Women have been constrained by the restrictions placed upon activism in China, preventing them from speaking up for their rights and making known to the general public the extent to which discrimination against them has taken place. This is caused by:
Limited Representation
Primarily, the bodies through which women are capable of expression are
largely affiliated with established government organisations, for example
the All-China Women's Federation(ACWF), and the Women Workers Department of
the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). However, these bodies are
largely limited to women who live in the urban areas of China, and are in
effect only available to a small minority of the female population. They are
also largely new, and are still adapting to their roles as the voices of
women in China. As the majority of discrimination is committed against
mainly women who live in rural areas, it can be seen that they are largely
neglected in terms of representation.
Anti-Association Legislations
China's Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Groups
grant government bodies a largely free hand in restricting the right to
association of the people, which is technically granted to all people in the
Chinese constitution. This means that any group of women attempting to form
an association will have to wade through a literal Yellow River of red tape,
after which a confrontation with chauvinist bureaucrats usually ensues,
always ending in disaster for the women.
For example, the Chinese Women's Museum set up in 1991 in Zhengzhou was
closed in 1994 upon the organizers' refusal to reorganise exhibits to
reflect Party views of history, and to allow government involvement in the
management of the museum. Discussion groups and other associations have been
unceremoniously disbanded by local officials on numerous occasions as well.
Strict Censorship
The Chinese government's stringent controls on publishing and broadcasting
are enforced through the CCP Central Propaganda Department, and the State
Press and Publishing Administration, which are surprisingly efficient
bureaucracies with departments at provincial, municipal, and local levels.
Permits are required for all news conferences and any type of demonstration
or assembly. Propaganda is, as journalists are repeatedly told, is the
primary function of the media. Information reflecting negatively on the
government is usually not printed. Insofar as information about women's
rights are negative, for example information of activities of dissidents, or
the truth about trafficking and infanticides, journalists are helpless to
put them in print, unless they are presented in a positive manner. A fall
1993 conference on domestic violence in Shanghai on the issue of trafficking
of women was never publicly reported on, and a foreign academic who heard
about this conference and asked about it was told it did not exist,
according to Michael Tang.
Large numbers of books on subjects which should be of particular interest to
women have also been banned by the Chinese authorities, for example books on
female political prisoners and trafficking. As Michael Tang reports,
"The SPPA has enacted a number of regulations governing the publication
of books on sexual knowledge and sexology. According to a 1988 regulation,
only publishing houses authorized to produce books on science and medicine
may publish such books, and academic studies on sexual matters are only to
be put out by central-level or major provincial publishers. Provincial
publishers must get approval before publication from the local government
organs and must report the book to the central authorities. A maximum of
50,000 copies may be printed of any one book, and they can only be
distributed through the state-owned Xinhua Bookstores. Furthermore,
publishers are admonished to limit the number of such books on their lists
each year."