The rise of all-female spaces in China, between the need for security and sisterhood
In China, the increase in women's purchasing power is fueling a booming retail sector. Single-sex spaces are among the services that are growing. From restaurants to gyms to cinemas, these places allow customers to regain a sense of security and fully assert their femininity, explains this article published on the Weixin platform.
[This article can be found in our special issue Women, the fight continues, on sale since May 28 at your newsagent and on our website .]
“What if, on this earth, there were only women left…” “What’s it like to work in an all-female environment?” “Is a world made up of only women completely crazy?” These questions are currently being asked repeatedly on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese platform [often compared to Instagram] where over 70% of members are women. And for good reason: by early 2025, over 4.7 million posts were recorded under the hashtag #QuanNü, a phrase that refers to an “all-female world.” A staggering number of posts are also dedicated to “women-only spaces.”
This is a sign of a new consumer trend in China: unlike traditional social spaces, which are supposed to accommodate the shared expectations of both sexes, more and more places are focusing on interests that are a priori linked to the female sex. This service model responds, more specifically, to the demand of many women to “feel more secure, and [to] be more considered and heard as such.”
How to explain the emergence of
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