By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-03-06 07:25

I have found it more and more difficult to write on issues about gender equality, even as March 8, International Women's Day, is approaching and when many of my colleagues believe it is only natural that I should write something.

Yes, there is a lot to write about. For women's political participation, the media has celebrated the fact that women deputies to the new 11th National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, now account for 21.33 percent, an increase of 1.09 percentage points over the 10th NPC. The new national committee of China's top political consultative institution, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, has also seen an increase, by 1 percentage point, of women members.

As both the NPC and CPPCC are in session this week, we are hearing women NPC deputies and CPPCC members voice their views and suggestions on a host of issues, most of them concerning our country's social and economic development as a whole.

Zhu Xueqin, from Guangdong and one of the much-publicized three migrant-worker deputies, has discussed the livelihood of migrant workers when they retire.

Liu Ruilian, a village Party secretary from Anhui province, has raised the problem of upgrading and maintaining irrigation systems. The backwardness of irrigation systems is now impeding agriculture development and endangering the country's food safety.

Chen Yanping, deputy chief justice of a rural district court in Jiangsu, has expressed her concern over the shortage of judicial staff in courts in farming areas. She said her court, with only three judges, a legal aid and a secretary, serves a population of 136,000 and handles about 600 civil cases a year. Because of the tremendous workload, young people fresh from colleges and universities with law degrees are not willing to work there.

Chen Jingyi, a headmistress of a kindergarten from Jiangsu province, has talked about instituting a pilot program for compulsory pre-school education in economically more developed areas. She believes making pre-school education free for all toddlers is a way for all people/families to share the benefits of economic development.

I applaud their ideas and suggestions, but I feel it is more important for them to raise issues concerning women and gender equality.

These issues cannot be overlooked, even though they have been raised time and again, which is exactly why I am a little reluctant to bring up the subject again.

But, despite the cliches that Chinese women have made tremendous strides in attaining equality and playing a bigger role in the political and social spheres, we are facing a lot of problems that today's more complicated economic and social set-up has presented us.

For instance, Xu Tao, professor of Jilin University and a CPPCC member, has called for public attention to the discrimination women college graduates encounter when hunting for jobs. She said that most employers are reluctant to hire women, complaining that women are in no way as energetic as their male colleagues when they get married. Xu said such job discrimination will result in a vicious cycle and push women graduates into a "special new group of the unemployed".

While she is concerned about educated women, the women migrant workers, most of whom work part-time and under poor conditions, also need the safety nets that will help them with their medical bills, their children's education, and welfare when they get old.

We must not forget that women account for nearly half of the population. A well-off society will have to take their political, social rights, and welfare into account.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/06/2008 page9)