Page 135 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

122 LOUISE EDWARDS
last twenty-five years has not helped the cause of improving women’s position in the
political arena since pro-woman policies carry some stigma from being associated with
this ‘ten-year period of chaos’. The rates of participation of women, as is clear from the
tables, peaked at every level during the Cultural Revolution—many of these women
would have been drawn from the worker and peasant classes.
Current debates about the ‘quality’ of the contribution of women politicians suggest
the return of the intellectual class to political power within the CCP leadership. Higher
levels of education it is presumed will lead to more sophisticated and a higher quality of
political participation. One can also presume that rural women will become increasingly
disenfranchised by this shift towards intellectual-politicians.
The reform period has therefore resulted in a number of changes to women’s
employment in politics. Most significantly, there has been a decline in women’s leadership
in the main font of political power—the CCP higher echelons—whereby women
now only represent 2.5 per cent of Central Committee members in 2002, down from
5.7 per cent in 1987. This is tempered by the addition of a female member to the
Politburo in 2002, the first woman to be elected to this top body since 1987. In the state
structure, it appears that women are contained at around the 20 per cent mark up to the
NPC level and remain poorly represented in the select standing committees drawn from
the NPC. The question of quality and quantity that has emerged over the 1990s appears to
empower urban women intellectuals and marginalize women rural dwellers—a factor
that requires considerable attention given that most of China’s women live outside the
major cities.

Conclusion
The concept of ‘women’s work’ as the site for ‘legitimate political work for women’ in
China has both benefited and hindered the progress of women’s political engagement. The
identification of ‘women’ as a discrete constituency ensured that women have been
represented at higher levels than in most other nations around the world and for a longer
period of time. However, the compartmentalization of women within the political
structure appears to limit women’s participation in politics beyond those questions
directly relating to women. Moreover, it also appears to limit women’s progress to the
higher levels of government, especially in the CCP structure where real political power
rests. China’s aspiring women politicians are not only constrained by the predominance of
CCP power, but also by the subordinate, domesticated relationship that women’s
political work has performed within the CCP and state structures for nearly eight
decades. For a new development in women’s political work to emerge, further political
liberalization must occur—liberalization that permits the emergence of an independent,
anti-patriarchal feminist political voice.