China | Women’s place is in the home, says the Communist Party

At the largest political gathering of women in China, it was mainly a man who was seen and heard.

Xi Jinping, the country’s leader, sat center stage at the opening of the National Women’s Congress. A close-up of him made the front page of the Chinese Communist Party newspaper the next day. From a large round table, Mr. Xi lectured delegates during the closing session of the Congress at the end of October.

“We should actively encourage a new type of marriage and childbearing culture,” he said in a speech, adding that it was the role of Party officials to influence young people’s views on “the love and marriage, fertility and family.”

The National Women’s Congress, held every five years, has long been an opportunity for the ruling Communist Party to demonstrate its commitment to women. This gesture, essentially symbolic, has taken on more importance than ever this year, because it is the first time in 20 years that there are no women in the executive body of the Party responsible for defining policies.

What is remarkable is how officials downplayed the importance of gender equality. Instead, they sought to use the gathering to promote Xi’s goal for Chinese women: to marry and have children. In the past, officials have discussed the role of women at home and in the workforce. But in this year’s speech, Mr. Xi made no mention of women in the workplace.

The Party desperately needs women to have more babies. China is plunged into a demographic crisis due to the collapse of its birth rate, which is causing its population to decline for the first time since the 1960s. The authorities are working to reverse this trend, which is irreversible according to experts, by attempting a series of initiatives, such as cash distributions and tax advantages, in order to encourage the birth rate.

“Women were alarmed by this trend”

Faced with the demographic crisis, the slowing economy and what it sees as a stubborn rise in feminism, the Party has chosen to send women home, asking them to raise children and support themselves. caring for elderly people. Xi said this work is essential to “China’s path of modernization.”

But for some, his vision looks more like a worrying regression.

“Women in China have been alarmed by this trend and have fought back over the years,” said Yaqiu Wang, research director for Hong Kong, China and Taiwan at Freedom House, a Washington-based nonprofit. .

The Party has not addressed many concerns, viewing some issues raised by women as a direct challenge to its leadership. Discussions about sexual harassment, gender-based violence and discrimination are silenced on social media. Support for victims is often extinguished. Outspoken feminists and women’s rights advocates have been imprisoned, and the #metoo movement, which briefly flourished in 2018, has been driven underground.

Renaissance of “traditional” values

The language used by senior officials at the National Women’s Congress in Beijing was another insight into how the Party views the role of women. Xi has put forward a hard-line agenda to advance his vision of a stronger China, which includes a revival of what he considers traditional values.

At the congress, he encouraged female leaders to “tell good stories about family traditions and guide women to play their unique role in perpetuating the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation.”

Departing from a two-decade-old tradition, Mr. Xi’s deputy, Ding Xuexiang, did not utter, in his opening speech to the congress, a classic phrase, that equality between men and women is a fundamental national policy.

But it is not at the Women’s Congress that the battle for their rights is being fought. Organized by the All-China Women’s Federation, a group that promotes Party policies and is funded by the Party, the congress tends to represent the political status quo.

Therefore, much of this year’s discussions have focused on encouraging Party leaders to promote traditional family values. This language reveals the calculation that officials have made: by extolling the virtues of China’s past, they want to encourage women to focus on family. They hope to improve the demographics.

The government under pressure

Sending women home – and out of the workforce – is also practical at a time when China faces its biggest economic challenge in 40 years and the government is under pressure to improve a severely under- strain welfare system. -developed and unable to support a rapidly aging population.

“Women have always been seen as an instrument of the state in one way or another,” said Minglu Chen, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney who studies gender and politics. in China. “But today we have to think about the political economy of China.”

“It is in the Party’s interest to emphasize the return of women to the home, where they can care for children and the elderly. »

The trend toward fewer marriages and births, however, has been taking shape for years, and Xi is pushing women to play a role they have long rejected. In China’s big cities, many young, educated women have relished their financial independence and are wary of marriage because of the pressure on them to have children and give up everything.

Young adults are ambivalent about getting married and settling down, and they worry about the future as the economy collapses and unemployment soars. China is also one of the most expensive countries to raise a child in the world.

Despite all of Xi’s calls for women to mobilize for the birth rate, it is unlikely that the Party’s efforts will succeed in raising the birth rate enough to reverse the country’s population decline. Unless he is prepared to use more punitive measures to disadvantage or marginalize women who choose not to have children.

Although unlikely, Fubing Su, a political science professor at Vassar College, said it is not completely out of the question. During the one-child policy, the Party used fines, forced abortions and sterilizations to try to slow population growth for decades, until it ended the restrictions in 2015.

“If the Party could sacrifice women’s bodies and their birth rights for its one-child policy, it could once again impose its will on women,” argued Ms.^me Su.

This article was originally published in the New York Times.