"They and Them" Author: An Xiaoqing/ Lin Songguo/ Li Feiran Publisher: Oriental Publishing House

"People" magazine's female reports

12 real stories of women (9 in-depth character reports + 3 exclusive accounts by the author)

Telling the fate and soul of women in this era

From the countryside to the city, from the forties to the old ages

They encountered difficulties, they struggled, they experienced hardships and remained innocent

Their story is a timeless story, and also a story of humanity.

From silence to sound, from strangers to encounters, from one person to another

These words that radiate light and warmth make resonance happen and understanding come true.

This is certainly a book for women. While writing about women, female writers also outline the outline of their own lives. For the first time, People magazine has pushed authors to the front and asked them to reveal their lives. We don't want them to hide behind the scenes in the name of objectivity. We have seen how the fire of their lives illuminates their interviews and writings. They use themselves as weapons to pry open the shell of the protagonist's life, find the resonance of the underlying female spirit, and complete a story.

——Zhang Han (Editor-in-Chief of People Magazine)

A woman's story is a chapter of a woman's life. The tension in the story, the humming in the plainness and tacit understanding. Women written by women, your sketch, my heart shadow. The calm and leisurely words, like a fine net, salvage the ordinary, painful and joyful moments.

——Dai Jinhua (scholar)

Xiaoqing, Songguo and Feiran are the best character journalists in China. Their character writing is like a boat that connects the people in the story with thousands of strangers in the distance. We are not Liu Xiaoyang or Song Xiaonv, but we can identify ourselves in them, and we think of the lives of our mothers and more women; we may never have been to the Guanzhong Plain or Changfeng County, but we can see and hear there through their pens, and shed tears or hope for the people and things there. In "They and Them", we are also fortunate to read the story of the boat itself: what polished their pens, what made them choose to start from the perspective of women, and what made them hold the stories that no one in the world has ever cared about or listened to.

Once the gender perspective is acquired, it is difficult to lose it. If it brings hope, then the road to this hope is full of thorns; if it brings pain, then we would rather be pierced by the pain and become more sober than return to the land of tenderness where we have not yet gained enlightenment. The fact that we have chosen this path of gender equality is both the result of our own lives and the inspiration from other women’s experiences. The two cannot be separated. Our paths are intertwined, connecting mothers and daughters, as well as slavery and freedom. Gender equality is not just a woman’s wish and cause, because “as long as a woman takes a step toward her own liberation, there is a man who finds himself closer to the road to freedom.”

——Stochastic Volatility (Chinese podcast)

People is not a women's magazine, but its research on women's topics, expression of women's discourse, and writing of women's situations are all very accurate! Just in this book, from top-level design experiments, the inclusion of gender issues in decision-making mainstream, to the gender dilemma and gender struggle of individual life, to the inner exploration and historical inheritance of women's ontology, there are rigorous, in-depth and true and moving expressions. Even small and professional gender issues such as the ratio of public toilet pits and the height of bus handles have been thought about and involved. As authors who are not from gender majors, they are really excellent! At the same time, as non-professional writing, their focus will overflow beyond gender topics at any time, bringing us richer thinking. For example, the story of Song Xiaonv is a female story rather than a gender story. The complexity and interest behind it are about human nature, not just about femininity.

——Zhang Yue (senior media person, host)

We can always see ourselves in other people's stories. I hope every woman can live her own life, not the life assigned by others.

——Guo Keyu (actor, singer)

In the book "They and Them", we can see many women who "work hard" to live, some for life, some for ideals. The only thing in common is that they dare to face their own hearts, be loyal to themselves, and live up to every moment of their lives. I also want to work hard to be such a person.

——Sun Li (actor)

"They and Them" is a story about a group of women, both the writer and the people being written are women. They are real and sharp, and each of them has an irreplaceable insight into the world. Their stories are worth a closer look.

——Li Yinuo (Founder of Yitu Education)

An Xiaoqing, a native of Liangshan, Sichuan, is of the Yi ethnic group. He graduated from the Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University and the Chinese Department of Nanjing University. His representative works include "Flower Burial Song, Glue Machine and Love Letter", "Nora on the Plain", "Why are there so many "crazy women" in Hong Kong", and "Korean Entertainment Industry: The "Meat Grinder" under the Ghost of Patriarchy".

Lin Songguo, a native of Hunan, graduated from the Department of Journalism at Wuhan University. He has long been concerned about women and public policy issues. His representative works include "Ex-Wife", "Life Experiment of a Group of Poor Children", "Free HPV Vaccine, a Gift from a City to Girls", "No Ye Shiwen in Tokyo", etc.

Li Feiran, a native of Shandong, graduated from the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University. He likes science and classical music, and is good at international and science and technology reporting. His representative works include "Zhang Yiman: A Night for Only a Few People", "Marbury: A Survival Story", "Physicist on the Cliff", "Xu Yuanchong: Fighting Mediocrity", etc.