Today's Women in China (10/6/2026)
Being a woman in China is getting harder. But in Chengdu, female-only spaces are flourishing
Opening a business that caters only for women doesn’t violate any Chinese laws, but it does offend some men. One called the police soon after the bar opened. Zhang and her partner told the officers that as female proprietors, they worried about being harassed by male customers. “It’s for our own safety, and to avoid making trouble for the police,” Zhang said. The police accepted her explanation but left with a warning: “Don’t be doing that lesbian stuff.”
That is partly thanks to its distance from Beijing and Shanghai. As the ancient Chinese proverb goes, “the mountains are high, and the emperor is far away” – meaning the further one gets from the capital, the more free spirited people tend to be.