ALSA 2025 meeting

Legal mobilization has emerged as a crucial strategy for women’s movements in China since the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, peaking in the early 2010s. Various stakeholders have engaged in promoting women's rights through impact litigation, legislative lobbying, and raising awareness, as their counterparts did in democracies. However, since 2015, there has been a systematic crackdown on civil society organizations and strict controls over public interest lawyering. Given this new and repressive political environment, can legal mobilization still exert the same influence and social impact as it once did? This paper systematically reviews the legal mobilization for women’s rights in Xi’s China, especially following the significant Feminist Five incident. By integrating theories of law and social movements with feminist legal theories, this study empirically explores novel aspects of legal mobilization and assesses the influential factors within this context. The analysis critically evaluates both the direct and indirect outcomes of legal mobilization in advancing women’s rights. It reveals the unique dynamics between law and women's movements under “a new Chinese-style thick rule of law”. While there has been an expansion of legal mechanisms addressing women’s rights and increased access to legal aid, the capacity for collective action has diminished due to political and legal constraints. Additionally, autonomous women’s organizations have dwindled, and feminists face marginalization and stigmatization. This paper argues that while legal advancements can create opportunities for women’s movements, a reliance on legal channels can also limit the power to mobilize communities, resulting in restricted legal mobilization. Ultimately, this study calls for a nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding legal mobilization for women’s rights through a feminist lens and proposes considerations for the future of women’s movements in China.