As Xi Jinping consolidates power at China's 20th Communist Party Congress this week, Chinese women are not holding their breath for progress in gender equality.
Xi's decade as the party's general secretary has seen the number of women in politics and elite government roles decline and gender gaps in the workforce widen, academics and activists say. Feminist voices have also been muzzled and in recent years, the government has increasingly emphasized the value of traditional roles for women as mothers and carers, they add.
Mao Zedong, the founding father of the People's Republic, famously said "women hold up half the sky" and gender equality is enshrined in the country's constitution.