Nüshu works were a way for women to lament by communicating sorrows, commiserating over Chinese patriarchy, and establishing connections with an empathetic community.

Fears that the features of the script are being distorted by the effort of marketing it for the tourist industry were highlighted by the 2022 documentary Hidden Letters.

This is about half the number required to represent all the syllables in the language, as tonal distinctions are frequently ignored, making it "the most revolutionary and thorough simplification of Chinese characters ever attempted".

[7] Zhou Shuoyi, described as the only male to have mastered the script, compiled a dictionary listing 1,800 variant characters and allographs.

[dubious – discuss] In about 100, the entire character is adopted with little change apart from skewing the frame from square to rhomboid, sometimes reversing them (mirror image), and often reducing the number of strokes.

Gong Zhebing, a pioneer researcher of Nüshu, collected oral traditions and stories passed down through generations in Jiangyong County.

[9] These accounts reveal that the genesis of Nüshu is deeply rooted in local folklore and cultural traditions, blending myth and history.

One day, while gathering grass in the mountains, Pan Qiao was captured by an imperial hunting party and taken to a distant county.

Renowned for her intelligence, singing, and embroidery, she created Nüshu as a way for her sworn sisters to communicate, as they were unable to read traditional Chinese characters.

[9] While these stories vary in detail, they share recurring themes of hardship, ingenuity, and the cultural traditions of Jiangyong women.

Gong Zhebing speculated that Pan Qiao and the Nine-Jin Maiden may represent the same individual, as both stories originate from Tongkou Village and share similar elements.

[9] Scholars generally agree that Nüshu was likely created by a local woman skilled in embroidery and song, inspired by the artistic patterns in traditional needlework.

Women were confined to the homes (through foot binding) and were assigned roles in housework and needlework instead of fieldwork, which allowed the practice of Nüshu to develop.

[12] Su kelian (诉可怜; 訴可憐; 'lamenting the miserable'[14]) is a genre of writing that "gave voice to Jiangyong peasant women's existence as vulnerable beings".

[13] During the latter part of the 20th century, owing more to wider social, cultural and political changes than the narrow fact of greater Chinese character literacy, younger girls and women stopped learning Nüshu, and it began falling into disuse, as older users died.

However, after Yang Yueqing made a documentary about Nüshu, the Chinese government started to popularise the effort to preserve the increasingly endangered script, and some younger women are beginning to learn it.

[citation needed] Yang Huanyi, an inhabitant of Jiangyong and the last person proficient in this writing system, died on 20 September 2004, at the age of 98.

[10] The language and locale has also attracted foreign investment for infrastructure surrounding possible tourist sites, including a $209,000 grant from the Ford Foundation in 2005 ($313,397 in 2023) to build a Nüshu museum, originally scheduled to open in 2007.

[17] However, with the line of transmission now broken, there are fears that the features of the script are being distorted by the effort of marketing it for the tourist industry.

Hong Kong based choreographer Helen Lai uses dance as a medium to critique the patriarchal media representation of Nüshu.

[11] Chinese composer Tan Dun has created a multimedia symphony entitled Nu Shu: The Secret Songs of Women for harp, orchestra, and 13 microfilms.

Tan Dun spent five years conducting field research in Hunan Province, documenting on film the various songs the women use to communicate.