A two-year survey on China's media's coverage of women was presented by Xiong Lei, a reporter for Xinhua News Agency, representing the Capital Women Journalists Association of Beijing. Women appeared in only 4 percent (103 out of 2,980) of front-page newspaper stories in 10 major Chinese national newspapers in the month of December from 1992 to 1994. Women's bylines made up 12 percent of total front page stories. The Capital Association took their findings to the paper's editors to spur improvement. Only 9 percent of editorial board positions and 18 percent of middle-level management jobs at newspapers are held by women. It's no accident that the study technique is similar to the one used by the Women, Men, and the Media in the U.S., a group chaired by Nancy Woodhull and Betty Friedan. Woodhull, in fact, had shared the format with the Chinese women when she was in China three years earlier. In Huairou, Woodhull and Friedan told more than 150 NGOs and reporters how to do their own surveys.

-- Peggy Simpson

Go to Beijing '95: Special Report.