article_snippet.sent: The timing of the detentions of China's most inventive women's rights activists is ironic: Not only did China's most inventive women's rights activists take place on the very day that marks women's achievements and China's most inventive women's rights activists struggle for equality, but China's most inventive women's rights activists also come in a year in which Beijing would have won praise for its role in promoting women's rights.
article_snippet.sent: a year in which Beijing would have won praise for its role in promoting women's rights also marks the 20th anniversary of the influential Fourth World Conference on Women hosted in Beijing, during which Hillary Clinton famously declared that "women's rights are human rights.
article_snippet.sent: I first met Wu at a conference several years ago, at a time when there were very few women in China's weiquan  or "rights defense" movement.
article_snippet.sent: As women's rights activists, Wu and others fight on two fronts: against overt rights violations by the Chinese government and against the wider gender norms that relegate women to second-class citizens.
article_snippet.sent: Wu and her young "direct-action" feminist colleagues staged small, public "performance art" protests that attracted media headlines, energized the more mainstream and academically inclined women's rights movement, and pushed women's rights into the national consciousness and onto the Chinese government's agenda.
article_snippet.sent: Wu joined Yirenping, a nonprofit organization that promotes social equality, whether it is between sexes or among people with and without disabilities, and later founded the women's rights organization Hangzhou Women Center.
article_snippet.sent: And it is in Yirenping that Wu became particularly attuned to the challenges confronting young women in modern China.  
article_snippet.sent: Wu and Wu colleagues have used innovative tactics with a certain shock factor — "occupying" public toilets to show the need for more such conveniences for women, donning blood-spattered wedding gowns to protest domestic violence, shaving Wu and her colleagues heads to protest against barriers to higher education for women — that raises awareness of gender inequality in ways that resonate, especially with young women in China.
highlights_snippet.sent: Maya Wang says in a year when country poised to adopt  anti-domestic violence law, Beijing also sending chilling message on women's activism .