Women pushed even further from power in Xi Jinping’s China

Emma Graham-Harrison | Oct 22, 2022 |

Across seven decades of turmoil and change, one thing about China’s leadership has remained unchanged.

In Xi Jinping’s “new era” of digital authoritarianism, men remain in charge of the country.

The Covid tsar, Sun Chunlan, was the only woman on the outgoing Politburo, and one of only three women who have made it that far as political operators in their own right – rather than as wives of powerful men or propaganda cowtools – in over 70 years of Communist rule.

Photograph: Andy Brownbill/AP Among the ranks of assembled dignitaries at the Party congress was Zhang Gaoli, the former vice-premier whom tennis champion Peng Shuai publicly accused of sexual assault last year.

Peng went missing for weeks after making her accusations on social media.

Communism made it easier for women to get an education and join the workforce, but as in many other countries they were still expected to do the majority of domestic work, a “double shift” that is tiring and limits career opportunities.