“It’s not that China has gotten worse.... It’s that the rest of the world has gotten better.’’
Of course, that never stops agenda-pushing AmeriKa's MSM propagandists.
"Chinese women struggle for political foothold; Even as economy surges, clout lost in halls of power" by Didi Kirsten Tatlow, International Herald Tribune | June 27, 2010
BEIJING — She is also part of a tiny minority, “just a few percent,’’ of female village heads in China, according to Zou Xiaoqiao, a top official at the All-China Women’s Federation, the Communist Party-led women’s organization.
How strange that a tiny minority controls your politics, AmeriKa.
The daughter of a well-connected local family, Bai was elected with 450 of 461 votes. Perhaps that was because of her ambitious platform, which included a gift of 1,100 pounds of coal to every household, organized by her father, “so our elderly fellow villagers can get through the cold winter.’’
All politicians come from the same pool.
But Bai thinks that, if she were a man, things might be a bit easier.
Then again, they might not!
Earlier this month, she went to collect the annual land rent from villagers. In China, all land belongs to the government, and farmers rent the land they work. There were a handful of holdouts.
“I’m too soft,’’ she said. “It took me a week to get the money from just five people. A whole week.’’
“Some male village chiefs use violence, and it’s much quicker.’’ She sighed from time to time during the conversation.
So do I!!!!
“Of course, I don’t want to use violence. This is a harmonious society,’’ she added, using President Hu Jintao’s ideological catchphrase, “and I’d rather use peaceful methods.’’
Probably why you are not getting anywhere.
In other ways being a woman might be an advantage, Bai said. When pressed, she mentioned family planning, a cornerstone of national policy.
And what is her stand on abortion, anyway?
China’s booming economy has provided some people with opportunities to amass enormous wealth, and women are among them. Of the 1,000 richest Chinese, 102 are women, according to the country’s Hurun Rich List.
There are 130 known billionaires (in US dollars), and two of the top five are women. Yet other figures tell a different, important story: In the key area of political representation, women are falling behind....
PFFFFTTTT!!
Most tellingly, perhaps, since 1997, China has fallen to 53d place from 16th in the world in terms of female representation at its parliament, the National People’s Congress, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
“It’s not that China has gotten worse,’’ said Zou, director general of the international liaison department at the Women’s Federation. “It’s that the rest of the world has gotten better.’’
Figures bear this out. China has held steady at just more than 20 percent female parliamentary representation while such countries as Rwanda, Nepal, and Burundi have surged ahead. “What movement there has been in the last 10 or 20 years has been backwards,’’ said Feng Yuan, head of Shantou University’s Center for Women’s Studies.
I am ASTOUNDING by the OUTRIGHT MISREPRESENTATION and LYING!
The income gap with men is growing as the country becomes richer overall.
We were TALKING POLITICS, not MONEY!
WTF?!!
Oh, it is a NEW YORK TIMES PoS!
That EXPLAINS EVERYTHING!
By 2000, urban women’s incomes had dropped to 70 percent of men’s, more than 7 percentage points more than in 1990, according to the Second Chinese Women’s Social Status Sampling Survey, issued by the National Bureau of Statistics. Women make up around 65 percent of farmers, but earn just under 60 percent of male farmers, a drop of 19 percentage points compared with a decade earlier.
American women are paid less than men, too. Just wanted to toss that in there.
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