45 / 50 · Work & collective action

He-Yin Zhen

China / Japan · early twentieth century

He-Yin Zhen developed an anarchist feminist critique of gender, labour and economic power. Writing in the early twentieth century, she questioned whether formal equality could liberate women while exploitation remained intact.

Her essays challenge the assumption that women’s freedom would simply follow national modernisation. They ask who performs necessary work, who controls resources and who benefits from reform.

“The goal of equality cannot be achieved except through women’s liberation.”

On the Question of Women’s Liberation (1907), English translation in The Birth of Chinese Feminism (2013).