Forum on women

[内拉祖里]

Last month, a Korean China-based shoe-factory was suited by its female employees. The fact behind the event was that the 56 women labourswere examined illegally by their male boss because he doubted that they stole the resources. These women were fear of being fired so they allowed he lifted their shirts, torn trousers. All these women were in low emotions and in panic all day long after this event happened. They only ate one meal in three or four days and needed to take medicines to relax.
(Source: Xinmin Evening News, 2003)

New Challenge
New Women


When you educate a man, you educate an individual.


When you educate a woman, you educate a family, a nation.

-------- The African proverb




This incident caused the public’s attention and discussion in the whole society. In recent years, China’s reform and opening up helped the economy develop at a high speed. Many foreign funds were absorbed into China. However, the economy will not be developed at the cost of the violation of women rights. Not foreign funded companies, but the state-owned and private enterprises in countryside, the gender issues should be considered seriously. Accounting for half of the total, China women have made great contributions to rise of the country.

Now it is a suitable time that we try to use a periodical column to introduce some gender policies in China-based companies, which include Kui Mian Textile Company, X Agribusiness Company and Unilever Joint Venture Company; and describe the actual performance in these companies. The percentages of China Women’ s occupations are different in the above industries. We hope that the relevant institutions and China Government should consider and solve problems in the actual performance.







Ⅰ.State-owned industry: textile

There are some serious problems about gender issues not only in foreign-funded organizations, but also in state-owned industries in China. Textile is one of the basic industries in China. See Table-2, based on the research, above 90% of employees are women in production line in Textile Company in contrast to only 3% of women in management level. (Zhao Min, 1999) In many textile companies, it has always had a female-dominated workforce yet management has been largely males. The management levels do not trust females’ abilities and only few opportunities for their promotion. (Zhao Min, 1999) So the number of women occupying top executive positions is still relatively small. There are limited opportunities for blue-collar females training courses. Therefore, the possibility of female workers lose jobs is much higher than male workers.

There has a case to show the actual practice in the textile companies. One female employee had been worked in Kui Mian state-owned Textile Company in Zhejiang Province for many years. Several months ago, she left her position because of pregnancy. When she came back, her position had already been instead by another

person. Then, she lost her job and Kui Mian Textile Company gave her nothing compensation.

Policy

These policies were designed to ensure compliance with the Law in Kui Mian Textile Company. (Zhao Min, 1999)
•The Family and Medical Leave Act were effective in August 1993 and amended in January 1995 in textile industry. Events, which trigger FMLA leave, are defined as: The birth of a newborn child.
Placement with an employee of a son or daughter for adoption or foster care.
•It can not terminate a labour contract unilaterally on the excuse of marriage, conception, maternity leave or suckling.
••Every public company has their own clinic to cure employees when they feel sick or have accidents.

Internal communication

The Kui Mian’s actual performance showed that the company policies on the protection of rights of women were not implemented well. Female workers felt lack of safety in their working process. According to the Needs Theory, the second hierarchy of needs is safety. 加 For these females who have not much professional

skills need job stability and health insurance. This company’s performance also influenced the extrinsically motivated behaviours. Company became difficult to motivate female employees. Obviously, the efficiency would decrease as well. And based on Expectancy Theory, workers in low levels of expectancy would feel that tasks were impossible to achieve. 加 Finally, female employees’ initiatives were declined because they lost confidence to this company.

External communication

The image of the Textile Company would be influenced by the actual performance. Female employees in this company or not in would lose confidence about this kind of company. Maybe some of them do not want to have babies because they are afraid of losing jobs，and it would affect their family lives. Therefore, some high efficiency and quality female employees would be absorbed by other competitive companies.

Solution

The state-owned companies need to consider the relationship between Expectancy Theory and Needs Theory. They should know that job stability is one of the most important elements for these blue-collar females. The company could improve the levels of education and increase the number of training courses for female workers. Company leaders should realize that gender issue is a complex problem, so short-term policy is not suitable to long-term company success.

Kui Mian Company could use explicit knowledge to improve female worker’s awakening to gender sensitivity. For instance, company could print manuals, books, files or other things to publicise company policies about gender issues. These formal codified and systematic knowledge that is easily communicated and shared. If female workers read these policies more, it will gradually transformed into tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge could encourage people to have creative conversations that could exchange ideas and practicalities. In a word, textile industry in China should pay attention to gender issues and consider gender sensitivity as the company’s culture.

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Ⅱ.Private-owned industries: agribusiness company

Though many female workers are in state-owned industries in the urban areas, two-thirds women, which has the largest portion in labour forces in the rural areas. (China Statistics Department, 1998) The rapid urbanization process in China was drawn more male farmers into industrial sectors. There has been a trend towards “feminisation” in agribusiness.

