Room for improvement

Traditional Chinese values held that women should obey the wills of their sons, husband and father. But over the years, women's rights and status have been remarkably boosted. They now work in almost all the fields that men do and are often even better: they drove formidable cranes at the construction of the Three Gorges dam, they were among the top designers of the Chang'e lunar probe, and some women bosses made their way into the list of China's most wealthy. Expectations have been high that China could send women into space in the future.

Despite the festive atmosphere for the population that hold up half the sky, women's rights and status remain to be improved.

A touch of irony lies in "Sanba", short for March 8th in Chinese, as it is not associated with any respect and romanticism, but has the meaning of being garrulous, fussy and not agreeable, and is by no means a favored phrase when used about a woman. The only positive connotation may be found in the "National Sanba Red-flag Bearer", an annual award given to model women by the All China Women's Federation.

The entrenched belief that favors boys over girls has been blamed for a gender imbalance of more than 118 boys to every 100 girls across the country. At the ongoing annual session of the National People's Congress, women made up 21.33 percent of the about 3,000 deputies, but the figure only grew by a mere one percent over the last year.

"In some villages, girls born to poor families are still denied education opportunities, and married women had to go for sterilization surgery behind their husbands' backs because they don't want to have any more babies as the husbands desire," said Wu Haiying, head of the population and family planning commission in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

In the cities, women face the challenges of job discrimination and domestic violence, she added.

Wu said she hoped more women could have their lives bettered through education and determination to defend their rights.

"We should continue to break the shackles of biased beliefs, and try to have more say and take up more responsibility," she added.

(Xinhua News Agency March 7, 2008)