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Trending: China’s ‘Feminist Five’ and Homophobia in Iceland

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25/04/2015

China’s ‘Feminist Five’ and Homophobia in Iceland

BBC World Service - Trending, China’s ‘Feminist Five’ and Homophobia in Iceland

After the release of the ‘Feminist Five’ is feminist conversation back online in China?

Has the feminist debate in China continued on social media after the release of the ‘Feminist Five’? And, how one Icelandic man’s comments on sex education caused a backlash.

In Iceland, folk musician Gylfi Aegisson objected to local authorities in the town of Hafnarfirði who are planning to introduce LGBT sex education into schools. Some people found his comments to be homophobic after Aegisson set up a Facebook group urging people to 'protect children'. A gay rights lobby group took offence to his views and created new hashtags using his comments starting an Icelandic Twitter trend. We hear from Árni Grétar Jóhannss from Samtokin ’78 and radio presenter Adolf Erlingsson from Radio Iceland.

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, five feminists were detained and arrested in China. Last week they were released on bail but banned from going online or giving interviews. We discuss whether the ability to discuss feminism on Chinese social media has been quashed or whether the arrests have empowered people to continue the feminist discussion, in spite of the censors. And, what is really behind the arrests of the five women? BBC China’s Vincent Ni joins Mukul in the studio.

(Photo: Feminist activist Wu poses for a photograph with papers. Credit: Reuters)

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