When a male member of a recent Chinese co-operatives tour asked
Canadians how to overcome sexism in his country, he was advised to
check with Chinese women.
“I believe the women in your organizations will have many ideas of what
could be done,” said Michael Gertler of the Centre for the Study of
Co-operatives.
The University of Saskatchewan sociologist was speaking Oct. 4 to a
dozen Chinese on a tour organized by the Canadian Co-operative
Association. The tour of equal numbers of men and women represented
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Chinese co-ops, agriculture officials and academics.
Another Chinese man, speaking through a translator, told of his aunt
who looks after two children, two seniors and a small patch of land,
while her husband works as a labourer in another province. She has no
time to get involved in organizations or take courses.
The village could organize a day care for children and elders,
suggested Marilyn McKee, a director of Federated Co-operatives Ltd.
McKee said when FCL noticed that young people were not on boards of
retail co-ops, it put in place a young directors program that allows
youths to sit as advisers to the board and gain an understanding of how
it works.
However, when asked if boards should mandate places for women, McKee
said organizations run the risk of having unqualified directors. On the
same question, fellow panelist Rachael Moleski, a Saskatchewan Wheat
Pool delegate, said gender-based positions might work for some boards,
but not all.
In an interview, Yuan Peng, a female agricultural economist at the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said women are discriminated
against in some Chinese organizations because they are too much trouble.
“They have babies and develop personal relationships at work,” Peng
said she was told.
Chinese rural women have little time for organizations and are also
poor and lack education. Peng said farm families tend to have three or
four children but educate the sons first. She said all the Chinese
women on this tour had university educations and were from cities.
She cited reality for rural Chinese people is “for the man, the most
important thing is to get a good job. For girls, the most important
thing is to get a good husband.”
