Summary of Activities of WGWIP in China-

since ICWP in March 2002


  1. Each member of the delegation wrote up a report of the International Conference on Women in Physics for her own affiliated institution, and from these reports we distilled a summary report for the Chinese Physical Society (CPS). As a consequence, the CPS Standing Committee agreed to set up a Working Committee on Women in Physics (WCWIP) as soon as possible. A draft of the Statutes for the WCWIP was drawn up, and passed by the Standing Committee after revision in September. The WCWIP was formally approved in December, with 11 members for the time being (including one male representative).


  1. At the annual Science Week exhibition held in May, Yicheng Xie prepared a photo of Mme Chien-Shiung Wu as well as a report of the Wu Chien-Shiung Prize named after her which is awarded by the Chinese Physics Society.


  1. Fang-Hua Li of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences was nominated for the L'ORÉAL awards for outstanding contributions by a woman in the Sciences of Condensed Matter. She actually won the award for the Asia region!


  1. The Sino-Italian Round Table on Women in Science and Technology was held in Beijing on June 24-26, 2002. Ling-An Wu gave a talk on "Women in Physics in China" based on the poster presentation of the Paris conference, and also mentioning the downward trend in numbers of women physicists and current difficulties faced as a result of recent new policies, such as age discrimination. Many attendants asserted that these problems were by no means special to women physicists but indeed pervaded all the other branches of science. Our group of participants from the Institute of Physics held a lively discussion afterwards and found that everyone had common feelings and views on these issues.


  1. The China National Radio held a half-hour interview with Ling-An Wu, Qi Huang (Inst of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Yicheng Xie (Beijing Polytechnic Univ, ICWP attendee, now WCWIP member), and Dongmei Gu (Manager of the Chinese Physical Society Office) on the topic “Physics cannot do without women”. This was broadcast on Aug 31, in the Midday Hour program.


  1. To promote the image of women as physicists Min Wang, headmistress of the Beijing Physics School (ICWP attendee) invited Yicheng Xie and Ling-An Wu to each give two 3hr lectures on "Fundamental Particles and Relativity" and "Wave-Particle Duality and Quantum Information", respectively. Two classes, over 100 students in all, of the 2nd Year Senior High attended. However, girl students only made up about 10%.


  1. Prof Baihong Liu, Deputy Director of the Institute for Research on Women was invited to present a talk on "Pressing Issues of Women Today" at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Physics on Nov 29. This was followed by Ling-An Wu's talk on "Problems faced by Women Physicists in China and the World", which included a summary of the Paris conference.


  1. Articles published in Physics (a journal in Chinese):

"Why is the number of women physicists in China going down?", Wu Ling-An, 31 (2002 Oct) 58.


Also, to appear in the March issue, 32 (2003):

"Summary Resolution on Enhancing the Role of Women in Physics" (Translation into Chinese of IUPAP's Resolution No 5 passed at the General Assembly in Oct 2002),

Announcement of the establishment of the WCWIP, together with its Statutes.

Article describing the accomplishments of several distinguished women physicists of the older generation in China.