A voice for women's issues

Almost every March since 2018, Jiang Shengnan's name has appeared in the hottest topics section on micro-blogging platform Sina Weibo. The 51-year-old member of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Kuomintang was a deputy to the National People's Congress from 2018 to 2022, and has been a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference since 2023. She often made headlines for the motions and proposals she submitted to the two sessions and other political meetings.

In 2020, Jiang suggested dropping the"cooling-off" period before divorce mentioned in the draft of the Civil Code, because the rights of the weaker side in a marriage— more often than not the women— could be further harmed. For example, one party might use the period to hide assets, maliciously incur debt, escalate abuse or destroy evidence of misconduct, leaving the other party in an even more dire situation, she told media.

For the two sessions in 2022, she proposed a motion to improve maternity and paternity leave. In interviews, Jiang said that people should remain alert to the discrimination against women in the job market as a result of prolonged maternity leave, and suggested increasing paternity leave for fathers.

Her proposals have provoked wide discussion. Other suggestions have included reducing the workload for grassroots civil servants using big data, canceling the upper age limit of 35 for the employment of civil servants, and employers strictly observing the 8-hour day, instead of making employees work long hours.

"What we NPC deputies and members of the CPPCC care about is often what the people care about. What we should do is to deliver on what concerns people, and propose more targeted and feasible solutions to solve problems and implement policies," she said during this year's two sessions, which ended on March 11.

Born in 1973 in Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang province, Jiang is the third and youngest daughter in the family and her name, Shengnan, translates as"better than men". She was a bookworm as a primary school student and often spent what she calls"a colorful day" at the school library, reading one or two books a day, nourished by steamed stuffed buns and a bottle of water.(Yang Yang)