There are none. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. But it’s not hyperbole to say that among political leaders in China, women are now completely excluded from the top ranks.
The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the Communist Party (CCP) that governs it has always been mostly male. From the founding of the PRC in 1949 under the leadership of Mao Zedong, through the upheavals of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, then through the more stable and liberal decades of the 1980s and ‘90s, it was men who largely led China.
But in the last month, under the present president, Xi Jinping, China took another step back. It eliminated all women from the next tier of power, the now 24-member Politburo.
China is like the United States in that the higher up you go on any organizational or institutional pyramid the less likely you are to find a woman. But it is unlike the United States in that its patriarchal past and present is much, much more rigid than ours, its traditions much, much more deeply and tightly entrenched. Moreover, its cultural expectations are more demanding, women being disadvantaged at every turn, from early in their lives, straight through parenthood, and their mandatory, earlier-than-their-male counterparts, retirement.
Recently was a tableau that vividly depicted the subservience of Chinese women. The scene was the 13th National Women’s Congress which took place last month in Beijing. At the close of the meeting, it was not a woman who spoke to the assembled, but a man. Mr. Xi. The president was nothing if not patronizing, telling the female delegates that what they should aspire to is not power, politics, and policy making, but cooking, cleaning, and baby making.
He did not of course put it so bluntly. But the president of China made clear that what China needed from women first and foremost was for them to get married and have a baby. To offset the growing demographic crisis – too many old people, too few young people to support them – he effectively told them it was their patriotic duty to find a husband and get pregnant.
Whatever the largely proforma previous support for women’s equality by China’s leaders, it was no more. It is the traditional values that are now being extolled, above all the benefits of family. This means that women deemed virtuous are expected to forgo their professional ambitions in order to provide a private service – a private service that is a public service.
Xi did not mince words. He told the female leaders in the hall of the Congress that they should “tell good stories about family traditions and guide women to play their unique role in carrying forward the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation.”
My reaction? I support family, I support fertility, and I support domesticity. But when these are prioritized to the point of excluding other satisfactions – such as those found in gaining indepence, securing work, and earning money outside the home – it does not bode well for women with ambition.