中文
Lead: While the current U.S. administration dismantles decades of protections for American women, China continues to advance gender equality through education, economic opportunities and participation in state and social governance.
By Josef Gregory Mahoney
President Xi Jinping noted in his speech at the Global Leaders' Meeting on Women that tremendous global progress has been made toward the "lofty goal" of gender equality but achieving it remains an "arduous task." Around the world, many concur with this assessment. For example, the World Economic Forum's 2024 and 2025 Global Gender Gap Reports show a return to incremental improvements in the past two years, after setbacks from the global pandemic that, by many measures, impacted women and girls disproportionately. Consequently, the WEF now projects that it may take another 123 years to reach full parity, assuming several variables remain stable.
We live in a new era of intersecting crises, including climate change, the growing likelihood of cyclical pandemics and the rapid emergence of paradigm-shifting technologies. The so-called "age of turbulence" is now giving way to a "world at war," with the return of active state-based armed conflicts, now at a global peak since data collection began in 1946.
Furthermore, according to a new study by the United Nations published this year, women are three times more likely than men to lose their jobs due to AI adoption. Women are also twice as likely to face physical violence and gender discrimination during armed conflicts. Numerous studies indicate women are disproportionately impacted by climate change and 14 times more likely to die in a climate disaster.
As disruptions from disease outbreaks, climate change, armed conflicts and the United States' global trade war continue to mount, the current Trump administration increasingly abandons commitments to peace, development, democracy and the global fight against climate change. President Donald Trump even claimed in a speech at the U.N. that green energy is a scam and the climate science is from and for "stupid people." By many accounts, the administration has already implemented dozens of policies aimed at undermining gender equality, including reversing more than six decades of equal employment protections for women in federal jobs. The administration has substantially curtailed women's reproductive rights, dismissed prominent women from federal watchdog roles, explicitly targeted and increasingly eliminated federal funding for research related to women, and deleted information from federal websites promoting gender equality, female empowerment, and even general health and well-being.
Meanwhile, as the current U.S. administration deploys troops against American citizens in several U.S. cities, it continues advancing proxy conflicts in Ukraine and the Sahel, which have already killed tens of thousands of women and girls. The administration still flirts with expanding conflicts with Iran and Venezuela while threatening the sovereignty and security of Canada and Greenland, among others. Meanwhile, we see increased emphasis on securitization becoming the norm around the world. Many countries are backsliding into nationalist political movements emphasizing traditional values, too often conflating patriotism with patriarchy. Some argue they do so intentionally to enact social, political and economic discipline, in part to sustain gender inequality. They justify this by asserting a need to gird themselves against possible internal and external enemies.
Mei Yao, director of the village's women's federation, talks with students who are in summer vacation at Shibadong Village in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, central China's Hunan Province, July 2, 2022. [Photo by Xue Yuge/Xinhua]
On the one hand, those devoted to gender equality would no doubt be inclined to express sympathy with American feminists who now find their efforts under attack and in some cases already ruined. On the other hand, it has long been the case that women in the Global South (or what some Marxists since Lenin have called the "periphery") and minorities in the Global North (the "center") have been wary of what some call "white feminism," and rightfully so. Much of the feminist theory and critiques that have occupied privileged positions in global discourse were produced by white women, often social elites themselves, ensconced in liberal democracies located in the "center." These countries were able to sustain positions of international privilege given grotesque histories of colonial conquest and dispossession, even slavery and genocide, the legacies of which were perpetuated by various forms of hegemony. Worse, as some well-known Marxist scholars, such as Andre Gunder Frank, have demonstrated, countries in the center, what he called "metropoles," deliberately underdeveloped "satellites" on the periphery to sustain their hegemony through dependency.
There are three points to explore here. First, "white feminists" have advocated liberating women but did so without questioning the source of their own national, racial and class privileges, which critics have demonstrated were structurally complicit in the suppression and exploitation of working-class women, minorities and those living in the developing world. Thus, while we rue any gender discrimination associated with the setbacks, it is politically unacceptable to claim solidarity with those who never practiced true solidarity themselves.
