Introduction

After many years of silence, Chinese writers have drawn attention to issues of gender and sexualityGender and sexuality since the Open-Door Policy of 1978 and the significant ensuing changes in Chinese politics, economics, culture and society. The concurrent influx of modern Western thought including new feminist concepts further stimulated writers’ engagement in these issues. Feminist attitudes, which were introduced during the May Fourth period (1915–1925) and largely suppressed during the Cultural RevolutionCultural revolution (1966–1976), were repropagated in China after 1976.