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100th Chinese Communist Party: Where are the women? | Political News

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One hundred years after the secret establishment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the Shanghai ferry, China is a very different country from the one the party sought to address in 1921.

People are richer, have fewer children and are more likely to get a job than their parents think.

But in the midst of the turmoil, one thing did not change.

Men continue to dominate political power.

No women were present that day in Shanghai and women’s rights were not explicitly mentioned, although they were on the air as part of China’s “New Culture Movement” and the May 4, 1919 demonstrations that would inspire CCP leaders.

At the most recent CCP National Congress in 2017 – the event occurs every five years – women were only 83 of the top 938 delegates, or at least 10%, according to China Data Lab, a University of California San Diego employee.

Many women are found in the Provincial Standing Committee, becoming increasingly deprived of any power until they reach the Deputy Premier Sun Chunlan, the only woman among the 25-Politburo men.

There is not a single woman in the most intimate party in the party, seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee.

There is no youth party

The absence of women is one of the strongest parts of the party and the rise in society. Women nowadays make up about a quarter of the members, and when they are in them they are often promoted to less competitive positions than their male counterparts.

Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chunlan is the only woman among 25-Politburo men and a woman who has risen to prominence in the CCP. [File: Wu Hong/EPA]

In other words, he loses from the beginning.

“There can be bias in recruiting party members from the outset and there is a tendency to discriminate against men by placing men and women in high positions,” said Victor Shih, an associate professor at UCSD law school.

“Police, online surveillance, the military are very important and they tend to be very strong men. Women are often trained, United Front (false) jobs, development principles. You can get to a high level in all kinds of races but you don’t see running to the top,” he said.

Rising levels requires party members to meet major requirements in order to qualify for senior positions. Many Chinese leaders also served as ambassadors or party secretary in the state or metropolitan area, but there are only a handful of women in those areas and, as a result, few women want to run for office.

By the time they are ready for a higher position, most women are already retired – only 55 years old for Chinese women.

“It’s not like the US, where 45-year-old Barack Obama or JFK can stand,” said Richard McGregor, author of The Party: The Secret World of Chinese Communist Rule. “You get on your scales very well, and you retire very well. It is very important to be a member of the Politburo before the age of 55, then it means that even if you have an impressive female profile, it is difficult to fix. ”

Unlimited notes

While 10% of regional, city and district administrators’ responsibilities should be reserved for women, segregation was rarely achieved due to overcrowding, says Valarie Tan, a researcher at the Mercator Institute for China Study in Germany.

In addition to the organisation’s challenges, Tan says women are often subjected to unspecified pressures and pressures from the government to adhere to the norms under the leadership of President Xi Jinping as China faces birth defects.

“Homosexuality or superstition exists today. I would say especially under Xi Jinping, the hope is that mothers eventually have to get married, have to take care of children, grow old and take care of their grandchildren, “Tan said.

Researchers say Chinese women face discrimination and continue to support cultural barriers that prevent them from moving forward in the ruling party [Noel Celis/AFP]

Party members make up 37.5% of rural and neighborhood committees but that number is falling into leadership positions, according to ChinaFile, the online journal Center on US-China Relations in Asia Society.

Women hold 9.33% of government positions as head of state or party secretary, falling to 5.29% in cities and 3.23% in government.

“As a woman, you don’t have the money to do other things outside the house,” Tan said. “In the interests of the people, those in power do not want women to take over the leadership because this could jeopardize their responsibilities and slavery.”

Similar to the name

Despite the party’s term “reformist”, which in history includes stories of female working women, feminism has always been subject to the organisation’s political and economic goals, Linda Jaivin, author of The Shortest History of China.

“From the very beginning, the party was promoting the idea that women are strong and should be given more rights so that they, too, as men, can be part of the work of communism,” Jaivin said.

Indeed, one of the so-called founders of the People’s Republic of China, Chairman Mao Zedong – “Women carry half of the sky” – was not calling for women’s rights but for starting a co-operative farm that in 1953 doubled its productivity by giving women “workplaces”. “similar to men.

While Chinese women have been given the “role model” among them since the beginning of the Mao era, under age-old practices including gender-based violence and subsequently the masculinity of a boy under the control of one child continues. China today has 34.9 million men more than women, according to their most recent census report.

As China pushed for market change in the 1980s and opened up its economy, practices that were supposed to be abolished including women, or the “culture of masters”, and prostitution returned.

Mao Zedong (right) with those who made a radical change at the end of the long voyage in 1938. His statement that ‘women carry half up’ should lead to economic participation in the communist cause. [File: AP Photo]

Today, discussions about feminism and abuse are read on the internet while the party has also made it harder for divorce – with a new “winter” even in the face of domestic violence. Other problems, such as unpaid payments, persist.

Jaivin said this was because party men did not want to relinquish power and that was why they adhered to the principles to remain the same.

“The CCP is happy to talk about strong, successful women who support this country and the party and the state media can bring out female delegates to the public meeting, but only a handful of women have a major role and no one has ever been on the ruling party, the Standing Committee of Politburo. on a project that puts women back on track where some of China’s most courageous women would want to negotiate, “said Jaivin. “Basically, what happens to those who have the power of the ancestors did not want to share power.”

Representatives of the districts

Even so, the problems faced by Chinese women are not uncommon in East Asia. Arch-nemesis Japan has been called a “democracy without women,” while men are still more numerous than political women. South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, though all three had female leaders.

In the cultural sphere, gender inequality continues to plague the region, says Lynette Ong, an associate professor at the University of Toronto at the department of Political Science and Asia Institute. Among other things, Chinese women in urban areas are still better off than their neighbors in South Korea and Japan, where women remain under pressure to resign after childbirth, dismissal, and other political activities.

“I would say that everything is easier – when women do not have the same opportunities as men in China, they are better than the PRC’s first. And, compared to the role of women in other Confucian groups, such as Japan, South Korea, Chinese women, especially those they live in big cities, they undoubtedly have a good role to play, especially since they were ‘released’ by Chairman Mao, “Ong said.

Freed, or not, Chinese women still have a long way to go to reach political half.



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