Increasing inequities at work

Zhou Jin stood out among the 12 finalists on the smash-hit Chinese reality TV show “Win in China.”

It wasn’t so much her well-constructed business plan for a company that would place migrant workers in jobs.

It was that Zhou, 31, was the lone female contestant left to compete for $1.2 million in venture capital on the show’s finale next month.

Her unique status reflected a larger reality playing out beyond the cameras: Women are increasingly unequal partners in China’s new prosperity, trailing behind men as business owners and chief executives.

Some blame traditional Chinese chauvinism, peeking out from under a thin veil of egalitarian Communist rhetoric, for holding women back. Others say Western-style capitalism has brought Western-style inequities.

Observing the competition within “Win in China’s” miniature marketplace, executive producer Wang Lifen, the show’s creator, said she thought women might be losing out for lack of killer instinct.

“To be successful, you have to be like a man -- big brain, small heart,” Wang said. “But no one blames a man for that. Even women dislike women who are that way.”

China has a mixed history of promoting working women. When the People’s Republic was founded in 1949, the Communist Party promised women equal rights. The number of women working grew sharply, as did the numbers of female medical and engineering students.

In the Great Leap Forward, the government even attempted to “socialize housework,” establishing communal kitchens and preschools to enable women to perform other labor. All of that was superimposed, however, on thousands of years of culture in which women were valued largely for their childbearing abilities.

Despite Mao Tse-tung’s famous quote that women “hold up half the sky,” few attained positions of political leadership or reached the top levels at state-owned enterprises.

“History doesn’t disappear,” said Du Fangqin, a professor at the Women’s Studies Center at Tianjin University. “Even nowadays, people still have higher expectations for men. They get the jobs with more potential for advancement.”

Despite the odds, women have written some notable success stories as China has opened up to private business. Forbes magazine recently listed Zhang Yin, 49, founder of a Guangdong-based paper-recycling company, as China’s fifth-richest person. Zhang, with a fortune estimated at $1.5 billion, also owns a recycling business and a home in Southern California.

Five other women -- also self-made -- ranked among Forbes’ 40 richest people in China, in marked contrast to the top women on the U.S. list, who largely inherited their wealth.

Still, the fuss over Zhang and a short list of others masks a broader trend. Government data show that the income gap between men and women has actually widened in the last decade. Even urban, educated women make about 30% less than men. The gulf is widest in the private sector.

Peggy Yu, co-president of Dangdang.com, China’s largest online retailer, called the trend a hidden downside of the country’s economic reform.

The daughter of two engineers, Yu, 41, grew up in 1970s China accustomed to the sight of women working shoulder to shoulder with men.

Her first jolt of gender consciousness came in the U.S., where she earned a master’s degree in business administration at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

She worked for an American company after graduation and recalled attending a corporate function at which just two of the 200 executives invited were women.

“To me, that was kind of shocking,” Yu said.

Now, though, she is seeing the same ratios at conferences for top-level Chinese executives.

“It’s almost a reverse social progress,” she said.

About 1 in 5 Chinese entrepreneurs are women, most of them, like Yu, between the ages of 30 and 50.

Though no longer rarities, some female executives say they have had to work harder than men to win respect and get ahead. In a recent poll, almost half the men surveyed said they viewed women at work as inferior.

Zhou said the “Win in China” judges -- all men -- seemed to struggle with how to treat her, especially because she was visibly pregnant during the show’s taping.

“I felt like they didn’t give me hard tasks,” she said. “But that meant I couldn’t really show my skills. They also gave me tougher questions because they didn’t want to appear to favor me.”

Zhang Lan, 48, owner of the Beijing-based South Beauty restaurant chain, has been named one of China’s top 10 chief executives and has more than 4,000 employees. She said men seemed to find her success intimidating.

“That’s why I’m loyal to my husband,” she said, laughing. “I can’t get a boyfriend.”

Though gripped by a fervor for entrepreneurship and success that borders on the religious, China remains ambivalent about women generating enough independent wealth to overshadow men.

A survey of married men in Hainan province found that the majority did not want wives who out-earned them. Stories in Chinese media report about marriages breaking up when wives become career-oriented.

Many female entrepreneurs take pains to credit their spouses for progressive attitudes.

“I have the right husband,” said Lu Ang, founder of Guardian Online Auction Co., which sells art online. “He doesn’t want a wife who only does the housework. He used to say to me, ‘I don’t need a housekeeper.’ ”

There appears to be less hand-wringing about how female executives’ careers will affect their children.

“The have-it-all epidemic hasn’t quite spread to China,” Yu said. After launching her Internet company, she enrolled her son, Alexander, in an all-day kindergarten and hired a nanny.

“It’s OK if we’re very good managers and lousy housewives,” she said.

Many Chinese women Yu’s age endured family hardships far worse than having parents who put in long days at the office when they were young.

Yu lived with her grandparents when the government sent her mother and father to work in a remote factory.

As a teenager during the Cultural Revolution, restaurateur Zhang Lan was sent to the countryside when her mother, a civil servant, was branded an intellectual.

She draws strength from those experiences whenever she encounters obstacles and has seen other female entrepreneurs do the same.

“We have the virtue of perseverance,” she said.

Zhang Lan started her business with $20,000 that she earned working four jobs simultaneously for a year in Canada. Now, her company has 21 locations and plans to open restaurants in New York, India and Switzerland. “We are going to be the food industry’s Louis Vuitton,” she said.

Wang hopes her TV show about would-be entrepreneurs will help her become one herself. She has licensed the program’s concept and is negotiating to sell it to other countries.

Zhou has survived two more rounds on “Win in China” to advance to the last five. Even if she doesn’t snare the grand prize, she hopes her example inspires other women to believe they can compete and win.

“I think I’ve learned a lot,” Zhou said. “I hope there will be more female entrepreneurs in China who win more respect from others.”

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robin.fields@latimes.com