In a moment between two influential female leaders, Hilary Clinton and Liu Yandong shake hands in a meeting in May 2010.
No woman has ever held a
post in the elite nine-member Standing Committee of the Politburo that
governs China. Thousands of senior Chinese officials gathered in Beijing
this week and at the end of the conference next week, a new set of leaders will be unveiled.
Some observers consider
Liu Yandong a possible contender for the exclusive ruling committee. Liu
is the lone female member of the Politburo, a 24-member body atop the
Chinese Communist Party. If promoted to the standing committee, Liu
would make a crack in the political glass ceiling.
Even with the historic
prospect of a woman joining the most powerful Chinese political entity,
some are skeptical of the overall progress for Chinese women in power.
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"I think women's
participation in politics in China remains largely symbolic due to
complicated social, cultural, and political factors," said Xi Chen,
assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas-Pan
American.
Liu
is the daughter of Liu Ruilong, the former vice minister of
agriculture. She is also said to have strong family ties with former
Chinese President Jiang Zemin as well as President Hu Jintao. She is
part of the "princeling class," the sons or daughters of revolutionary
veterans who now number among the nation's elite.
"If Liu Yandong is
appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee, it would be a milestone
for female political representation in China and an indication that the
Chinese government is ready to place a woman in a position of genuine
power," said Leta Hong Fincher, doctoral candidate at Tsinghua
University, who examines gender issues in China. "But that move alone
would not necessarily lead to an improvement in the overall status of
women."
If
chosen for the committee, Liu will most likely take the position of the
"propaganda tsar," according to Hoover Institution, which is based at
Stanford University. The group described Liu as "liberal minded."
Chinese data show that
women lag in political representation. Only 2.2% of working women were
in charge of the state offices, party organizations and other
enterprises or institutions, according to the Third 's Social Status, a national survey released last year.
During the presentation
of these survey results, officials from the All-China Women's
Federation, a women's advancement organization affiliated with the
government, was asked why the Chinese leadership lacked women.
Song Xiuyan, the
vice-chairman of the federation said the Communist Party of China and
the government places "great importance to empower women's issues, which
our Constitution has clearly put forward the basic principle of 'gender
equality.'"
The Women's Studies
Institute of China, which is sponsored by the All-China Women's
Federation, declined multiple requests for comment.
"The
relatively small number of female politicians in China is a topic
criticized by Western media," reported Xinhua, the state-run news agency
in March.
The news agency stated:
"However, the ratio of female national lawmakers stands at 22%, compared
with only 17% in the United States."
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China ranks 63rd in the world by percentage of women serving in a legislative house, compared with U.S. at 80th, according to July data compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union, an international organization of parliaments.
That ranking may be
out-of-date after the U.S. elections this week. Female candidates made
huge gains and stand to occupy a record 20 seats out of the 100 in the U.S. Senate.
Women in China have made
important strides in recent years. Chinese women receive an average of
8.8 years of education compared with 2.7 years in 2000, according to the
national survey.
And studies find that women are outperforming men in universities, said Fincher of Tsinghua University.
But their education does not translate to economic and political power.
"You see that in the
workplace, there's a lot of systemic gender discrimination in the
workplace, there's discrimination in hiring and promotion," Fincher
said. "There has also been a lot of evidence that the gender income gap
has widened, especially in the very recent years."
Statistically, women's
average annual income was 67.3 % of men's in urban areas and 56% in
rural areas which reflected a decrease compared with the wage gap in
1990, according to the 2010 national survey.
There are exceptions as some women
have achieved the pinnacle of financial success. In the Huron Report's
list of the world's top female billionaires, 18 out of 28 came from
China.
"Of course China is the
most populous country in the world," Fincher said. "Of course you're
going to have individual women who are incredibly successful. That
doesn't say anything about the status of the vast majority of women."
For Chinese workers, gender-targeted job ads stipulate the age, height and desired physical attributes of female applicants, according to studies on the topic.
And the recent survey
results suggest that more people believe that Chinese women should focus
on family, rather than getting involved in public life or careers.
In the national survey,
62% of men and 55% of women agreed with this statement: "Men should
mainly focus on career and women should be family oriented."
The number of people who
agreed with that statement increased by 7.7% and 4.4% for men and
women, respectively, in the past 12 years compared with their views in
2000 -- signaling "a resurgence of traditional beliefs about gender
roles," Fincher said.
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