Hit the Girl? China says, "Not Anymore"

Hit the Girl? China says, "Not Anymore"
Apr 27, 2009 By Andrea Hunt , eChinacities.com

The night air whistled around the corners of the hutong walls. The narrow alley walls seem to absorb every sound and clink that goes on and simply muffles it away in a labyrinth of brick. You hear sounds coming from other little alley streets but you can never really pinpoint from exactly where they came. We all walked along, laughing and telling stories as we aimlessly wandered the hutongs. A Chinese couple shuffled alongside the left side of the alley, woman in front, the man behind her lurching forward. Suddenly, his arms reached out and he caught her collar and yanked her back, spinning her around, he slapped her in the face and she twisted left against the blow. All 5 of us stopped dead in our tracks and glared into his eyes as he screeched at us to keep walking. Two of the male friends I was with didn’t move; we stood there waiting, making sure he wasn’t going to hit her again. The girl slumped back against the wall, her eyes to the ground; she wouldn't even look at us. After a few minutes of waiting there, we kept walking, glancing back every few steps.

The role of Chinese women in modern Chinese society has definitely improved over the last several decades but there is still a long way to go. One could argue, that one benefit of the Great Leap Forward, in terms of the woman’s place in Chinese society, is that it led to an immense augmentation of women in the workplace, a number that now tentatively stands at around 45%. This number in recent years has been much attributed to China’s Ten Year Program for the Development of Chinese Women. This plan set out to improve the healthcare, education, and worker’s rights of Chinese women.

As early as 1950, the laws indicated that women had equality in terms of employment, cultural, familial, and social rights. However, most people would admit that although the Chinese women of today enjoy many rights that 80 years ago they would not have, there are still many serious issues in the role of the woman in Chinese society. While, notably, women are allowed to have more decision making in the home and as well as monetary savings and family planning, the reported cases domestic violence have not improved, indicating that the disparities still exist.

The number of reported cases of domestic violence in China currently stands at 50,000 year but is on the rise. Although the statistics illustrate that a higher percentage of violence is prevalent in the rural areas where some 800 million residents live, what is most shocking about domestic violence in China is how it is not a problem behind closed doors. Even more surprising is that ¼ to ½ of all women worldwide have been victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives.

In China, public scuffles are not uncommon in broad daylight and men who are boyfriends or husbands seemingly have no qualms about hitting or punching their partners in public places. The only reason that this can stand is because people are not accustomed to getting involved in other people’s disputes. In China, fights happen all the time, out in the street while passersby stop to gather around, yet the onlookers act as sentinels, and not participants in the discord.

In many Western countries, this could not happen. Many men feel that it is their duty to disallow a man to beat up a woman in public or within their homes. This protective impulse is what is missing here in China. On one occasion, we were dissuaded from getting involved as a man kicked and beat up a woman in the eating room next to ours, with only a wooden screen between us and them as we heard her tumbling around the floor sobbing, as the restaurant owner growled at us, saying “Bu shi ni de wenti,” it’s not your problem. The only reason none of us did anything was because there are a plethora of stories of Western men who have been thrown into jail for getting involved in Chinese domestic disputes on the side of the woman. This fear keeps most foreigners from intervening, even though they would gladly pulverize the male perpetrator of the violence.

 

 

 

This is a worldwide problem that has always existed, governments overseas have taken steps to curb the problem, and now Guangzhou has taken new initiatives to protect women from domestic violence. Measures are being taken to open legal aid agencies, hotlines, and police reporting services; this represents an excellent first step. In addition, employers cannot fire women who need to take leave for maternity leave; an issue that worldwide historically has always been a quandary.

This week, China has released the National Human Rights Plan of China for 2009-2010 outlining plans for the future. This is a very impressive step that will hopefully lead to an increase in protection for Chinese women all over the country as it aims to promote gender equality by specifically:

- Prohibiting all forms of domestic violence against women, exploring and establishing a working mechanism that combines prevention, prohibition and assistance in the fight against domestic violence.

This is a big step for China in the recognition of women’s rights in trying to end domestic violence once and for all. But worldwide steps have been implemented and domestic violence by an intimate partner still exists everywhere despite laws. In the end, it is not the laws that must change forcing obligation, but the culture that must decide that it will not tolerate it.

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