Hello, and welcome to the weekend. Today in the newsletter, we're going deeper on today's episode about the censoring of Peng Shuai, the Chinese tennis star. Then, we tell the personal story behind our episode on Stephen Sondheim. |
The big idea: Can #MeToo survive censorship in China? |
The Daily strives to reveal a new idea in every episode. Below, we go deeper on one of those from our show this week. |
 | | Peng Shuai at the China Open in Beijing in 2017.Greg Baker/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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There was a time before the arrests, trolling and censorship that Li Maizi felt something like hope. |
In 2012, as part of a group of Chinese activists now known as the Feminist Five, she walked through a busy Beijing district in a wedding gown spattered with blood-red paint, protesting domestic violence. Afterward, the group started a movement to occupy men's restrooms in protest of inequities in public bathrooms, garnering widespread media attention. |
But by 2015, she was deemed a threat. Before a planned demonstration on International Women's Day that year, she and other activists were detained by Chinese authorities, prompting international outcry. "Now, it's very limited what I can do in China," Ms. Li, now 32, said. She has been forced to move her work online, part of a "decentralized movement" of women agitating for gender equity in the brief moments their activism evades government censorship. |
As you heard on today's show, censorship of women in China is being re-examined after Peng Shuai, the tennis star, accused Zhang Gaoli, a former Chinese vice premier, of sexual assault. Her online accusation was promptly censored, resulting in sporting boycotts and international outrage. Now, the question remains: Will anything change for women in China? |
A regression in women's rights |
Discrimination against women in China is on the rise — a reversal from the early decades of Communist rule, when Chinese women entered the work force in record numbers and began to enjoy greater rights. |
In recent years, President Xi Jinping has led a resurgence in promoting traditional gender roles, calling on women to "shoulder the responsibilities of taking care of the old and young, as well as educating children" while trying to stimulate a baby boom. (Thirty years ago, Chinese women earned just under 80 percent of what men made, but, by 2010, the average income of women in Chinese cities fell to 67 percent of that of men — and, in the countryside, 56 percent.) |
Still, feminist ideas have slowly entered the mainstream, and many women have been encouraged by the small gains in the country's nascent #MeToo movement which has inched across the media, education and private sectors in China. Ms. Peng's accusation was the first time the #MeToo movement in China touched the pinnacles of Communist Party power. |
"It's a very remarkable thing," Ms. Li said. "When I heard the news from my girlfriend's friend, I checked Twitter and said, 'Holy God.'" |
A Times investigation revealed how, within minutes, the Chinese government removed not only Ms. Peng's post but also nearly all references to the accusation. It also restricted digital spaces where people might discuss it. |
To Xi Jinping, "the problem here was that a retired top-level official could potentially be brought into disrepute or be brought down by some celebrities or dissidents, particularly of the female gender," Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, said. "To him, that was just unacceptable." |
"If that allegation had been allowed to stay and were investigated, it could have triggered more responses and been a turning point in terms of China's #MeToo movement," Mr. Tsang added. "But that didn't happen." |
Ms. Li also said she didn't "think it will be the cornerstone" of a revived #MeToo movement in China. Many women who have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault have faced pushback in the courts, state censorship and aggressive trolling online. To those deciding whether to come forward, the swift silencing of such a high-profile figure will be taken as a warning. |
The 'butterfly effect' of Peng Shuai's allegations |
In the days since Ms. Peng's post went live, Beijing appeared to close its iron fist in an effort to mitigate damage. And the censors might have succeeded if Steve Simon, the head of the Women's Tennis Association, had not spoken out on Nov. 14, calling on Beijing to investigate Ms. Peng's accusations and stop trying to bury her case. |
"I think there has been significant impact already on Chinese formal diplomacy," Mr. Tsang said. The Biden administration and the United Nations human rights office have joined the tennis association in calling for Beijing to provide proof of Ms. Peng's well-being. |
"It also has significant impact on Chinese soft power," Mr. Tsang added, noting that major celebrities including Naomi Osaka, Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams, Rafael Nadal and Billie Jean King have been speaking out in support of Ms. Peng — calling attention to Chinese authoritarianism ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing. |
It's the soft power implications that give Ms. Li renewed hope, in spite of the censorship. "I still think that #MeToo has the power to push the women's movement forward in China," she said. "Once you speak out, it has a butterfly effect, and more and more people are willing to speak out too, in time." |
From The Daily team: The story behind our Sondheim episode |
 | | Stephen Sondheim in 1990. Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times |
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Last Friday on The Daily, we looked at the life and career of Stephen Sondheim, the Broadway songwriting titan who died in late November at his home in Roxbury, Conn. He was 91. |
Luke Vander Ploeg, our lead producer on the episode, is a Sondheim superfan. Below, our producer Rachelle Bonja interviews Luke about what Sondheim meant to him. Their conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity. |
RACHELLE: What was your first experience of Sondheim? |
LUKE: My first real experience of Sondheim, which got me completely obsessed with him and his work, was when I was a freshman in college. I went to school in the suburbs of Chicago. I was in a class called theater survey, and we would occasionally go into Chicago to see shows. So we took a bus into the city to see "Sunday in the Park With George." |
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, you know? The music was at times semi-atonal, and the show was light on plot. It was more about the psychological exploration of characters, and I wasn't used to that. |
But when I watched the second act, I was completely jolted. Suddenly you're thrust into present day (1984) and all of the actors are playing new characters. The character who played Seurat is now playing his great-grandson, also an artist named George. I had thought of the show as a period piece, but all of a sudden it was like a time-traveling, abstract work that took on an entirely new dimension. |
RACHELLE: What are your favorite lines from this musical? |
LUKE: The song that always gets me is "Move On." In the second act, the modern-day George is struggling with the feeling that he can't make any new art. Dot, Seurat's love interest from the first act, appears and tells him that he needs to "Just keep moving on / Anything you do / Let it come from you / Then it will be new / Give us more to see." |
To me, it's a song about art being what you make when you continue to move forward. The act of worrying about whether your work is different or special enough is anathema to a life in art. |
RACHELLE: What did you feel when you heard he died? |
LUKE: I usually do not feel a lot of things when celebrities die, but I really lost it with Sondheim. |
I think his work has been an important part of me becoming an adult. It's like his songs are actually a part of my worldview now. He informed things about me that are deeply private — that go to the core of who I am. So yeah, I felt a lot of grief, but also gratitude and grace. |
That's it for the Daily newsletter. See you next week. |
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