The Good Women of China

The Good Women of China Hidden Voices by Xinran is a collection of stories and personal insight into the lives of women in China.

Xinran is the woman author of this book. Her name means 'with pleasure' from the poem by Zhu Ziqing about spring: "With pleasure, Nature opened its eyes to new things." Xinran's book is opening a new world to us as she shows us the lives of these women, sometimes it is heart wrenching and painful to read but the experience of reading this book will change your life.

Born in Beijing in 1958, Xinran went through the turmoil of the Revolution in China to the Communist times today. Much of what happened affected her life deeply and she writes about her own life in this book and how it shaped her as a woman.

These other lives of women that Xinran writes about started when she was hosting a radio call-in show, where women from all over would call just to be able to talk to someone and be heard.

China has been through cultural, social and political turmoil which has left the country and its people scarred and insecure. Add to this the inequality of women who have no choice but to accept their cruel fate and you end up with a country stuck in the worst circumstances of poverty, injustice and abuse-the worst victims here are women.

Even before Communism and the multiple revolutions that took place happened, women in China suffered a stigma of class defined roles, family pecking orders along with abuse and neglect from their husbands.

It's hard to say even now just how far women have come but their place in society now is far from equal.

The Good Women of China was written during 1997, spanning a work collected during the 1980's when China was beginning to 'open up' to the world. Xinran spent months, years even, to interview and collect stories from these women whose lives are unbelievable to read but shows the true courage and character of the Chinese woman who is willing to suffer so much for so little.