China-Canada Cooperation Project in Cleaner Production -- Gender Equality Activities

Report of Gender Equality Activities in Zhoucheng, July 18 – 22, 2001 at Wuming Beer Co. Ltd.
By Prof. Wu Qing, Chinese Gender Equality Expert

The leadership of Wumin Beer was very supportive and helpful. My schedule was discussed and approved at once at the first meeting right after I arrived at Zhoucheng. It was decided that Mr. Dang, Chair of the Trade Union, Ms Hwang Yanli, Director of the Family Planning and Women Workers Committee, and Mr. Yang Yong, Director of Trade Union Office would help me to collect data and make all the arrangements. I think there were several reasons for the support and help given. One, my plan for the trip was given to them ahead of time. They knew what my focus was. Two, Ms Li Zuodan introduced me to them and told them about the results of gender training workshops at Fuyang General Chemicals. Three, people respect my Mother. They also know me through the media. I shared Mr. Wang Xianyi’s article with them.

I visited several rooms in the lab area; several workshops and attached locker rooms and toilets and latrines for women, where women make up about half or one third of the workers; the dormitory building for the singles; the mess hall for the workers and the kitchen; the clinic and the kindergarten on the mornings of the first two mornings accompanied by Ms. Hwang and Mr. Yang.

The rooms I visited were not well kept. There were bits of paper and dirt on the floors and stains of rainwater on the walls near the windows. But I was told that once the new lab is completed they would move. Not a single locker room had seats, which means women workers had to lean against the wall or lockers to change their outfits. Besides, the rooms were damp, dark and not well taken care of. Some of the lights were dim. Two latrines for women had no lights at all. It was the same for the men’s. One toilet didn’t have the sign Women’s; the handle to the door of another toilet had been broken for a long time; in still another one the lights didn’t work. None of the toilets or latrines was well taken care of.

There were shower facilities for the workers. But with the expansion of the workshops, they were removed. The singles found it very inconvenient as there weren’t any shower facilities in their dormitory building either.

In the singles’ dormitory building there were flies because there were no screens on the windows in the long corridors. In the washrooms there were no washing machines. In the room I visited there was not a desk in the room for female workers. There were just bunk beds and some trunks. The rest of the rooms for the female workers were locked. But I found two desks in one dorm for the male workers. Then I was told that the plant does not provide desks for the occupants in the building.

There were three teachers taking care of 51 children in the kindergarten. Children were taken there when their parents went to work in the morning and in the afternoon and they were fetched at noon to have lunch at home and in late afternoon when their parents’ work was over. But it was hard on parents who didn’t have relatives to help. They had to cook for their child at noon and couldn’t rest a bit. When they went to work again in the afternoon, they would take them back to the kindergarten.

To sum up my work, I had a session with nine representatives of the female workers. They gave me their work plan and put forward many good suggestions. I went over the plan with them and found that it was abstract. Therefore, it would be difficult to carry it out.

I have told Mr. Tang, Ms Hwang and Mr. Yang the above suggestions when I was summing up my trip with them.

The two gender training workshops went pretty well. 20 women came to the first one. Among them, three were mid-level managers. 11 men and 4 women came to the second one. They were all mid-level managers, except for one plant level manager.

Compare their names with their spouses and their siblings to see that their parents had different expectations on boys and girls. Boys are the breadwinners. They are not only supporters of their own families, but also of their parents. They are still assets and social insurance to them. Therefore they are often given names with the meanings of bravery, strength, courage, building the army or country and achieving prosperity or wealth. Girls are married off. They are no longer part of the family. But the parents made sure that their names had to sound beautiful. They are often given names with the meanings of flowers, beauty, generosity, prudence, modesty, sensitivity, fragrance, beautiful jade, cloud, clear and diligent.

With the male, adjectives like tall, sturdy, strong, staunch, upright, resolute, free and easy, handsome, aggressive, powerful, responsible, natural and unrestrained are often used.

With the female, adjectives like a supportive wife and loving mother, small and delicate, gentle and soft, quiet, intelligent, small and exquisite, hardworking and thrift, virtuous and thoughtful.

