Once Iron Girls: Essays on Gender by Post-Mao Chinese Literary Women, brings together twenty-five essays of seven prominent writers, whose fiction and poetry have become classics in the teaching and study of Chinese women. Showcasing the feminist thinking and rhetoric of a unique generation of Chinese women writers, this anthology contributes to the globalization of the feminist canon and enhances the awareness of the various ways "feminism" is defined in a cross-cultural context.

Available in English for the first time, Once Iron Girls: Essays on Gender by Post-Mao Chinese Literary Women brings together twenty-five essays by seven critically acclaimed writers, whose fiction and poetry have become classics in modern Chinese literature. Poetic, metaphoric, and sometimes playful and satiric, the essays discuss the material reality wherein Chinese women live and function. Reflecting on their experiences under Mao and in post-Maoist China, these essays vividly demonstrate that, despite equality of the sexes being the official position and women working equally demanding...