Women in China Leadership Fewer Than Under Mao: Chart of the Day

Women have lost clout in the Chinese Communist Party since Mao Zedong met Richard Nixon four decades ago, underscoring an erosion of “state feminism” in China as the gender gap in the U.S. Congress narrowed.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows the falling percentage of women in the ruling Communist Party’s Central Committee, a group of about 200 members that includes all seven men on the nation’s top decision-making body, the Politburo Standing Committee. Women accounted for 4.9 percent of the latest Central Committee unveiled last week, down from 7.6 percent in 1969, the year Nixon took office. Also shown is a ninefold surge in the number of women in the U.S. Congress during the same period.