Gender discrimination against Chinese female graduates in job-hunting

Comparing women's rights in the U.S. with women's rights in China is an exercise in apples and oranges. Even so, China's very first gender-injustice case has taken place, with the government settling. Progress? Maybe, maybe not. A little over a year later and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a bipartisan advisory group, has found that 87 percent of recent female college grads say there is still gender discrimination in the job-search process. 

将美国妇女的权益与中国妇女的权益相比较就像是非要把苹果和桔子拿来比较。不过，中国的第一例性别歧视案由政府判决结案了。这是进步吗？也许是，也许不是。中国有调查发现，87%的女大学毕业生表示，她们在找工作的过程中遇到过性别歧视。

Well, the whole thing is a lot more complicated than you might think.

整体的形势可比人们想像的要复杂得多。

First, there's the blatant nature of the discrimination. LOL level. Job ads specify they want tall, single and young (no older than 25) women for "pink collar" roles, aka secretaries. Men only, of course, for experienced or supervisory jobs. "They don't hide it. It's explicit," says Peter Kuhn, a UC Santa Barbara professor who did a study that showed 10 percent of job postings state a sex preference. Women also earn less and are required to have higher qualifications than men. China actually does have laws barring employment discrimination on the basis of gender. It just rarely enforces them. Indeed, in gender-equality rankings, China comes in at 87 out of 142 countries.

首先，这种歧视非常明显，很常见。招聘广告明确标出，要找年轻（25岁以下）高挑的单身女性做“粉领”，也就是秘书工作。而那些需要经验的工作或管理岗位就只招男性。“他们根本不加掩饰。写得非常明确。”加利福尼亚大学圣巴巴拉分校教授彼得·库恩说，他进行的一项研究显示，10%的招聘广告都会标明性别要求。相比男性，女性的薪水更低，而且还要有更高的资历。中国法律其实有关于禁止就业性别歧视的内容，却很少执行。的确，在性别平等排名上，中国在142个国家中排名第87。

Chinese society brands unmarried, educated lady city dwellers as "sheng nu" — leftover women. Sweet! And this sobriquet isn't a gift from Chinese frat boys. It started with the government, the same one with those anti-discrimination laws. State-run media started using the term in 2007 as fears began to ratchet up over the country's gender imbalance — the result of selective abortions and infanticide during China's three-decade-plus, one-child policy. Now there is an estimated 20 million male surplus.

现在，中国社会把那些受过良好教育的城市未婚女性称为“剩女”。而且这个称号还不是中国男性的发明。法学界建议制定反歧视法的同时提出了这个说法。国家媒体在2007年开始用这个说法，那时中国社会对性别不平衡问题出现了担忧。现在中国的男性大概比女性多出2000万。

"There is this dual situation; women are making gains and at the same time they have lost ground," says Cara Wallis, a communications professor at Texas A&M, who has studied gender dynamics in China. So basically, women in China have to choose: Fight for a career and get branded as a "leftover," or marry and stay home and abandon your career. Is there a door No. 3?

得克萨斯农业与机械大学通信学教授卡拉·沃利斯说：“出现了一种双重处境；女性在取得进步的同时也失去了一些东西。”他曾研究过中国的性别发展动态。基本上来说，中国的女性必须选择：在职场打拼，成为“剩女”，还是结婚退居家庭，放弃事业。还有第三条路吗？