I first met Gao Xiaoxian in 1992 at a conference at Peking University, but even before that I had heard about her extraordinary work with the Women’s Federation and her deep knowledge of life in the Shaanxi countryside. In our first conversations, we talked about our shared interest in the history and changing social landscape of rural China in the 1950s, and we decided to work collaboratively to investigate the changes that those years had brought to farming women. Beginning in 1996, we made six interviewing trips to various villages in Guanzhong and Shaannan, talking to women about farming, childbirth, marriage, childrearing, social roles, and the profound changes in women’s lives brought about during the collective era.

The rural women we interviewed were some of my best teachers, but the most astonishing aspect of this project was the chance to work with Xiaoxian. Her curiosity, enthusiasm, intelligence, and deep sense of care for the people whose lives she was investigating were extraordinary. For me, she became the model of an ethical engaged scholar-activist, devoted to getting to the root of problems that continue to make women’s lives difficult, but also delighted by the variety and creativity that she found among women in the villages. 

After a day of interviewing, we would take long walks in the evening and discuss what we were learning, and with almost every sentence she spoke I would learn something about a new way of looking at the world. She was a talented teacher. She also helped to make the lives of countless women better with her work on gender and development, her training programs on domestic violence, and the many research projects she organized both during and after her time at the Women’s Federation.

Gao Xiaoxian has left us too soon. But as I think about the many people she taught and influenced and inspired, I can truly say that she lived a life of great significance. I grieve her passing and I honor her presence in the world. May her memory be a blessing to all of us.