On December 20, 2021, the law of the people's Republic of China on the protection of women's rights and interests (Revised Draft) was submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for deliberation for the first time. This law, which was promulgated in 1992, was revised again, which aroused great concern. During the period of soliciting opinions from the public, the public put forward more than 320000 opinions and suggestions. The current law on the protection of women's rights and interests has 61 articles. The first review of the revised draft has revised 48 articles, deleted 1 article and added 24 articles, which is considered to be no less powerful than the old law and the new law—— Give every "she" strength by law When it comes to the protection of women's rights and interests, people's earliest memory may be the marriage law passed in 1950. This law took the lead in clarifying the principle of equality between men and women, completely overturned the traditional marriage of "parents' orders and matchmakers' words", and broke the feudal marriage and family system that has existed for thousands of years. After the implementation of the marriage law, China's laws and regulations began to widely include provisions to protect women's rights and interests. The labor insurance regulations passed in 1953 have made special provisions on maternity insurance and pension subsidies for female employees; The electoral law enacted in the same year stipulates that gender equality has the right to vote and stand for election; The constitutional law adopted in 1954 established the principle of equality between men and women in the sense of fundamental law. There are some rights and interests that we are used to now. When we look back at history, we will find that they are clarified in the form of law. As a basic consensus of society, it is not long ago. For example, the organic law of the villagers' Committee issued in 1987 made it clear that there must be appropriate women members in the village committee; The Civil Procedure Law promulgated in 1991 stipulates that women enjoy equal litigation rights and perform their obligations. After the implementation of these Provisions scattered in different laws, on April 3, 1992, the law on the protection of women's rights and interests officially came out, covering economic, political, cultural, personal, property, labor, marriage and other rights and interests and safeguard measures, and integrating the protection of women's rights and interests involved in the constitution, civil law, criminal law, labor law, marriage law and other laws into one law. "The law on the protection of women's rights and interests is the only law specifically based on women's rights and interests and explicitly protecting women's rights and interests from a gender perspective. Its effectiveness level is second only to the constitution." Zhao Shukun, a professor of human rights law at Southwest University of political science and law, is committed to the study of women's rights. She explains the status of the law. After the fourth World Conference on women was held in Beijing in 1995, China's legislation on the protection of women's rights and interests presented a new situation. One of the important contents is the revision of the law on the protection of women's rights and interests in 2005. This revision adds "the implementation of equality between men and women is the basic national policy of the state" to the general provisions, so that the basic national policy of "the implementation of equality between men and women" has a legal guarantee; Clearly put forward the goal of "eliminating all forms of discrimination against women"; It stipulates that "the State Council shall formulate the outline for the development of Chinese women and incorporate it into the national economic and social development plan", so that the protection and development of women will receive the continuous attention of the state. The issue of sexual harassment, which received renewed attention in the 2021 revision, was also explicitly raised for the first time in the 2005 Revision. 1. From personal rights to personal rights The breakthrough from principles to specific provisions is also reflected in the revised draft. Compared with many articles that respond to social hot spots, one major change that is not easy to be seen by the public is that the revised draft defines gender discrimination for the first time. The Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women adopted by the United Nations in 1979 is regarded as the "International Declaration on women's human rights". China became one of the first countries to sign the Convention in 1980. In order to implement the spirit and requirements of the Convention, the revised draft defines the connotation of "discrimination against women", that is, "exclusion and restriction based on gender". Several types of long-standing discrimination are explicitly listed in the list prohibited by law, which is conducive to identification in practice. For example, unless otherwise stipulated by the state, in the recruitment (employment) process, the employing unit limits men or stipulates that men have priority; Restrictions on marriage, childbirth and marriage and childbearing status shall be taken as the conditions for recording (employment). According to Fang Yan, deputy to the National People's Congress and vice president of Shaanxi Lawyers Association, the biggest highlight of this revision is to amend Chapter VI of the current law "personal rights" to "personality rights and interests". In the two sessions in recent years, Fang Yan submitted many suggestions on protecting women's rights and interests. She feels that most of the problems faced by women are generated in social communication, involving human nature, ethics and many other aspects, which itself has its complexity. With the development and change of social economy, new forms have been derived. For example, in recent years, social events that harm women's physical and mental health through non violent means such as mental control, and the problem that women suffer from intimate relationship violence in the absence of marital relationship. The draft raises the "personal rights" in the current law to "personal rights and interests", which reflects the protection of women from personal safety to human dignity. Behind this change, "the major contradiction in our society has undergone major changes, which has been transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and insufficient development. The corresponding legal system and governance mode will be changed. Social laws such as the law on the protection of women's rights and interests will play an increasingly important role in the whole legal system." Nie Zhenzhen, a lecturer in the Department of women's studies at China Women's college, said that personality rights and interests are an expression of the right to a better life. Women pursue not only material rights and interests, but also ideological, emotional, psychological and spiritual rights and interests. 