A Chinese state-run company caused a stir by posting a job opening that suggested women's appearance as a selection criterion. According to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post (SCMP), a subsidiary of China's Railway Construction Corporation, located in Jiangxi Province in southeastern China, posted a job announcement late last month. As a condition for the announcement to seek office jobs, he suggested "a college graduate who must be a woman, has a pretty face, and has a good body."
Criticism poured out on the company, which openly posted sexist job openings. "China is still a long way off," "What do you do in college, plastic surgery is the only way to live," and others have already caused resentment among young people who are struggling with job shortages.
As criticism spread, the company withdrew the job posting and apologized, saying, "I used inappropriate expressions." However, regarding the background of the announcement, he explained, "It was because we needed a woman to serve tea to government officials and inspectors visiting the company," adding fuel to the controversy.
Public opinion worsened after the company's absurd explanation. Weibo, a Chinese social networking service (SNS), said, "Oh, by the way, men didn't have hands, did they? "Tea should be served by women," and other criticisms flooded. It was also pointed out that "explain why public officials who visited the company need pretty employees."
Chinese companies have been criticized by public opinion every time they issue a sexist recruitment notice, but they have rarely changed their gender-based hiring practices. Alibaba, China's largest information and communication company, posted photos of female models in a recruitment notice posted on Weibo in 2013 and said, "These are the goddesses of Alibaba employees. Competent at work but attractive in personal life, independent but not sensitive. Do you want to be a person of these goddesses, too?" It is not only hiring male employees, but also using women's appearance as a recruitment tool by allowing them to work with attractive women when they enter the company.
In 2016, Baidu posted a video saying, "I'm happy every day to work with beautiful girls," and posted a job posting saying, "I prefer men because I go on business trips often." Tencent ran a recruitment advertisement saying, "I came to Tencent because the female interviewer was very pretty." In 2018, several information and communication companies posted job openings saying, "We are looking for attractive female employees who can massage male programmers."
In response to criticism from Western media and international human rights groups, the Chinese government enacted a law banning job advertisements containing gender discrimination in 2019. However, it is known that not many companies are actually punished because they do not contain the requirements for gender discrimination.
Writer: Grace Jun
(Picture from Unsplash)
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