BEIJING - The question that dashed Angel Feng’s job prospects always came last.

Fluent in Chinese, English, French and Japanese, the 26-year-old graduate of a business school in France interviewed with half a dozen companies in Beijing.

“The boss would ask several questions about my qualifications, then he’d say: ‘I see you just got married. When will you have a baby?’ ” Ms. Feng said.

Three decades after China embarked on dazzling economic reforms, much has changed for women. Unlike their mothers, whose working ? and, often, private ? lives were determined by the state, women today can largely choose their paths. Rural women are no longer tethered to communes; urban women no longer are assigned jobs for life or need permission from work units to marry, although all women must apply for permission to have a child.

Yet powerful cultural traditions that value men over women, long held in abeyance by official Communist support for women’s rights, have returned in force. Many employers are not hiring women in an economy where there is an oversupply of labor and women are perceived as bringing additional expense in the form of maternity leave and childbirth costs. The law stipulates that employers must help cover those costs, and feminists are seeking state-supported childbirth insurance to lessen discrimination.

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW
Women like Shi Zaihong, a day care provider, deal with cultural
barriers.

“The main issue we face is confusion, about who we are and what we should be,” said Qin Liwen, a magazine columnist. “Should I be a ‘strong woman’ and make money and have a career, maybe grow rich, but risk not finding a husband or having a child? Or should I marry and be a stay-athome housewife, support my husband and educate my child? Or, should I be a ‘fox’ - the kind of woman who marries a rich man, drives around in a BMW but has to put up with his concubines?”

After an unsatisfying stint at a private firm, where she earned 5,000 renminbi a month, or about $750, Ms. Feng quit and was hired by a “semistate” organization run by the Ministry of Education.

The pay is lower, but she gets benefits that hark back to socialist days, including a housing allowance. “The state sector is quite popular with women because their rights are better protected there,” said Feng


In China,Women Face Old Cultural Biases

Yuan, head of the Center for Women’s Studies at Shantou University.

Guo Jianmei, director of the Beijing Zhongze Women’s Legal Counseling and Service Center, insists that, over all, women today are in a better position than they were three decades ago.

“They know so much more about their rights,” she said. “They are better educated. For those with a competitive spirit, there’s a world of opportunity here now, whether they are businesswomen, scientists, farmers or even political leaders. ”

Women’s rights are well protected, at least on paper. Gender equality is an explicit state policy. Sexual harassment has been outlawed since 2005.

Yet gender discrimination is widespread. Only a few women dare to sue for unfair hiring practices, dismissal on grounds of pregnancy or maternity leave, or sexual harassment, experts say.

Employers commonly specify gender, age and appearance in job offers.

Yet a major problem, said Feng Yuan is that the law does not define gender discrimination. The law also requires that women retire five years earlier than men at the same jobs, thereby reducing earnings and pensions.

In 2008, 67.5 percent of Chinese women over 15 were employed, according to Yang Juhua of Renmin University of China’s Center for Population and Development Studies. That was a drop from the most recent Chinese government data, from 2000, showing that 71.52 percent of women were employed, compared with 82.47 percent of men . Ms. Yang has calculated that women earn 63.5 percent of men’s salaries.

And yet there are many success stories. Shi Zaihong, born into a poor rural family in the central province of Anhui, came to Beijing to work as a nanny in 1987. She earned 40 renminbi a month.

Now 41, she works 10 cleaning and child-minding jobs, earning 7,000 renminbi a month. With her husband, who runs another small business, she bought an apartment outside Beijing for 500,000 renminbi ? an astonishing achievement for a migrant worker with just five years’ education.


Gender rights are protected in theory,
but the reality differs.

“I have taken advantage of every opportunity that I had,” she said.

She can now apply for her children to legally join her because buying property confers this right, she said. The children have always lived in her village with her parents.

Liu Yan, 42, is a successful business consultant. She is divorced, with a young daughter. The daughter of an actor and an opera singer from Sichuan Province, she is sophisticated and well connected.

“I’ve been quite free and straightforward all my life,” she said. But “my family often calls me stupid for it.” She feels her prospects of remarriage are dim.

“Tradition has come back strongly, but it’s not always a good thing,” she said.

“With Chinese men, there is a line you cannot cross. They have ‘face’ that you have to respect. Anyway, most of them don’t find me feminine. They like young girls. They think a woman is beautiful when she’s ‘sweet.’ ”

Concubinage, outlawed by the Communists after they took power in 1949, has re-emerged.

“I want to be happy,” Ms. Liu said. “I could not accept that.”


GILLES SABRIE FOR THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Women in China frequently encounter gender discrimination in
the workplace. Angel Feng gave up on the private sector for a lowerpaying government job with generous benefits.

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW