WOMAN SPECIAL... Letter From China

In China Women Hold Up Half the Sky

Historically, Chinese women were among the most oppressed in the world. They bore the brunt of child marriage, illiteracy and forced prostitution, among other evils. Mao Zedong changed it all. He famously said women hold up half the sky. He understood the importance of women in the growth of society.
Women in modern China couldn’t be more different than their counterparts of the past. Women were handed equal rights and their emancipation in all aspects of life — political, economic and social— was as rapid as it was epochal. It is thanks to this high regard for women that I don’t mind living in China, despite all the problems associated with language. China is safe for women. There are no perverts on the road. There is no eve teasing or bullying.
For me, that means I can go out at 11 in the night in search of a cake for a friend’s birthday without the company of a male or the comfort of friends. In Beijing, I am usually dropped back by a cab driver who happens to be a woman. I am no longer frightened of the night when I step out.
For these luxuries, I have to thank China’s laws and the authorities who implement them. Committing rape in China may lead to a jail term of up to 10 years. If the crime falls under the “serious circumstances” spelt out in the PRC Criminal Law, the culprit is handed death penalty. More often than not, death sentences are routinely handed out in rape cases. Such cases are publicised by the state media to act as a deterrent.
Besides the high conviction rates in crimes against women, there’s also surveillance. If you are groped or even eve-teased in a public transport in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai, all you need to do is call the police hotline. Before you know it, the cops are there at the next stop to arrest the guilty. The law is fast, simple, efficient and decisive.
But there is one detail that baffles me. Despite the extraordinary progress of women in China, the country’s politics has far fewer women than men. The numbers drop towards the top. In the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, only around 20% of the members are women. One rung above, in the CPC Central Committee, less than 10% of the 204 members are made up of women. And in the all-powerful Politburo, there were no women since the Cultural Revolution of 1969, when the wives of Mao and the then vice-chairman Lin Biao were members, until a new line-up was announced recently. In the new setup, only two women have made it.
(The writer is a blogger based in Beijing)
NEETHA ANN KURIAKOSE ET121207