Who Holds Up Half The Sky Podcast: Feminism Under Chinese Censorship

 Podcasting and listeners benefit when podcasters have experienced life in multiple parts of the globe. It gives the podcaster a wider perspective on the world and its inhabitants, and it enables listeners to travel the world wearing earbuds while cleaning house or washing their car.

In this case, I'm talking about “Who Holds up Half the Sky,”  which is an investigative podcast discussing the possibilities of advancing feminist activism in China under censorship and lack of free speech.

Influential activist figures appear in China’s history from the Qing dynasty to the Maoist era, with its famous quote: “Women Hold up Half the Sky.”

Yet despite that quote from former Chinese Communist Party chairman Mao Zedong, Chinese women have undergone much pressure, from foot binding and arranged marriages to unequal pay and domestic violence.

Podcast creator / host Andreea Coscai notes: "Over the years, I have dived deeper into issues of multiculturalism, social activism, and gender identities. This work defines my curiosity, which stems from a continuous movement through distinct cultural spaces, which started in China."

   Andreea Coscai is a digital marketer and podcast producer passionate about multicultural investigative reporting. In 2020, she founded the first NGO that promotes leadership and networking for young women, Her Time Romania. She spent her childhood in Romania, lived in China for two years, and moved to the United States in 2018.

 

Coscai released six episodes in mid-May 2022, with various Chinese academic and intellectual figures discussing how women in China battle censorship and the governmental intrusion into their lives that only women experience. What I love about this podcast is that it reveals feminism as more than a socioeconomic movement in highly developed countries. Coscai portrays feminism as a potentially powerful force against a Communist government like China.

  You can read more about the podcast, and the research for it, as well as listen to the full interviews and the full-length podcast here: andreeacoscai.com/

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This review is part of an ongoing series of reviews, recommendations, and essays about Indie podcasters -- their craft, their challenges, and the critical role they play in podcasting. These entrepreneurs display skills as disparate as hosting, sound production, graphic design, scriptwriting, interviewing, marketing genius, and financial watchdog. They are the heart and soul of podcasting.