Chinese and American Women

EARTHKEEPING NEWS
A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY

Volume Five, Number One
September/October 1995

CHINESE AND AMERICAN WOMEN EXCHANGE LEARNINGS

by E. Dyson

During the last week in August, while workers were still scrambling to get facilities in Huairou ready for the NGO Forum, 560 American women, and a few men, were meeting at the Friendship Palace in Beijing with a like number of Chinese women to discuss issues common to women in both cultures.

I was privileged to be part of this US/China Joint Conference on Women's Issues, organized by the Citizen Ambassador Program of People to People International, the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) and the China Women's Association for Science and Technology (CWAST). Our host was Madame Wu Ganmei, Secretary General of CWAST and the Executive Director of the China NGO Forum Organizing Committee.

Our professional women's conference addressed issues of social justice which are foundational for a viable society. It is a Chinese saying that women hold up half the sky.

Participants discussed technical presentations, both English and Chinese, in eleven working sessions: Women in the Work Force, Women in Management, in Publishing, in Science and Math, in Medicine, in Education, in Sports, Advancement of Women, Women's Status, Women's Equal Opportunity, and Community Problem Solving.

The co-chairs of my session, Community Problem Solving, were Madame Yang Tuan, Deputy Secretary General of the China Charity Federation, and Ms. Suzanne Calder, President of the League of Women Voters of Illinois. The presentations gave us a picture of the struggle to recover China's social fabric in the last 15 years, after 40 years of cultural and economic devastation. We learned about orphanages and foster homes; medical care for indigent families and children; community centers and vocational training for the elderly; and a Hot Line for Women.We learned about community organization in a site visit to a neighborhood.

The first Women's Hotline opened in 1992 to help women in a rapidly changing social environment cope with the pressures of home and job in an increasingly western style free enterprise economy. The highest percentages of Hotline calls have to do with marital problems. The rising divorce rate, and a disappearing traditional support system, has resulted in an increasing number of single mother families faced with multiple problems similar to those in the United States.

The speaker, Mme. Hou Zhi-Jin, a research fellow at China Academy of Management Science, talked of the need for such services as single parent mutual support teams, psychological counseling at schools and in the work place, and community supported day care centers.

The three American presenters discussed an American model of family support, the art of facilitation in problem solving, and the experience of the League of Women Voters in gaining public recognition of women's community service.

As a demonstration of grass roots problem solving, I led a two hour participatory exercise to build a consensus on what the group's vision of a Chinese women's support services center should include. Thirty five Chinese and 12 American women working together at five tables, with two interpreters, decided that their center would include: health and leisure activities, a women's exchange, children's services, services for single women, elder services, employment services, legal and civil rights services, and housekeeping services.

Beijing is a city of 11 million people, 8 million bicycles, and millions of trees planted in a massive program of urban reforestation to repair environmental damage of the Cultural Revolution. New housing is going up everywhere. Air pollution is a problem. The city is surrounded by the Dragon and Tiger Mountains, which one cannot see because of the thick haze of dust and industrial emissions overlying the city. Fortunately, 1,000 women engineers, professors and technicians, and 16,000 rural working women are involved in policy making and implementation of new and renewable energy systems (solar, wind, biomass, thermal) throughout China . Water pollution is a major problem yet to be addressed.

In this period of rapid social change, what will be the ethical base for social justice and environmental care? In our discussions religion did not come up. People are free to worship as they choose. There are several million Christians on the mainland, and the Chinese YWCA is a respected human service organization. However only members of The Party are in positions of power. The challenge is one of balance - between men and women, between Eastern and Western cultures, between material progress and spirit depth. In the 21st century we, Chinese and Americans alike, must open ourselves to the spirit treasures of other cultures.