Abstract: In media, the year of 2012 has been named as the “the First Year of Chinese Feminist Activism”. Through closely examining the widely influential genderrelated media events such as “occupying men’s washroom”,“the blooded brides”,“antisexual harassment in Shanghai Metro”, and “bareheaded sisters protesting against gender discrimination in college admission”, this paper documents and analyzes the rise and development of the “street behavioral art” as a new contentious action repertoire in current Chinese society. Contrast to the flourishing literature on contentious politics in recent years, there is a visible gap in the study of social movement repertoires in China. In order to fill in the gap, the current research used indepth interviews and document analysis to collect data from the individuals and organizations that had been participating in today’s Chinese feminist activities. There were three major research questions: (1) How had the street behavioral art evolved into a novel contentious repertoire through the interactions between social movements and the state? (2) How did the three key components of this repertoire each contribute to the success of contentious actions respectively? (3) How should we evaluate the impact of the street behavioral art as a contentious repertoire? In order to answer these questions, the article first reviews the current theoretical perspectives and related studies in this field, and then gives a brief presentation of the background of the political contention in contemporary China for the emergence of the street behavioral art. Using the empirical data from street activism for gender equality, the paper then focuses on analyzing the three key components of this contentious repertoire—street, behavior, and art—by looking at how they each had contributed to the success of this contentious action repertoire, respectively. The rise of the street behavioral art has to be placed in the context where the globalization of social movements (particularly, the flow of social movement discourses and tactics) interact with the reality of contemporary Chinese society (opportunities and constraints) for an examination. As social movements have to face many institutional constraints, activists have to be quite creative in order to make their voices heard and their concerns understood by both the authorities and the public. The street behavioral art proves to be an effective strategy to reach that goal. Its success can be attributed to the combination of public location, artistic expression and organized actions. “Art” serves the objective of going onto the street;“street” is to expand the influences and effects of the “behavior/action”. In the conclusion, the author discusses the impacts of the street behavioral art for pushing social movement’s agenda in terms of policy advocacy, participation mobilization and cultural change.

Key words: street, behavioral art, gender rights, repertoire of contentious actions