From the Economist (subscription only; free day pass available):
Mao Zedong told China’s women that they “hold up half the sky”, but they have had little to show for their feat. Women today make up more than 60% of China’s vast agricultural workforce, yet occupy barely 20% of the seats in the national parliament. Nor have most Chinese women ever enjoyed the other equalities and protections that the ruling Communist Party’s propagandists have long claimed they do. Slowly, that is changing. On August 28th, a committee of China’s male-dominated parliament amended the Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Women, for the first time making the sexual harassment of women unlawful, and stipulating that equality between men and women “is a basic state policy.”
Will the new measures change much?