Compare the life routine of a male and female worker during the weekdays. The male worker usually does work that requires physical strength, like mopping the floor at home or taking the child to the kindergarten or elementary school. The female worker does cooking, washing, cleaning and monitoring the child’s homework. But among families with one spouse working on shifts, the other spouse often does housework when she/he works on day shift.

Compare the life routine of a male and female worker during the weekends. Majority of the couples do things together with their child, like doing some shopping, visiting in-laws, friends and parks, going out with friends’ families and giving their home a thorough cleaning. But when visiting in-laws, it is usually the wife who helps with the cooking. The husband chats with members of the family.

Compare decisions made at home. This plant was established in 1986. Most of the employees are young. The majority of the workers usually discuss with the spouse before they make a decision. They share the decision making power. But sometimes major decisions like buying an apartment or a big item are still made by the husband as he is more experienced or knows more about the outside world.

The women felt that it was the best workshop they had ever had. They said they knew very little about the general situation of women in China. But they did feel the discrimination against women in the plant. They said that women usually didn’t have many opportunities to change jobs, to get promoted or to learn from and visit other plants. They learnt that it was important for one to have a purpose in life. For women, self-worth, self-esteem and self-respect were important. They were determined to use more time or make the time to improve and upgrade their general knowledge and skills to face great competition. They would also teach their daughters to be independent, self-reliant and self-confident. Those women workers’ representatives said that they would use the law and regulations to protect their own rights and the rights of the female workers.

The participants in the second workshop were all managers. Most of them were men. They said that their work was very demanding. They sometimes had to work 14 – 16 hours. Many of them, especially men seldom had meals at home and nor did they have the time to help their wives with the housework, especially those who were in charge with the sales. They were on the road most of the time. The female managers always tried to make the time to do housework. But after the workshop the male managers all expressed the hope that they would do more housework from then on as they knew more about the status of women, that they would provide more opportunities for women to upgrade themselves and offer more promotions to them and that they would encourage their daughters to be more independent and self-reliant.

Feedback of Zuoquan Women’s Federation and 3 women from the local Women’s Federation and 10 from the different bureaus of the local government came to the lecture. They said that they had a deeper understanding of gender and equality between man and woman. The following is what they have summed up:

Those who came to the lecture felt encouraged as now they know they could turn to the Constitution and Women’s law for help when they want to get things done for women in their locality. They have also put forward two suggestions to me:

Ms. Hwang was deeply impressed by the idea of gender and said it has helped her to rethink the following problems and issues:

Raising the issue of gender equality is the legacy and development of the idea of equality between men and women in a new situation. The founding of the PRC has enabled women to break away from the feudal traditions of the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues." China has its first generation of female generals, female pilots, female tractor drivers and female mountaineers who had climbed the Everest. Liberation has provided girls and women to be educated. New jobs are opened up to them. Women could enter politics. Since the Reform, in theory, women have been further emancipated and offered more room for development. In fact, when it comes to an institution, women face many restraints. For example, the ratio of women unemployed is much higher than that of the men. This situation is getting worse. Yet to solve these problems, we need to blaze trails and have guidance from theories. Therefore I feel what Professor said about gender does have theoretical guidance to solving these practical problems and issues.

Issues and problems concerning gender are problems of systems engineering. It takes the whole society to concern about and support the work. It is impossible to expect a few institutions like the Women’s Federation and some related organizations to solve them. I think there are three important points:

Women’s Federation at different levels should be active advocators of gender equality as well as practitioners. It should publicize this idea through the media and all the channels possible. At the same time it should try to raise the quality of women so that the whole society will pay a great deal of attention to it. Women themselves will have the qualities of self-esteem, self-respect, self-independence and self-confidence. They can really hold up half of the sky and do well in whatever they do to fulfill their social status. Women also have an important role to play at home. They can promote family harmony and make the home a happy place.

