Quote by Qiu Jin: “A heroic spirit does not ask whether you are man or woman.”

Courage, sacrifice, and commitment to justice are not gendered virtues — they are human ones. Qiu Jin wrote this to claim the full range of political and moral agency for women at a time when Chinese society systematically denied it to them.

Qiu Jin returned from Japan in 1906 to participate in revolutionary organizing against the Qing dynasty. She edited a feminist journal and ran a school for women while secretly coordinating an armed uprising. When the plot was discovered, she was arrested and beheaded in 1907, becoming an instantly iconic martyr of both feminist and nationalist movements in China.

Chinese feminist, revolutionary, and poet of the late Qing dynasty who was executed in 1907 for her role in plotting an anti-Qing uprising. She dressed in men's clothing, studied in Japan, and joined secret revolutionary societies, writing poetry that intertwined women's liberation with Chinese nationalist struggle. She is considered one of China's first feminist martyrs and a founding figure of modern Chinese feminism.