Page 17 - Chinese Woman Living and Working

4 ANNE E.MCLAREN
of a small group of women in managerial positions, including directors or deputy
managers in the hospitality trade, international business and human resources. A quarter of
her sample were accountants or business managers and another quarter were professional
workers in marketing and pharmaceuticals. The small numbers involved (twenty) mean
that this is a preliminary survey, but nonetheless it offers valuable insights into the self-
images of women in positions of authority.
Wylie questioned the women about their experience of working in positions of
authority, including their attitude towards networking (guanxi). Her findings extend the
earlier work of Mayfair Yang (1994), who distinguished between women’s use of guanxi
within an organisation and men’s use of guanxi to establish relations between organisations.
Intra-relational networking is encapsulated in the term youhao (warmth and friendliness),
the term used by women in the survey group to describe the relations they sought to
cultivate with colleagues in their own workplace. A youhao relationship was not seen as
incompatible with an authoritative role, on the contrary, for women in leadership roles,
‘friendly’ relations tended to enhance authority Some of the survey group spoke frankly of
the underside of the youhao ethos, that of flattering one’s superiors (haohua ‘good talk’).
Women who were recipients of haohua from subordinates could find it distasteful and
insincere. A minority found the demands of guanxi somewhat distasteful. For example,
one woman working in an American joint-venture automotive company spoke of her
feelings of discomfort at the external networking required in her job. Women, even those
in senior roles, agreed that it was important to use guanxi and exercise authority in a ‘non-
threatening’ way.
Women in the survey group aspired to be a ‘modern woman’. For most, this primarily
meant being independent in decision-making at work and enjoying economic
independence in their life-styles. Adaptability, confidence and resourcefulness were also
qualities mentioned frequently Traditional ‘feminine’ qualities such as proper
deportment, good appearance, empathy with colleagues and a non-threatening manner
were also perceived to be important. For these women, work in the private sector was
associated with high pay, occupational challenge, career flexibility and relative freedom of
choice. Negatives of work in the private sector were said to be the reduced job stability,
work pressure and longer working hours.
Most women were regular users of the Internet, although one-third claimed they had
never used the Internet. This is a higher level of use than suggested by statistics on
Internet use in China generally. Wylie also examines a number of websites designed
specifically for the Chinese woman, including women entrepreneurs. The current scope of
the influence of these websites is unknown, but they offer enormous potential to
construct women’s domains, allow for women’s networking, and promote new fashions
and dialogue between a transnational community of Chinese-speaking women from
China, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
For uneducated rural women, entry into urban domestic service has opened up new
opportunities. Wanning Sun, an anthropologist, explores the re-emergence of the maid in
affluent households in Beijing. Maids were a common feature of wealthier households in
twentieth-century China, before the founding of the People’s Republic. During the
decades of the Maoist era (1949–76) only senior party cadres were able to retain maids.