China retains feudal concept of males

Press, 23 October 1984, Page 14

China retains feudal concept of males

Peking The “feudal concept” of male superiority was still evident in China, the “Peking Review” has said in an official admission that equality remains elusive for Chinese women. Equal rights for women were stipulated in all four consititurions formulated since the Communists came to power in 1949, but obstacles remained, the weekly said. “In many ways, China is still an economically and culturally backward country, and the influence of the feudal concept that man is superior to woman, which dominated for several thousand years, has not been eliminated,” the article said. It listed discrimination in jobs and education, forced marriages, harassment and rape as prevalent problems for women in this nation of one billion people. “Women are still discriminated against in obtaining jobs and education and in work assignments. "In some places, particularly in the rural areas, parents still interfere in

their children’s freedom of marriage and exact money and gifts in connection with marriage. This has given many young people, particularly the women, much pain. Some even committed suicide.” Mao Tse-Tung, who controlled the country into the 19605, said “women hold up half the sky” and encouraged them, to work, even in heavy industry. Women now constituted 42 per cent of the urban work force, the weekly said. But few women held top jobs in Government or industry, while they were still generally expected to manage the housework and child-rearing. X)nly a quarter of the 20 million members of cadres in the Communist Party were women, and just 39 per ceht of high school pupils and 26 per cent pi college students. China had only three female Cabinet Ministers and one female politburo member — Deng Yingchao, aged 80, the widow of China’s first premier, Chou En-Lai.