Although the status of women in China's major cities has improved,
their rural counterparts continue to find themselves handicapped by
serious gender inequalities.
At
a forum of journalists from Beijing last Saturday, which included
some 30 rural women from farm families in Cangxian County, Hebei
Province, the participants were asked to recall the happiest
and most unhappy occasions in their lives.
Their unhappy recollections included: parental requests to drop out
of primary or middle school to help with household chores and
farming so that their brothers could continue in school; demands
that they have children; and protests from superiors over the fact
that they were women on the first day they started a new job.
In
contrast, the women's happy occasions invariably involved being
able to continue their education, success in their businesses,
winning the competition for an office post and learning to drive as
the men in their villages do.
Although the women's stories were straightforward and believable,
the true breeding ground for their unhappiness is the traditional
stereotypical division of social roles between women and men.
That is, a woman's place is at home - and her only social role is
to give birth to a son in order to help carry on their family
line.
By
comparison, happiness has resulted from their efforts to change the
old stereotype about women and work towards gender equality.
According to Lu Jingfang, chairwoman of the Cangxian Women's
Federation, the participants were creative and courageous women
whose accomplishments have made them role models for women
throughout the county.
But their accomplishments were achieved against all odds.
According to Xu Jinfeng, a staff member with the Cangxian County
Women's Federation, local women seeking respect and equal
opportunities with men should begin by taking a seat at the family
dinner table along with men folks.
According to local traditions, wives are required to remain in the
kitchen to cook and eat when guests come, even when the guests are
their friends who have come to see them.
"We women don't know how much news, information and other
brainstorming ideas we've missed while staying in the kitchen,"
said Xu, who makes sure to sit at the table during family
banquets.
Women also struggle with some new concepts that actually reinforce
the old bias against women.
One is the popular cliche that women are inferior to men because
the overall quality of their education and lifestyles is low, which
is even expressed by some staff members working with women's
federations at different levels.
The rural women who participated in the forum carefully examined
the cliche and discovered that, from their own experiences, many
women have been handicapped by unequal education and few job
opportunities simply because of their gender.
As
women, they have to shoulder responsibilities both at home and on
the job, which often restricts their ability to improve themselves
through further training or education.
"Only women leave in the middle of technical training classes
because they said they had to cook lunch for their children,
husbands and in-laws," said Xu Jinfeng.
Moreover, society has adopted double standards to appraise the
qualities of women and men.
For example, when it comes to social drinking, male officials who
get drunk at the banquet table are praised for their honesty and
integrity. But women officials who drink too much are criticized
for their lack of self discipline.
Society also comes up short in the area of gender equality.
"We often have difficulty finding competent women for county-level
administrative jobs," said Liu Qiang, one of the top
administrator's in Cangxian County.
"The problem is that there have not been enough efforts to assign
women to trying jobs in order to tap their potential," he
added.
According to Lu Jingfang, this bit of irony circulates among many
in the province: A talents' bank is located in the women's
federation; But the key is stored in the bureau of personnel
organization; When the time to open the bank comes at last, the
green sprouts of talents have already shriveled.
Given equal opportunities, women have proven just as competent as
men, she said.
"I've discovered that a lot of women in my village are more
open-minded and have better aptitudes to learn new things than
men," said Zhang Luhai, the Wulaihe Village head.
In
Cangxian County, it has been the 360,000 village women who have
maintained and expanded the country's largest production base for
jujubes, a type of date, and have contributed to the local
production of poultry and meat products, since most of their men
folk have gone to work away from home at construction sites and
industrial firms in towns and cities.
Despite the unhappy occasions in the past, the rural women have
decided to let bygones be bygones. They know that ultimately it is
only their own confidence, ingenuity and industriousness that will
contribute to their happiness and prosperity, as well as their
equality with men.
As
the local saying goes, "The men folks are heaven in a household but
the women are the pillars that uphold the heaven."
(China
Daily February 1, 2002)