Interview with Wang Xingjuan

Abstract

Wang Xingjuan, born in 1931, was an editor at the Beijing Publishing House for many years. After her retirement in 1988, she started the first women’s hot line in China. This initiative has grown into The Maple Women’s Counseling Center, where Wang Xingjuan is director. She is internationally renowned for creating and sustaining one of the earliest women’s NGOs in China. The Center is currently expanding its services to include not only direct services to women, but also intervention activities that aim to educate the community. Activists from the Center have linked with local communities to provide gender training workshops to police, judges, doctors, neighborhood committee officials and women’s federation officials to raise their awareness on domestic violence and gender hierarchies. Their intervention activism also involves setting up mechanisms in local communities to prevent domestic violence.