On 8th of March 2021, the CESL community had a chance to celebrate together the International Women’s Day.

The online gathering concentrated on discussing how the new Chinese Civil Code, effective from 1 January 2021, enhances the position of women in China. We also looked at the existing shortcomings in this regard and possible ways to address them. The meeting was led by CESL Assistant Professor Monika Prusinowska. Among the specific topics discussed were: marriage, family and divorce aspects, sexual harassment and domestic violence.

The first part of the meeting looked closer at the situation of equality between men and women in light of the new provisions. The discussion here concentrated on two specific issues. The first one related to the cooling off period when filing for divorce - as envisioned in the Civil Code’s article 1077, and in particular on the problem of the potential unilateral withdrawal of the divorce application. The second one focused on the property division and compensation in case of divorces.  Here, we looked at the widely discussed case of Wang v. Chen laying the ground for the discussion on value of domestic work of one of the spouses.

The second part of the meeting concentrated on the problem of sexual harassment. Article 1010 of the Civil Code offers the fuller framework and improves the situation by providing the new principles on what constitutes sexual harassment, expanding the scope of recipients to include men, and introducing specific obligations and potential liability for employers in this area. However, it remains to be seen how the provision will be interpreted and enforced in practice, as some of the issues are not fully clear. For example, it is not fully understandable how employers can be held liable for failing to meet their obligations under Article 1010.

The third part focused on the issue of domestic violence. Here, we discussed both Article 1042 of the Civil Code as well as China’s Domestic Violence Law. We looked at the related legal landscape in China through the prism of the case of Yuya, the Chinese beauty vlogger currently sharing her story of abuse by her former partner.

In the final part of the gathering, we talked about practical and individual difficulties related to all the issues introduced above. The meeting participants raised a lot of important issues and questions related to, among others, discrimination at work place and period shaming. We found the words of Maggie Kuhn, American activist: “Speak your mind, even if your voice shakes” quite helpful in this regard.

We concluded talking about the importance of taking care of health, both physical and mental, as well as pondering over the words of the feminist G.D. Anderson: “Feminism isn't about making women stronger. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength.”

Original text written by: Assistant Professor Monika Prusinowska