The Feminist Five
[1][2][5][11] In 2012, Li Maizi initiated the“Occupy Men's Toilets” protest organized by the Gender Equality Work Group, where she met Zheng Churan.
The protest was then reported by various Chinese news outlets such as People's Daily and led Guangdong officials to respond by promising to add more public toilets for women.
[1][12][13] That same year, Li took part in the “Bloody Brides” parade for Valentine's Day to protest domestic violence alongside Wei Tingting and Xiao Meili.
[1][14] In 2013, Li Maizi attended a party at the Feminist Voices' Beijing office in a white wedding dress covered with fake blood to celebrate American citizen Kim Lee's divorce grant due to domestic violence from her husband Li Yang, a famous Chinese teacher, and the first Beijing court-issued restraining order.
[1] In 2009, she organized a campaign at Yirenping in support of Deng Yujiao, a young woman who had killed a government official in self-defence as he was sexually assaulting her.
[1][15] In 2012, Wu organized the “Bloody Brides” parade in which Li Maizi, Wei Tingting and Xiao Meili took part.
Zheng was invited by Wu Rongrong to participate in the “Occupy Men's Toilets” protest alongside Li Maizi, in 2012.
She also worked on the “Bloody Brides” campaign where Li Maizi, Wei Tinting and Xiao Meili in blood-stained wedding gowns.
[19][20] In 2012, Wei participated in the “Bloody Brides” campaign against domestic violence organized by Wu Rongrong, where she paraded with Li Maizi and Xiao Meili.
[1] The Feminist Five were arrested on March 6, 2015 in different cities and officially detained on International Women's Day in Beijing Haidian District detention center on the grounds of “Picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.
Wu was finally taken to the Beijing Haidian District detention center where Li Maizi, Wei Tingting and Zheng Churan were being held.
[1][22] Zheng Churan, who was living with her parents at the time, was arrested at her home after the authorities went looking for her under the pretense of needing to check her housing registration.
Zheng claims they did not have a search warrant or any identification and only one of the men wore a police uniform, but willingly left with them so they would not enter the house.
Hillary Clinton, who was then running for president of the United States, wrote on Twitter on April 6, 2015: “The detention of women's activists in #China must end.
Samantha Power, who was then the US ambassador at the UN, tweeted: “In China speaking out against sexual harassment is ‘creating a disturbance.’ Disturbance is restricting NGOs fighting for universal rights.” [1][23][24] Several petitions were made calling for the women's release both globally and within China, including a petition from All Out, an LGBT rights NGO, which amassed over 85,000 signatures.
[3][25] In China, specifically Guangzhou and Beijing, women took the streets wearing masks of the Feminist Five's faces as a show of support.
Additionally, the lack of medical treatment for Wu Rongrong, who was suffering from Hepatitis B, prompted supporters to voice their concerns at the detention center where the women were held.
In a similar show of support, people all around the world posted pictures online of themselves wearing masks of the five women's faces.
[1][3][25][26][27] In addition to these pleas from the global and Chinese public as well as world leaders and organizations to release the Feminist Five, human rights lawyers in China made a statement asking for the women's release on March 9, 2015 and female lawyers reached out to the Department of Public Security and All China-Women's Federation to lodge their complaints.
Moreover, NGOs that do not have specific qualifications are unable to cooperate with international foundations and these new limitations made joining feminist movements harder.
According to Wu's deputy, Gina, “The detention of the Feminist Five was awful, but on the other hand, so many more people started paying attention to our cause and volunteering”.