Second, as political polarization increases in the Global North, liberal democracies are regressing on multiple social, political and economic fronts. This decline has been worsened by a tendency toward identity politics and factionalism, which further fragments society. In fact, similar tendencies in Western democracies were first described by Plato nearly 2,400 years ago in Book VIII of "The Republic." Scholars today have revisited this point as zero-sum capitalism increasingly finds itself existentially threatened by critical tipping points and negative cascade effects. These forces further intensify post-truth factional polarization, exploitation, alienation and the dark days of the Anthropocene, altogether contributing to downward spirals into tyranny. We regret that any society is thus afflicted and resist any country that tries to externalize its systemic failures and domestic crises by blaming and aggressing against others. We encourage positive reforms and social progress and contributions to a shared future for humanity. However, we will not stand in the way of the hegemon determined to fall flat on its face.
Third, as Friedrich Engels argued long ago in "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State" (1884), suppressing women and girls suppresses the entire society and its potential for development. By paying women less or subjecting them to inadequate care, nutrition, health care or legal protections, society undermines family incomes and well-being. It even puts tremendous downward pressure on men's wages and well-being. Furthermore, as subsequent scientific studies have established, the intelligence and positive development of children, including boys, correlate directly with maternal health and education. Thus, we understand that any Marxist who opposes gender equality is not really a Marxist, and any Chinese committed to socialism or national rejuvenation inevitably stands for gender equality.
All these points are well-known to President Xi. He is a Marxist and is committed to helping the Chinese people reach their full development potential. In this context, he quoted another Chinese Marxist devoted to gender equality by invoking Mao Zedong's famous saying, "women hold up half the sky," noting that "Women play an important role in creating, promoting and carrying forward human civilization," and that "in China, the cause of women has always been an integral part" of Chinese modernization. We know that hundreds of millions of Chinese women and girls have been lifted out of poverty and now enjoy equal protections and access to education and health care, among other indicators of gender equality. President Xi also knows this work is not yet finished, that more progress must be made to ensure equal pay for equal work, as well as equal opportunities in hiring and promotion. Nevertheless, for a society long influenced by values that regarded women as being inferior and subordinate to men, China has made great leaps forward and substantially done so by progressively liberating Chinese women.
Villagers take part in a tug-of-war game in Taizizhuang Village of Boai County, Jiaozuo City, central China's Henan Province, March 8, 2024. Various activities were held across the country to celebrate International Women's Day. [Photo by Cheng Quan/Xinhua]
However, President Xi is also devoted to human progress globally and understands that such progress depends on steady improvements in gender equality. He acknowledged the global need to ensure technological and green transformations help women. He called for improving global governance frameworks, promoting gender equality and encouraged the development of new platforms for women from around the world to cooperate with each other. He acknowledged: "Globally, over 600 million women and girls are still mired in war and conflict, and around 10% of women and girls are trapped in extreme poverty. At the same time, deep-rooted problems such as violence and discrimination still persist, and the gender digital divide is widening."
And then, in his most powerful statement, he asserted: "[Women's] all-round development is achieved under the prerequisite of peace and tranquility. We need to uphold the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security, and must safeguard world peace, so that all women can bask in the sunlight of happiness and tranquility and stay away from the shadow of war and turmoil. We need to enhance the protection of women and girls in regions struck by war, conflict, poverty or natural disaster, and support the vital role of women in preventing conflict and rebuilding their homes. We should improve mechanisms against violence and resolutely crack down on all forms of violence against women."
These are fundamental lessons the sort that every father, brother, son and husband ought to know in his core, knowing the wellbeing of women is not just a matter of justice but powerfully linked with his own fate. One thing is certain: neither President Xi nor I want to wait 123 years for gender equality for our daughters. I'm confident China will get there much, much sooner, and will likewise need to lead the way for others to do the same, precisely as President Xi has long recognized and promoted.
I'd like to close by noting that my university is one of many in China led by a woman, Dr. Mei Bing. Nationally, women make up more than 50% of university students, a milestone first achieved in 2013, and this percentage continues to grow. Additionally, I work extensively in media, and most of my colleagues there are women, including studio heads, showrunners, directors, producers, and writers. I regularly appear on "The Point," CGTN's flagship opinion television program hosted by Liu Xin, who has long been a role model for Chinese women. During my most recent appearance, the panel also included two other women: Zhang Xiaoyan, associate dean of Tsinghua University's PBC School of Finance, and Liang Yan, Kremer Chair professor of economics at Willamette University. We discussed, unsurprisingly, the U.S. new trade war outbursts against China, and Beijing's commitment to standing firm against bullying.
Josef Gregory Mahoney is a professor of politics and international relations and director of the Center for Ecological Civilization at East China Normal University in Shanghai. He is also a senior research fellow with the Institute for the Development of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics at Southeast University in Nanjing.
