Chasing Gender Equality

During the Fifth CWFF held in Beijing, CWFF Director Li Dan sat down with Chinafrica to share his view on the progress made in promoting gender equality in China. His excerpted ideas follow:

Chinafrica: In concrete terms, in what forms can inequality against women be seen? Li Dan: In the professional world, for example, skills of women are often depreciated, due to some clichés. Another problem is domestic violence, which is often seen as a private matter that should remain in the private sphere. On the other hand, the whole cultural industry, including the seventh art, or film art, is still locked into a retrograde mindset and emphasizes only the beauty, the sexuality and family responsibilities that women are supposed to possess. There are many examples of films or advertisements that openly advocate an extremely conservative system of values, according to which, women do not care about career, but only about love and marriage. So we want to change that.

Isn’t it surprising to see a man at the head of a women’s festival? If women were to fight alone for the feminist cause and men to neglect it completely, it would never be accomplished. This is the “He-for-she” spirit that we defend. We also hope to see more people join us in this fight, which already brings together a number of activists, as evidenced by the presence of NGOS and associations for women’s rights in China. But the participation of men should be even greater.

What is the current state of feminism in the country? Prior to 1949, discriminatory practices against women, such as the old custom of foot binding, were quite prevalent in society. But since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the gender equality movement in China has made great changes in China. However, while the country has achieved gender equality in several areas, some forms of discrimination, although less visible, are still present and there is still a long way to go.