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The other great wall

BY EDWARD A. GARGAN | ASIA CORRESPONDENT

BEIJING - First in a series

History has not been kind to the women of China.

Confucius, China's most revered philosopher sage, mentions women only once in the Analects, a compendium of his adages and wisdom, and then only in passing. Only one woman ever ascended the throne as emperor, Wu Zetian, who ruled for 15 years at the end of the 7th century

In the 20th century, the heroes of war and revolution were all men. In 1976, after the death of Mao Zedong, his wife, Jiang Qing, rose momentarily to the pinnacle of power, only to be deposed, arrested and imprisoned for her brutality.

Since then, all that has changed in China's leadership are the faces and a sartorial shift from high-collared Mao suits to black or dark gray western ones with white shirts and solid ties. At the Communist Party's conclave last year, nine identically attired men strode before television cameras as the country's new leadership.

Women, simply put, are not a central force in China's public life, nor have women emerged at the apex of the country's blossoming private sector or civil society.

Social marginalization

"Traditionally, Chinese women were treated as assistants to families," said Cai Wenmen, a retired professor of women's studies at Peking University, "This concept has dominated Chinese society for several thousand years."

What data can be unearthed suggest significant obstacles for women's advancement and paint a picture of substantial social marginalization.

There are no women airline pilots in China.

No women have trained as astronauts.

Of China's top 50 universities, none is headed by a woman.

Of China's 100 richest people, one is a woman, Chen Lihua, a Hong Kong real estate tycoon with a net worth of $580 million.

Only one of China's 100 largest companies has a woman chief executive, president or chairman of the board. The chairman of Baoshan Steel, the country's fifth largest enterprise, is 60-year-old Xie Qihua.

The illiteracy rate for women, at 16.92 percent, is nearly three times that of men.

Chinese women have the highest suicide rate in the world and account for 55.8 percent of the world's suicides by women.

Second-class citizens

Because of a combination of traditional prejudices, superstitions and practices, China's women are in many respects second-class citizens. Female fetuses are aborted routinely in the hope that a male will follow and girls in the countryside are often deprived of education in favor of their brothers. Violence against women in China is a routinized feature of rural life and prevalent in urban areas. Companies routinely discriminate against women in hiring. "It is," said Yeh Wen-hsin, a professor of modern Chinese history at the University of California, Berkeley, "the Chinese Communist Party line that its version of revolution has liberated Chinese women from feudal authority and brought them social equality."

However, Yeh points out, the official picture contrasts sharply to reality. "Nearly one-third of women born in the 1950s and '60s are illiterate and have been trapped in stagnant conditions for decades," Yeh said. These women are predominately rural, and for them "domestic violence and abusive cadres [local officials] seem to be the norm rather than the exception."

Chinese politics: men only