At the heart of the criticism was a complaint from Xu Xin, a 20-year-old actress who accused Han of discriminating against women in the song's lyrics.

"When young boys hear the song they will be influenced and will very probably discriminate against women," Xu said.

Before marrying me, you must know this: Every day, you must get up earlier than I, sleep later than I; you must cook good meals for me and keep good relations with my mother and my sisters.

This is what Han wrote in the song.

"Nowadays, women do not need to place their hopes on men, or prove themselves based on their husbands' love," Xu said.

For Xu, Han's message in the song is outdated. "Maybe decades ago, women might have chosen to keep silent when they came across such a song. But now, the idea of gender equality has been deeply rooted in people's minds and many women are standing up and expressing their own ideas," she said.

Gender equality has been widely recognized in China. According to a survey by Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau, 94.1 percent of the respondents believe that women and men are playing equal roles in social development. Some even believe that women are playing bigger roles than men.

Internet-related figures also indicate women's rising social status. A total of 67 percent of the users of Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like microblogging platform, are women, according to Weibo statistics. Figures from Alibaba, the e-commerce giant, show that women in China contributed to 70 percent of online sales in 2016.

"Though there are some cases gender inequality, it is true that women's social status has been greatly improved over the past decades," Xu said.

Thanks to the increase in people's awareness of gender equality, women know how to protect their rights and interests when they come across discrimination and China has enacted laws and regulations to safeguard women's rights.

Based on the provisions of the Constitution that women should enjoy equal rights with men in all spheres of life, in political, economic, cultural, social, and family life, China set gender equality as its basic state policy in 1995.

Since then, great progress has been made in this regard, said Song Xiuyan, Vice President of the All-China Women's Federation, in a symposium on gender equality in Beijing in December.

Over the past 20 years, more than 20 laws and regulations related to the protection of women's rights and interests have been enacted and revised. They include the Marriage Law, Employment Promotion Law, Law on the Protection of Rights and Interests of Women, and Special Regulations on the Labor Protection of Female Employees. In March 2016, the Anti-Domestic Violence Law became effective.

Putting the laws into practice has also made progress. According to Gender Equality and Women's Development in China, a white paper issued by the State Council in September 2015, the gender gap in education has been markedly narrowed.

Women now enjoy better opportunities in junior middle school education and above. Statistics from the white paper show that in 2014, female students accounted for 46.7 percent and 50 percent, respectively, of the total enrollments in junior and senior middle schools. In institutions of higher learning, they accounted for 52.1 percent of undergraduate students, 51.6 percent of postgraduate students, and 36.9 percent of those studying for doctoral degrees.

Having received better education, women are playing bigger roles in the management of state and public affairs.

Obstacles in mind

Despite the progress shown in these figures, obstacles still exist when it comes to improving women's social status, especially in their career development.

According to the 2016 Women, Work and Happiness White Paper released by Lean in China, an online platform promoting gender equality and women's career development, most women believed that the major challenges they face in their career development are work-family life balance (86.3 percent), career disruption due to child bearing (73.63 percent) and responsibility at home and supporting their husbands (70.42 percent). The white paper noted that 63.2 percent of married women took the main responsibility in child rearing.

"It's easy to promote gender equality through measures such as policies and laws, but it is difficult to change the discrimination deep in people's mind," said Liu Li.

Liu, 40, had been a lecturer in a local university in Xiamen, a coastal city in southeast China's Fujian Province, for 11 years. But just before this Chinese Lunar New Year, she resigned and found a job in a small company so that she could have more time to take care of her 3-year-old son.

"I am well educated and can have a good job, thanks to the progress made in gender equality in the past years," Liu said. "But I have the feeling that when I try to take care of my family, I cannot do well in my career, and vice versa."

Because of these family responsibilities Liu had lost several promotion opportunities. "In order to take care of the family, either the husband or the wife has to sacrifice his or her career," she said. "In most circumstances, it is the wife."

Liu's husband is also a teacher at the same university and was recently promoted to professor. "I am a traditional woman and I know I must quit my job in order to take better care of my son so that my husband can put more time into his work and make greater progress in his career," Liu said. "I don't know whether it is a kind of gender inequality, but I made the decision myself."

Because women take maternity leave after giving birth, many companies and institutions are reluctant to recruit women.

In China, women are entitled to 98 days of paid maternity leave. In 14 provinces and municipalities, extra parental leave are permitted. These regulations revised to better implement the Family Planning Law, however, have become the reason for some companies and institutions to find excuses to fire women employees.

"They do not want to shoulder extra costs and would rather hire men, who can work all year round," said He Zhen, a lawyer of Beijing Zhicheng Legal Aid and Research Center for Migrant Workers. "This is against the law and women should collect evidence and sue related companies or institutions once they encounter such discrimination."

Starting from January 1, 2016, China implemented the two-child policy, allowing all couples to have two children. "In this context, more efforts should be made by both the government and social organizations to better safeguard women's rights and interests," He said.

He said that both husband and wife should take equal responsibilities in raising their children, instead of putting the responsibility only on the wife. "We still have a long way to go to change people's minds in this regard and realize gender equality in the real sense."

China's Commitments to Promoting Gender Equality on the World Stage

At the Global Leaders' Meeting on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment at the United Nations headquarters in New York City on September 27, 2015, President Xi Jinping announced the Chinese Government's commitment to support gender equality efforts worldwide from 2016-20. The support includes:

- Donating $10 million to United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women;

- Helping developing countries carry out 100 Health Projects for Women and Children and 100 Happy Campus Projects;

- Inviting 30,000 women from developing countries to attend training programs in China; and

- Providing 100,000 skills training opportunities in local communities of developing countries.

Copyedited by Francisco Little

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