According to the author, the subordination of Chinese women continued under different models of sex equality in China in the twentieth century. In Reconceiving Women's Equality in China Lijun Yuan discusses and assesses four models of women's equality. After exposing the common feature of their failure to reach the social ideal of women's equality, the author proposes a more democratic conception of women's equality that will allow ideals to continue changing as material circumstances change in different stages of social development.