2. From local practice to legal provisions In the context of the new era, at the two sessions of the National People's Congress in 2020, deputies to the National People's Congress jointly put forward a proposal to amend the law on the protection of women's rights and interests. The feasibility of the amendment mainly includes "a large number of legal systems as support, many local legislative practices for reference, certain theoretical research reserves, good mass foundation and social consensus". A considerable part of the revised provisions have gone through a long local legislative practice. For example, one of Fang Yan's key concerns in the motion is that rural women (i.e. married women) and their children who have married abroad for a long time but have their registered permanent residence in the local area cannot enjoy the same economic and welfare treatment as male villagers. "The household contract responsibility system of rural land is to contract and distribute land with the family as the unit. Then women must rely on the family if they want to obtain land rights and interests, but women have the characteristics of mobility at the time of marriage. Women's land depends on their mother's or husband's family, which will create some obstacles to the realization of rural women's land rights and interests." Nie Zhenzhen explained. In many villages, according to the traditional "village customs" and in the form of village rules and regulations, rural women, especially married, divorced and widowed women, are infringed from time to time in terms of land contract management right, income distribution right of collective economic organizations, land acquisition compensation right and identification of collective economic members. Although these village rules and regulations are contrary to national laws and policies, they are behind the traditional concepts that have been circulating for thousands of years. It is conceivable that it is difficult to really touch them. This situation was broken by Zhoushan village in Dengfeng, Henan Province, where the country's first village rules and regulations reflecting gender equality were formulated. The starting point for the change of this ordinary small mountain village is that in 2002, Henan Community Education Research Center implemented two projects here. Its foothold is to develop handicrafts and emphasize women's empowerment. In 2004, with the promotion of the center, "Zhoushan village women's Handicraft Development Association" was established. The promotion of economic status brought by labor skills is not only the basis of women's rights, but also the premise for them to participate in community governance. During this period, Henan Community Education Research Center conducted gender awareness training for members of the association and discussed gender topics in the village. In 2008, the "gender equality policy advocacy research group" led by Li Huiying, a former gender research expert of the Central Party school, helped Zhou Shan revise village rules and regulations. With the support of the research group, Zhoushan village committee and villagers' representatives went to Dengfeng to participate in the seminar on Revising village rules and regulations. Jing Xiufang, President of Zhoushan village women's handicrafts development association, was invited to participate as a women's representative. At the meeting, she "spoke out for a long time". Finally, through discussion and voting, the provisions on gender inequality were revised. In the next 10 years, this pilot practice was carried out in nine provincial villages such as Changfeng County, Anhui Province and Jing'an County, Jiangxi Province, and continuously extended to other areas through the network of women's federations, women scholars and community workers. Xue ninglan, director of the social law office of the Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the gender and Law Research Center, once wrote an article that the implementation measures of the law on the protection of women's rights and interests in many places have successively established specific measures to improve women's ability to participate in politics. For example, the implementation measures of Jiangsu Province specify that there should be more than one female member among the members of villagers' committees and residents' committees. In the villagers' Congress and residents' Congress, the proportion of women candidates for deputies shall not be less than 30%. Based on these long-term local experience, the revised draft makes it clear that the articles of association of villagers' autonomy, village rules and regulations, decisions of villagers' meetings and villagers' representatives' meetings and other decisions involving villagers' interests shall not infringe on women's rights and interests in rural collective economic organizations on the grounds of women's unmarried, marriage, divorce, widowhood and no male sex. More importantly, it also defines the responsibility of the grass-roots people's government to correct the contents that infringe on women's rights and interests in the articles of autonomy, village rules and regulations and decisions involving villagers' interests. 3. From bottom line protection to concept popularization The change of words, addition and deletion of sentences in the law change the scope of protection and enforceability of the law. The law on the protection of women's rights and interests constantly updates the concept of gender equality, but for a long time, it has been considered that publicity is greater than enforceability. Fang Yan believes that this revision focuses on increasing the relief measures when women's legitimate rights and interests are infringed, and strengthens this weakness. For example, although the current law on the protection of women's rights and interests stipulates that sexual harassment against women is prohibited, it does not specify the specific circumstances of sexual harassment, and the only way of relief is the sentence "injured women have the right to complain to units and relevant organs". "The revised draft makes it clear that employers should take measures to prevent and stop sexual harassment of women and cooperate with relevant departments to deal with it according to law, which has established an anti sexual harassment mechanism." Nie Zhenzhen said. In the provisions of the revised draft, we can also see the consideration of promoting the goal of gender equality in the long run. Policies involving women's rights and interests are often cross cutting. Whether the policies will aggravate discrimination against women after they are issued will directly affect the legitimacy of the policies themselves. In this regard, the revised draft adds a gender assessment mechanism to the legislation. Zhao Shukun introduced that the mechanism takes laws, regulations, rules and normative documents related to women's rights and interests as the evaluation object, and is designed from the aspects of evaluation responsibility subject and evaluation effect. The purpose is to reduce and eliminate gender blindness in the legislative stage and realize gender equality in legislation. This is a way to prevent gender discrimination from the source of system construction, and strengthens the guarantee function of the mechanism itself. We have also put forward many suggestions on the draft that has just been reviewed in the first instance. In view of the land rights and interests of rural women, Fang Yan suggested that local governments or relevant departments should increase the involvement of women's rights in the formulation and amendment procedures of village rules and regulations and resident conventions