Page 127 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

114 LOUISE EDWARDS
tasks were to serve as full-time cadres with the special function of paying attention to
‘special problems pertaining to women’ (Zhang Junzuo 1992:44). In fact, Zhang argues
that these cadres were primarily top-down organisers. They continued the pre-1949
tradition of serving to mobilize women for Party policy and initiative rather than acting as
a voice for women (Zhang Junzuo 1992:45). Equality between the sexes was seen as being
embedded within the process of socialist transformation of the society.
The low prestige associated with ‘women’s work’ and the corralling of women
politicians in women’s work continue to the present. In his study of women in the PRC
political arena, Stanley Rosen noted that ‘the majority of women holding political
positions are restricted to doing women’s work’ and ‘that there are few women not doing
such work who are important enough to merit appointment to the Central Committee’
(Rosen 1995:320). He reports a 1987 survey of women cadres in Hunan Province where
‘89.8 per cent felt that their efforts were not appreciated or understood; 54.7 per cent
said that women’s work is not taken seriously by the township leadership and is not
supported’ (Rosen 1995:339). Moreover, in the State Council’s Program for the Development
of Chinese Women (1995–2000), introduced above, the second main target for increasing
women’s involvement in politics specifically states that it is desirable to have women
appointed to leadership positions in areas where women workers and staff are concentrated (State
Council 1995) (my italics). This reiterates the notion of separate spheres of political work
for women. On this view, women leaders should most appropriately dominate in sectors
where women are more numerous than men.
In the 1995 Program’s successor document, the 2001 Program for the Development of
Chinese Women (2001–2010), the strategies identified for increasing women’s participation
in Administration and Management (xingzheng guanli) reinforce the view that women’s
political leadership is most appropriate in areas relating to women. Three of the five
strategies stress the importance of women leaders managing women’s issues—primarily
through the ACFW—and serving as conduits between the government and the broad
masses of women. The program makes the following recommendations that the
government

1 Make efforts to fully ensure the right of women to participate in administration,
management and decision-making. In state and social affairs, guide women to
participate, according to law, in the management of economic, cultural and social
affairs, and enhance the proportion of women and their participation in politics.
2 Improve the mechanism of equal competition, the management of civil servants, and
the mechanism of supervision and monitoring during the reform of the personnel
system; seek to create equal competition opportunities for women to participate in
decision-making and management; among the candidates who have the same
qualifications, give priority to women from in the selection of cadres.
3 Solicit opinions and suggestions from women deputies to people’s congresses and to
people’s political consultative conferences at all levels, from the broad masses of
women and from women’s organizations, in the formulation of principles and policies
concerning women’s fundamental interests.