| At China’s top political gathering for women, it was mostly a man who was seen and heard., sat centre stage at the opening of the National Women’s Congress. A close-up of him at the congress was splashed on the front page of the Chinese Communist Party’s newspaper the next day. From the head of a large round table, Mr Xi lectured female delegates at the closing meeting on Monday.
The authorities are scrambling to undo what experts have said is an irreversible trend, trying one initiative after another, such as cash handouts and tax benefits to encourage more births.and what it views as a stubborn rise of feminism, the party has chosen to push women back into the home, calling on them to rear the young and care for the old. The work, in the words of Xi, is essential for “China’s path to modernisation.
Xi Jinping wants party officials to influence young people’s views on “love and marriage, fertility and family”.“Women have always been viewed 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.