Shaanxi urges equality awareness
By Ma Lie (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-08-13 03:01

Grassroots cadres need to be made increasingly aware of China's policy of sexual equality, a leading academic declared Thursday.

"These local leaders are the major force for the basic policy to be implemented properly at the grass-roots level, but they even did not know there is such a policy," said Xie Beiwen, professor of the Party College under the Shaanxi Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Xie mentioned this because some local leaders who are in charge of work on women's affairs at county-level governments pay little attention to this basic national policy.

A local leader surnamed Su, the deputy secretary of a county-level Party committee in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, said that he thought men and women should be equal, but he claimed not to know that it is a basic national policy.

With such an idea, Su paid almost no attention to a training class jointly organized by the Shaanxi Provincial Women's Federation, the Organizing Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee and the Shaanxi Provincial Personnel Bureau.

Su and other four local leaders did not attend the opening ceremony of the first county-level leaders' training class on the basic national policy of equality between the genders which was held on Wednesday in Xi'an, the provincial capital.

And the absence caused discussion in the class, according to Wang Xiao'an, deputy director of the Organizing Department of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee.

"There were 50 people in the training class, of which 38 male and 12 female county-level leaders, and at the first day of the class the 12 female members were present, but five male leaders were absent. This is not a simple thing," said Yang Yongmao, deputy secretary of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee, who chaired the opening ceremony of the training class.

Their absence showed their ignorance and neglect of this basic policy. Achieving equality between the genders should be an obligatory course for leaders at all levels, Yang said.

The year 2004 is the year for the publicity of the basic national policy of equality between the two genders, which is sponsored by the All-China Women's Federation. The Shaanxi provincial government has paid great attention to this and has taken measures to let its officials at all levels better understand the policy, he said.

"The crux of the implementation of the sexual equality policy lies in that the male leaders who occupy most positions at different government levels should pay close attention to the matter. Otherwise equality between the sexes is just empty talk," Wang said.

Professor Xie who is also an expert on the sexual equality issue, said sexual equality is an important symbol of social progress, and, by making it a basic policy, China aims to further raise women's social status and further encourages them to play a greater role in social development.

"The absence of the local leaders to the training class tells us that more effort should be made to further publicize the basic policy and to educate the masses on this issue," said Shang Suxia, chairwoman of the Xi'an Municipal Women's Federation.

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