BEIJING - For Zhu Xixi and some other young Chinese women and a few men, the detailed questions about women's menstrual cycles during government-mandated medicals for civil service hopefuls were too much.
Last week, about 10 people, including Ms. Zhu (the name is her online handle, a pseudonym she often uses to protect her identity for fear of repercussions), took to the street outside a government building in the central city of Wuhan, dressed in outsized underpants they'd made out from plastic sheeting with the character for “examination†crossed out on them, to dance their protest.
Holding banners saying: “What does your menstrual history have to do with becoming a civil servant?†and “I want to be a civil servant, not have a gynecological examination,†they sang and pranced in a display of the lightheartedness that is a hallmark of the “Volunteers,†a growing band of young, often highly-educated, people who are protesting the slipping state of women's rights in China, as I write in my Page Two Letter.
“We don't mind normal gynecological examinations, but this is too much,†Ms. Zhu said in a telephone interview. “It's a double standard. Men have their external sexual organs looked at, but for women it's very uncomfortable.â€
“For women who are unmarried,†a term Ms. Zhu said may be a euphemism for virgins, “they go through the anus to check the womb, to avoid going through the vagina. But what does the state of your womb even have to do with getting a civil service job?â€
Ms. Zhu last month applied to the government for more information.
Questions she wants answered include: How many female candidates are rejected for failing their gynecological examination? How is the women's privacy guaranteed? And what precisely is the purpose of th e examinations?
Instituted in 2005 to standardize physical criteria among future civil servants, the minutely detailed medical examiniation runs to 76 pages, according to a 2007 copy seen by this writer. In it, the government lays out exactly what it wants to know about a range of health issues, including the state of a woman's uterus, cervix and vagina.
Women must answer questions about when they first began menstruating, how long they typically menstruate for, how much blood is lost, whether it is painful and when their last menstrual period was. Sexually-transmitted diseases are a particular target, though this too Ms. Zhu said was unfair. “They are using sexually transmitted diseases to judge people's morals. And we really oppose that,†she said.
In a report, People's Daily online appeared to offer support to people who say the examinations are unfair and invasive. The report quoted a Wuhan-base d sexologist, Peng Xiaohui of Central China Normal University, as saying that any organization requiring such information about a person's sexual health, when it had nothing to do with their work, was exhibiting prejudice.
“With these special examinations for women you could almost speak of sexual violence,†People's Daily online quoted Mr. Peng as saying.