We are honored to have Professor Wu Qing visiting our plant in the process of developing the China Canada Cleaner Production project. Though she was here only for 5 days, her work style has impressed all of us. She pursued her work with great persistence. Besides she has offered us new knowledge on gender and citizenship.

The two gender training workshops, informal discussions and the lecture offered by Professor Wu have raised the awareness of both the employers and employees in terms of gender and citizenship. They have also encouraged women to have self-esteem, self-respect, self-independence and self-reliance; to upgrade and improve themselves, to love what they are doing and to dare to compete actively.

The whole plant, managers and employees alike is now paying more attention to gender equality. The plant has sponsored a special picture exhibition on gender in the plant, with pictures of Professor Wu Qing visiting different workshops, conducting workshops and giving the lecture. Each workshop has put out a special issue of blackboard news on Cleaner Production and Gender.

The plant has also issued a notice for rectification according to the findings and suggestions put forward by Professor Wu Qing to different workshops and departments, their responsibilities and the deadline for them so as to improve the working and living conditions of the women workers.

With the joint efforts, there are now benches and mirror in some of the locker rooms; the lights are installed in the latrines and women’s. The most of the problems have been solved. With these improvements, the prestige of the leadership is advanced and is getting more support from the employees.

Number of employers and employees
	Total	2562
	Male	1414	Ratio of male workers	55.19%
	Female	1148	Ratio of female workers	44.81%
Number of party members
	Total	256
	Male	230	Ratio of male party members	89.8%
	Female	26	Ratio of female party members	10.2%
Number of top-level managers
	Total	19	Ratio of male top-level managers	100%
	Male	19	Ratio of female top-level managers	0%
	Female	0
Number of mid-level managers
	Total	82
	Male	77	Ratio of male mid-level managers	93.9%
	Female	5	Ratio of female mid-level managers	6.1%
		(Of the 5, only 1 person holding a chief position.)
Number of technical personnel
	Total	407	Ratio of male technical personnel	67.3%
	Male	274	Ratio of female technical personnel	32.7%
	Female	133
Breakdown of technical personnel - Senior
	Total	6
	Male	6	Ratio of senior male technical personnel	100%
	Female	0	Ratio of senior female technical personnel	0%
Breakdown of technical personnel - Mid-Level
	Total	32
	Male	29	Ratio of mid-level male technical personnel	81.6%
	Female	3	Ratio of mid-level female technical personnel	9.4%
Breakdown of technical personnel - Elementary
	Male	249	Ratio of male elementary technical personnel	67.5%
	Female	120	Ratio of elementary female technical personnel	32.5%

July 18	Arriving and met by Ms Li Zhuodan Meeting, discussing and finalizing the schedule with Mr. Tang Yuanxin, Chair of the Trade Union, Yanjing Beer (Shandong Wuming) Brewery Co. Ltd., Ms. Hwang Yanli, Director of Family Planning Office and Director of Female Workers’ Committee, Mr. Wang Qingxian, Assistant to General Manager and Director of Wuming Brewery Office and Mr Yang Yong, Trade Union
July 19	Visiting the Lab, Packing Workshop No.2, Brewing Workshop No. 2, Packing Workshop No. 3 (especially the WC’s and the locker rooms for the women workers in those workshops) and the Mess Hall for the workers Offering Gender Training to 20 female workers with 3 mid-level managers with the participatory method
July 20	Visiting the Clinic of the Plant, Dormitories for the singles and the kindergarten Offering Gender Training to 14 mid-level managers and one top-level manage with 11 men and 4 women with the participatory method
July 21	Offering a lecture on "Gender and Citizenship" to 97 employees from the plant (9 top-level managers, 60 mid-level managers, 28 representatives of the female workers) 3 from Jining Women’s Federation, 3 from Zhoucheng’s Women’s Federation and 8 from local government bureaus Talking to Ms. Hwang Yanli and Mr. Yang Yong about their work in the future
July 22	Meeting with and getting feedback and suggestions from 9 members of the Women Workers’ Committee Meeting with Mr. Tang Yuanxin, Ms. Hwang Yanli and Mr. Yang Yong Leaving Zhoucheng for Beijing