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Who are the female politicians who have made it to the top positions in China's 31 provincial-level jurisdictions? When I recently put this question to a Chinese government official, he laughed and responded: “They are all ‘innocent young girls’” (tamen dou shi “wu zhi shao nü” 他们都是无知少女). Here, wu references a lack of affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) (wu dangpai 无党派); zhi refers to intellectuals (zhishi fenzi 知识分子);1 shao means ethnic minority (as in shaoshu minzu 少数民族); and nü 女 refers to their gender (female). When joined together, the four characters – wuzhi shaonü – also mean “innocent young girl” in Chinese. This homonym is so commonly used that a search of the term “wuzhi shaonü” on baidu.com (China's most popular search engine) brings up a whole page of results linking to articles discussing the idea that in the Chinese party-state's selection of female political leaders, a woman without Party membership but with an intellectual and ethnic minority background stands a better chance of promotion than a female without these characteristics. This narrative reveals the prejudice held by many that Chinese female and male politicians do not compete on equal grounds. While men are selected based on merit and performance, those rare appointments of women are nothing but a token gesture of the CCP's claims to advance the interests of marginalized groups. Thus, women's political achievements are not to be taken seriously.
Gender disparities in the contemporary era are widely observed in all aspects of political life regardless of the system of government, from party membership and election candidacy, to office-holding in state legislatures and senior political leadership. Scholars of women's political participation have highlighted cultural, social and institutional factors that hinder women's political careers. In many cultures, patriarchal and hierarchical attitudes and norms prevent women from entering public life.2 Gendered social capital means that women cannot draw upon their networks to participate and advance in formal politics in the same way as do men.3 At the same time, gender quotas, party ideology and the design of electoral systems are all institutional factors that can lead to unfavourable outcomes for women running for office.4
The political life of Chinese women shares many commonalities with...