Zheng Yuxiu

Zheng Yuxiu, also known as Soumay Tcheng, who lived from March 20, 1891, to December 16, 1959, was a Chinese lawyer, judge, and legislator regarded as the first female judge in modern Chinese history. Born in Xin an County, Guangdong, she took part in Sun Yat-sen revolutionary movement in 1911 and served as the sole female Chinese delegate to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, where she is remembered for using a rosebush branch resembling a gun to stop China chief delegate from signing the Treaty of Versailles, making China the only Allied nation to refuse the treaty. She earned a doctorate in law from the Faculty of Law of Paris in 1925, practiced law in Shanghai French Concession, led the University of Shanghai law school from 1931 to 1937, and served in the Legislative Yuan, where she helped draft the Republic of China Civil Code and advocated successfully for women rights to choose their own marriage partners and to divorce. She died in Los Angeles in 1959.