X Company in China is an agribusiness company, which deliver crops as resources to relevant companies. Women farmers played a primary role in this company. 73.5% of the employed females were either illiterate or only primary-level education. (China Statistics Department, 1998) These rural areas in China females do not yet have the same social, economic, and legal rights as men and generally have a lower literacy rate that women living in urban areas. (see Table-3)
Policy

·The X Company only has the short-term contract with these females because of the seasonal jobs and simplified working requirements.(Cloud, 1999)
·The payments for women farmers in X Company are very low and benefits are limited.(Cloud, 1999)
·Health and Hygiene policies also have not established in X Company. If they had an incident during the work process, there is only a small, irregular first-aid for minor wounds. And they should pay medical costs themselves. (Cloud, 1999)

The policies have no effect on the females’ benefits. However, why these rural women labours like to accept this kind of job? These women could earn some money from the seasonal jobs without concerning working conditions or other things. It is much better to earn some money than staying at home. X Company catches this kind of thought and hired the females with low cost.

Internal communication:
This company has the limited formal employment opportunities, especially for rural women. It promoted the supervisor among the countable male labours according to the whole company’s dominant traditional culture. There are only two women staffs at the management level in X Company. Although this company is national, women employees who do not expect to promote only occupy 4% of the total staff in agribusiness company. (Cloud, 1999) Not only male labours do not respect the two women staffs, but also women labours do not support them during the work process. Employees even thought that the two women staffs have relations with their male leaders and they got the positions though improper activities. Therefore, the unequal access to promotion and selection to middle level management affect the internal communication within X Company. It created conflicts between females in management and the labours. The working efficiency would be decreased by conflicts.

The gender policies in X Company were made by male leaders, and they could not consider women labours basic needs and proper requirements. For instance, a pregnant woman labour was afraid of reporting her supervisor that is about her situation because of the reassignment to work and a decrease in wage. This caused women labours limited communication opportunities become even few. They did not like to communicate with their employers. If they do not speak out their real idea, employers even could not get ways to know what their labours want. The distance in heart between employers and employees became even larger.

External communication:
These females could not blame unfair activities because they are only hired in limited job categories. If they feel uncomfortable and quit jobs, they could get no jobs and did not make any money for their families. They even get none status in families and society.

Solution
X Company should make long established policies on equal access to promotion, selection and training, flexibility in pregnant women labours, and consideration the reality in China. Then X Company would gain an important element in long-term company success. These polices will improve the image of the company in public. The government will pay attention to agribusiness industry, if it has well-organized

gender policies. The company will gain quality and efficiency labours from rural areas because of good polices and high benefits. The number of companies, which introduce X Company’s resources, will increase according to its good image and powerful effects in public.

(http://www.china-woman.com/gb/2003/03/31/zgfnb/lxlt/1.htm)

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Ⅲ.Tertiary Industry: joint venture

Though most of women who live in rural areas haven’t been educated or have less educated, there has been great progress in the implementation of women’s access to education in the urban areas. (see Table-4) Unilever that has a well-organised structure is a lead investor in Shanghai and its brands can be found everywhere in China.

Policy:
•An employee's own serious health condition in Unilever, which makes the employee unable to perform the function of his or her own position. (FitzGerald, 2000)
•Women may not be selected or promoted in the international organisation, if men who have same qualification because they cannot leave their family responsibilities. (FitzGerald, 2000)

Internal communication:
Men and women often differ in their communication styles in China. When it was held a corporate meeting in every morning in Unilever, John who is a marketing manager in Unilever finished his report. He told everyone in the meeting that the report, which was efficient, full of information, took him five weeks. However, after
Mary who is a Public Relation manager had done her report, she expressed intensively that she was so happy to complete it. The CEO found both John and Mary
made mistakes in their report. As a result, Mary apologised more often and sought advices from others more quickly than John did. It was easy found that women were more sensitive than men in face-to-face meeting. Therefore, companies put different males and females’ matches in different functional department.

External communication
Different products in Unilever have different advertisements in China to the different age, sex consumers who don’t simply speak the same tone at the same time. Unilever use the diversified advertisement to attract different customers. On the one hand, the target consumers of soy sauce brands are the whole family, including males and females will use their products everyday. So it was seen that most of the people who appeared in the advertisements were couples or families. On the other hand, there is no denying that the target consumers of skincare, detergent and household cleaning brands are females. The advertisements are designed to attract the consumers by creating a welcoming service environment through objects. Moreover, more beautiful and elegant women shown in the advertisement and express products those are excellent after using them. After watching the advertisements, most of women who feel welcome products that have own persuasive and are eager to try products. Gender policies should be considered not only for the company’s external target market, but also for company’s own female employees’ personal lives. It is a very important thing that women have a stable job. It has two sides of effects: on the one hand, women who earn some money not only can decrease family’s burden, but also can increase the social status. On the other hand, it is certainly that their behaviours would influence their children who can learn from their mother.

Also female staffs in big companies also face the situation how to balance the position between jobs and families. For example, a position in Marketing Department always needs business travelling. A woman has been in this position. Although her male boss believed that she had the abilities and suitable education backgrounds, she quit the job after being in the position a short time because of her family. As a modern woman, it is very hard for them to find balance between jobs and families. The key to balance the two factors may be not only need women’s own searching, but also need opportunities of time and companies, the whole society’s efforts.

