Woman wins sexual-discrimination case

A Chinese woman won her sexual discrimination case after a east China court ruled in her favor on Wednesday.

Xihu District People's Court in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, said a cooking school had violated the woman's right to equal employment and should pay her 2,000 yuan (about 323 US dollars) in compensation.

Guo Jing, a female college graduate, took Dongfang Cooking Training School in Hangzhou to court after it denied her job application on the basis that "the school only wants male employees" in late June.

Guo said she met all the school's requirements for the clerical post.

"We cannot keep silent any more," she said.

This is the second such case that has created a storm in the country.

Two years ago, a woman named Cao Ju sued a company individually for sexual discrimination and won. Cao was compensated 30,000 yuan in what has been called "China's first employment gender discrimination case",

A report from the All-China Women's Federation in 2011 showed that 56.7 percent of interviewed female college graduates said they had fewer opportunities than their male counterparts. Ninety-one percent of interviewees felt they had been victims of sexual discrimination from employers.

"Sexual discrimination is very common in the job market," Guo said, "I want to tell women to protect our rights through established legal weapons."