The announcement was presented — in official news reports, on social media — as a major victory for Chinese women. The government was set to overhaul its law governing women’s rights for the first time in decades, to refine the definition of sexual harassment, affirm prohibitions on workplace discrimination and ban forms of emotional abuse.
Many women in China responded with “Hm, really?”
The proposed revisions are the latest in a series of conflicting messages by the Chinese government about the country’s growing feminist movement. On paper, the changes, which China’s legislature reviewed for the first time last month, would seem to be a triumph for activists who have long worked to push gender equality into the Chinese mainstream. The Women’s Rights and Interests Protection Law has been substantially revised only once, in 2005, since it was enacted nearly three decades ago.
The government has also recently emphasized its dedication to women’s employment rights, especially as it urges women to have more children amid a looming demographic crisis. The official newspaper of China’s Supreme Court explicitly tied the new three-child policy to the revision, which would codify prohibitions on employers asking women about their marital status or plans to have children.
At the same time, the authorities, ever leery of grass-roots organizing, have detained outspoken feminist activists and sought to control the country’s fledgling #MeToo movement. Sexual harassment lawsuits — already rare — have been dismissed. For making accusations, women have been fired or fined. Peng Shuai (a tennis star) claimed that a top Chinese leader pressured her into having sex. She was censored in minutes and many fear that she is being monitored.
Women have also been increasingly pushed out of the workplace and into traditional gender roles since China’s leader, Xi Jinping, assumed power. Some fear that the campaign to encourage childbirth might become coercive.
A recent article made it clear that there were contradictions. The Global Times, a tabloid owned by the Communist Party, published an article about Chinese feminist advocacy. While the article hailed the proposed legal revisions as a “landmark move,” it also denounced “spooky ‘feminism’” and derided the “so-called MeToo movement” as yet another Western cudgel against China.
Feminist activists warn against giving revisions too much weight.
Feng Yuan, the founder of Equality, a Beijing-based advocacy group, welcomed the move for its potential to impose “moral responsibility and pressure” on institutions. She noted that the draft doesn’t specify any punishments for the violations. Instead, it uses phrases such as “will be ordered to make corrections” or “may be criticized and educated.”
“This law, to be honest, is more of a gesture than a specific plan of operation,” Ms. Feng said.
The gesture is at most, extensive. The law as revised would provide the most comprehensive definition of sexual harassment to date. It would include actions such as sending unwelcome sexually explicit images or forcing someone into a relationship in return for benefits. It instructs schools to provide anti-harassment training for staff and students, as well as channels for complaints.
The law would also codify women’s right to ask for compensation for housework during divorce proceedings — following the first-of-its-kind decision by a Chinese divorce court last year to award a woman more than $7,700 for her labor during her marriage.
Some provisions could be more restrictive than those in other nations. In particular, the draft bans the use of “superstition” or other “emotional control” against women. Although the draft doesn’t provide any further information, state media reports claim that those bans would apply to pickup artistry. Pickup artistry — a practice that arrived in China from the United States — commonly refers to the use of manipulative techniques, including gaslighting, to demean women and lure them into having sex. It has been widely condemned by both government and social media users.
Other countries have varying bans on emotional coercion. It was banned by Britain in 2015, and the United States has no federal law against.
The truly innovative aspects of Chinese law are however limited. Many of the provisions in the Chinese law are already found in other laws and regulations, but have not been properly enforced. China’s labor law bans discrimination based on sex. The compensation-for-housework measure was included in a new civil code that went into effect last year.
While the law affirms women’s right to sue, its emphasis is largely on authorizing government officials to take top-down action against offenders, said Darius Longarino, a researcher at Yale Law School who studies China.
“The priority should be on bottom-up enforcement, where you empower individuals who have been harassed to use the law to protect their rights,” he said.
It is rare for victims who have been harassed to go to court. Mr. Longarino and other researchers found that 93 per cent of sexual harassment cases in China between 2018-2020 were brought by the alleged victim and not the harasser. They claimed defamation, wrongful termination and more. Women who have filed public harassment claims against men have been made to pay.
Nonlegal complaints can also have serious consequences. Alibaba, the ecommerce giant, fired an employee who had accused a superior to raping her. The company said that she had “spread falsehoods,” even though it had earlier fired the man she accused.
Even when harassers are brought to court, women face significant hurdles. Perhaps the most high-profile #MeToo case to go to court was brought by Zhou Xiaoxuan, a former intern at China’s state broadcaster, who asserted that Zhu Jun, a star anchor, had forcibly kissed and groped her. The case was delayed for many years. A court dismissed the claim in September and stated that she had not presented sufficient evidence. However, Ms. Zhou claimed that the judges had rejected her attempts to add more.
Ms. Zhou expressed doubts that the revised law would make much of a difference in an interview.
“The judicial environment won’t be changed by one or two legal amendments,” she said. “It will take every court, every judge really understanding the plight of those who suffer from sexual harassment. This is probably still a very long, hard road.”
Emotional control might be more difficult to prove, particularly in a country where mental health is still stigmatized. Guo Jing, an activist feminist from Wuhan, stated that psychologists are often not allowed to testify as expert witnesses in Chinese courts and that judges may be skeptical about claims of depression or other mental illnesses.
Yet, patriarchal attitudes remain deeply ingrained. After the draft revisions were published, several male bloggers with large followings on the social media platform Weibo denounced the provisions against degrading or harassing women online, saying they would give “radical” feminists too much power to silence their critics.
Some women remain optimistic about possible changes.
A woman from southern Guangdong Province requested to be identified only as Han because she was concerned about her safety. She claimed that her ex-husband had been a cruel and abusive husband for many years. She claimed that he continues to harass and threaten her even though she obtained a divorce last spring. The New York Times viewed her restraining order. It cited chat logs, recordings, and other evidence.
Ms. Han said that even with the restraining orders, police often told her that threats alone weren’t enough to make them take action. He had not physically harmed the woman, but they did not tell her. She said that if the law was changed, the police might recognize that she had the right to seek their assistance.
“If the law changes, I will be even more convinced that everything I’m doing right now is right,” she said.
Joy DongContributed research
Source: NY Times
