Depressing article in ChinaFile about gender discrimination in China.  According to the official government “feminist organ,” an outrageous 91.9% of female students have experienced employment discrimination based upon their gender.

Examples of ads for jobs on employment websites are blatantly discriminatory:  one required “a pretty woman with height no less than 1.7 meters,” and an ad for a university counselor position required someone who “must be a male, under 26-years-old if holding a master degree or under 29 for a Ph.D., and must be unmarried.”

One female graduate’s experience was highlighted in the article – she heard nothing when she applied through a recruiter for a clerk position at a cooking school until she read the job announcement:  “Applicants limited to male.”

The reason given to her for this discrimination was “the job required travel and some physically demanding tasks such as carrying the school director’s suitcases.”

“I felt very disappointed, like a deflated balloon,” she said – before she sued.

There is also great income disparity between the genders and it is getting worse —  “income for urban women is 67.3% that of men while women in the countryside make only 56% of what men make. “ One expert said that “Gender discrimination is ingrained and institutionalized in China.  It begins in school when girls have to get higher scores than boys to get into certain university courses. It continues in the workplace.”

All in all a pretty gloomy picture from a “peoples’ republic” that purports to venerate “labor.”