Solution:
The joint ventures should create an open, transparent and honest environment in which women can flourish, it would provide important learning for inclusiveness of race, colour, creed, age and style. Companies should be sensitive to people’s needs and emotions, and try to make good relationship building and generous listening. It maybe comfortable with a matrix and ambiguity rather than singular command and control. The flexible, adaptable and responsive environment would give females more opportunities.

Companies should increase the education that women should stop feeling they have to be like men to succeed like men. This is going in the wrong direction. Do not seek to develop male strengths, just when female strengths may be in the ascent. All leaders, females and males, need to be skilled and confident in drawing on their emotional and spiritual sides. For companies, it is clear that they need more women in senior management positions today and in the future. For Unilever, it is clear that women are essential as a catalyst for the cultural change that Unilever requires to meet the path to growth.

Conclusion

These three aspects above discussed above were the basic situation, which existed in China now. There was a big gap between women in urban and rural areas. Almost 80% of Chinese women live in rural areas where they are more vulnerable to poverty, ill health and illiteracy, have larger families and less access to paid employment and social benefits. Many female farmers survive through farming have more surplus labour.

In contrast, women in urban areas who are considered “ learned and reasonable”, compare to their sisters in rural areas, always enjoyed respect. They usually work in the state-owned enterprises and multinational companies. Female employment rights are fairly well established, since those enterprises have long implemented the National Labour Law. However, some companies’ actual performance were not consistent with companies’ gender policies. Such as textile, a division of labour leads to the fact that women generally earn less than men, even through they are paid equally for doing the same job. Women employees who occupied the main number of total employees in textile have difficulties in claiming their lawful right; e.g. many women labours experienced a decrease in pay during maternity leave. The same situation also happened in international companies (e.g.Unilever). Some women who lack of professional knowledge and skills would encounter barriers to their participation in trades such as IT, finance and insurance. The gender imbalance in various jobs still exists no matter what companies’ policies are. Compared to men, only a few women are employed at policy-making level (e.g. X Company), management-level (e.g. Kui Mian Textile) and in well paid jobs or jobs that require a high technical standard. These facts have blocked women from giving full potential as important sources of productivity.

Recommendation

There were a lot of improvements in gender policies and actual performance in China-based companies. However, westerners still have the stereotype in China gender issues. For instance, an Austria company’s male CEO though it could be unwise to send a woman as an international consultant in China. The board of directors tended to think that in China women are not as well established in top careers as in Europe. Finally, this woman persuaded them and took up the position and did it very well. (Sivard, 1995)

Therefore, there should need three sides of efforts: companies, women employees-selves and government. Companies should absorb suitable ones to train and make chances for their improvements. The unconscious rules, which women’s professional positions are not as high as men’s mostly, should be corrected.

Companies’ actual performance should be as the same as what they were saying in policies. The relevant institutions should audit companies’ performance selectively.

In order to achieve gender equity and complete gender polices well, both men and women have to be involved. Women employees should prepare and be encouraged to increase self-confidence, skills and hence their competitive abilities.

Government and relevant institutions should audit and regulate companies’ gender policies. As China’s reform and opening up, government should add new regulations to make sure the law cater for the new circumstances and problems that are sure to solve. Because many women-related issues have resulted in heavy financial burdens for companies, Chinese government should consider that into “social insurance” and put the maternity insurance expenses into social planning. Ultimately, the female labours’ safety, health and equal employment would be implemented surely.

One important message that companies should understand that gender sensitivity does not simply enable women to gain more power, it is a matter of creating a better, more equal, steadier social development. If a company does not have an equal development of the whole employees, the company will never have a faster, sustainable development. Good gender policies benefit everyone and they would provide new challenges for new century’s women.

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References

1. China Statistics. (1998). Farm Women and the Structural Transformation of
Agriculture in Women and Farming: Changing Roles, Changing Structure.
(Pp. 281-299). Westview Press: Boulder.

2. Cloud, Kathleen. (1999). Gender and Agribusiness (GAP): Case Study on Cargill
Zimbabwe. International Programme and Studies: University of Illinois.

3. FitzGerald, Nail. (2000, October 22). China and World Trade Organisation. 2001
Report, [6 pages]. Retrieved Nov, 20,2003 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.unilever.com/news/speeches/2001

4. Sivard, Ruth. (1995). Women: A World Survey. World Priorities. Washington, D.C.

5. Smith, E. A. (2001). The role of tacit and explicit knowledge in the workplace.
Journal Of Knowledge Management, 5(4), 311-321.

6. United Nations. (1995). World’s Women 1995: Trends and Statistics. United
Nation: New York.

7. Zhao Min. (1999). The Employment of China Women Worldwide. China Women
Journal, [3 pages]. Retrieved Nov. 23, 2003 from the World Wide Web:
http://www.china-woman.com/gb/2003/03/31/zgfnb/lxlt/1.htm (http://www.china-woman.com/gb/2003/03/31/zgfnb/lxlt/1.htm)