and similar-intercourse marriage has but to be legalized. “I’m really concerned. The situation is getting worse,” says Alvin Cheung, a homosexual activist and social employee.
Despite the more repressive political ambiance, there are nonetheless small teams and people creating protected areas to speak about gender and sexuality, significantly on-line, in line with Grace Ting, assistant professor of gender research at the University of Hong Kong.
Ming Chan, a transgender activist in her 20s, is one in every of them. In 2020, she helped co-discovered Quarks, a trans and non-binary youth assist group that now has some 2,700 followers on social media.
Chan says some communities like hers are thriving, as a result of after the professional-democracy motion, more individuals are realizing that they will impression society in other ways.
“I’m lucky to have such a space,” Chan advised CNN. “I believe some of the energies generated from the political movement have been transferred to the gender equality and feminist movement, because it’s a field where you can still do something.”
Story of the week
It is estimated that postpartum melancholy (PPD) impacts one in 10 ladies, but there may be nonetheless little consciousness and far stigma round it. CNN tells the intimate, harrowing story of 1 household’s battle with the situation.
Pranaiya was a happy mom – then she started talking about wanting to disappear – CNN
Women Behaving Badly: Ma Anand Sheela (1949 – current)
Written by Adie Vanessa Offiong
Ma Anand Sheela was comparatively unknown to many past India and the US, previous to the launch of the 2018 six-part Netflix documentary, Wild Wild Country.
The piece, showed her as the fearless proper hand and private secretary of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (often known as Osho), founding father of the Rajneesh movement, which attracted devotees from round the world to its base in the Oregon desert. The motion is now largely recognized for a collection of prison actions it carried out, together with one of America’s largest immigration frauds and the largest bioterror assault in the nation, orchestrated by Sheela. Despite this, she nonetheless maintains a following.
Born Sheela Ambalal Patel right into a rich Mumbai household in India, Ma Anand Sheela studied linguistics at Baroda University, India and Art at Montclair State College in New Jersey, where she met her first husband, Marc Silverman. She married 3 times.
After University, Sheela was launched to Rajneesh by her father, who noticed him as a religious trainer, and he or she is alleged to have been immediately dedicated to him.
She is now described as the mastermind behind Rajneesh’s dealings and admits to Australia’s 60 Minutes to being the one with the skill to place his “dreams and vision” into apply.
In 1984, Sheela orchestrated a big-scale bioterror assault, contaminating the salad bars at ten eating places in Oregon in hope of rendering individuals unable to vote and assist sway a county election in favour of the cult’s personal candidates. The assault, sickened 751 individuals and put 45 in hospital.
In 1986, she was charged with immigration fraud, tried homicide, wiretapping and conspiracy to tamper with shopper merchandise. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in jail, in line with a Swiss Info report. She was released for good conduct after 39 months, paid a $470,000 wonderful and was deported, in line with an Associated Press report.
She presently lives in Switzerland the place she runs two residential houses for individuals with psychological sicknesses.
Deep dive: Abortion
This week, in an unprecedented leak, information broke that the US Supreme Court may overturn the nation’s 50-year-outdated ruling that legalized abortion in the nation. Here are some tales that present context on what’s been taking place in the US and elsewhere in the world when it involves abortion.