Yang Guocai: 'Full of Strength' for Promoting Minority Women's Development

Yang Guocai, a Chinese academic specializing in gender studies and women from ethnic minorities. [China Women's News]

Yang Guocai is a Chinese academic specializing in gender studies and women from ethnic minorities. She comes from the Bai ethnic minority in Dali, southwest China's Yunnan Province. In 1995 she was the main spokesperson of the forum "Harmony and Common Development of Yunnan Ethnic Populations" at the U.N.-backed Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.

At the event she introduced the condition of minority women's education and development in Yunnan. She put forward the opinion that minority women's education is like a pyramid which has great foundation base and small apex of higher education. She appealed for Chinese society to pay close attention to minority women's education and development, arousing much concern among all women at the conference.

"My parents gave me the name Guocai in the hope that I could contribute to our country," she says. "After the conference, I was deeply inspired by its spirit; my life also changed track. From an ordinary Bai ethnic woman I have grown to become a professor and PhD supervisor of Yunnan Minzu University, and three-time consecutive member of the National People's Congress Standing Committee."

The following excerpts are from Yang's recent interview for China Women's News.

Tasted all the joys and sorrows for the dissemination of the gender equality concept

I started to study the production and living conditions of minority women in the 1980s, and gradually developed into research on minority women's existence and development, moral standards, education, and rights protection. I didn't have gender equality awareness at that time.

Female Hong Kong activist Wong Yuen-Ling interviewed me after the conference. I proposed three questions in that conversation as follows: how could women get access to education? How could they participate in political activities? How could they be empowered?

Inspired by the Beijing Declaration and Program of Action, I began to try to spread social gender theory, promote the discipline, and bring gender equality concepts into the universities, for example, by running a gender study and social gender course in the colleges of Yunnan. I gave a speech on female role-reversal and a speech on minority women's participation in political activities, both on Yunnan TV.

In order to better popularize social gender theory, by following the lead of Peking University, Yunnan Minzu University began to enroll post graduate students in gender study courses in 1999, and established gender study and social gender graduate programs. Since I became a master's tutor, I have tried to enrich my teaching content with profound theoretical knowledge and rich practical experience, and pass on the latest academic trends of women's issues both at home and abroad to students. I introduced social gender perspectives into the classroom, tried valiantly to apply feminist methodology in the opening class, and created a teaching paradigm combining social science with medicine. My students were praised for their strong abilities, and 30 of them got doctorates. They are all promoting gender equality with their actions.

Actually, I have tasted many ups and downs in the process of discipline construction and gender mainstreaming. We struggled for survival against the traditional stereotypes when we were setting out research director, during enrollment, curriculum design, and during the opening of the gender study course. We originally enrolled students majoring in the study of minority women's in southwest China, and later found that the direction was too narrow.

After opting for a multidisciplinary approach and methodology, we renamed the course to women's studies. But after a few years, a student proposed three questions as follows: Do you recruit male students as a female? Do you recruit majority Han nationality students to teach about minorities? Do you recruit northerners to teach about southerners? Problems about gender, nationality and region are contained in these few words. After careful consideration and repeatedly testing our ideas, we finally determined the direction of enrollment should be gender sociology. The direction has been tied to the doctoral program construction of the social science department since 2002. With the great efforts of all the staff, Yunnan Minzu University approved to construct a doctoral department on sociology and began to enroll students in 2013.

Being exposed to the forefront of academic studies, I have a bound duty to promote the development of ethnic women's issues. Besides establishing a master's course on women's studies, I have set up minority women and social gender research center. It became a scientific research center for teachers and students from all ethnic groups in China, and became one of the country's 21 "women and gender study and training bases".

Do as much as possible as a minority female intellectual

As a minority female intellectual, I pay special attention to the unity and harmony between the ethnic groups in China, minority women's development, social hot spots and difficult issues. As a consequence, I went to minority regions and listened to people's voice at closer range, and spared no effort to help them. I have written hundreds of articles about the nationality and women's research, and published more than 10 books on minority women's unique knowledge and culture. I also edited "multidisciplinary perspective to deal with AIDS" and introduced the ethnic minorities' traditional culture in preventing the spread of AIDS. It played an important role in AIDS prevention in minority areas.

The U.N. conference's spirit inspired me to introduce Yunnan minority women's development through academic activities at home and abroad. I organized and held the international seminar "The Development of Yunnan Minority Women in 21st Century" in 2001. I was also successively invited by Harvard University to participate in their World Conference on Women's Affairs. I introduced minority women's education, health and political participation, and environment protection at the conference.

Women deputies in the Nation People's Congress were usually treated as decoration in the past. I think women deputies are also responsible for offering suggestion. As a NPC member, I strived to promote the development of minority women. I also appealed to the government to empower women to participate in political activities, and made suggestions to eliminate gender inequality. I have also donated a shelter for students in Yunlong Mountain, and strived for financial support for poor students from mountainous areas.

As the daughter of the Bai people, I am happy and full of strength to make further contributions to the development of minority women.

(Source: China Women's News/Translated and edited by Women of China)