CRI听力:Global Summit of Women Concludes Today

The 20th Global Summit of Women, or GSW, closed Saturday in Beijing. During the three-day event, more than 1,000 female delegates from all over the world discussed diverse subjects regarding women's roles in the business area. They used their own experiences to prove women can be successful in their careers and in their life at home. Tingting has more.

Women are playing an important role in the family; they give birth to children and raise them, and manage a great deal of housework on top of everything else. The common stereotype has always been that women cannot perform well when it comes to a career. However, the delegates in the GSW, consisting mostly of entrepreneurs, have shared their experiences and have proven that even as mothers, they can still be very successful in business.

In China, women are actively participating in all social areas. Yang Lan, Co-Founder and CEO of Sun Media China, says according to their survey, Chinese women have a strong desire to be successful in their careers.

"Even though their husbands or boyfriends can support them financially, they still choose to work, because they want to have financial independence, they want to have a sense of fulfillment, the sense of value to society, and also the freedom of controlling their own time and money. So you find women, even after marriage or childbirth, still come back to work. That's very popular in all the urban areas in China."

But in most countries throughout the world, women are still facing various obstacles in their careers. According to Marilyn Johnson, vice president of the IBM Corporation says the biggest barrier actually comes from women themselves.

"Stereotypes, cultural environments, social standards, and ways of thinking from past generations; we can't grow if you don't allow change, change is absolutely necessary for growth. So I think the biggest obstacle is ourselves, thinking we can't do it, and we can. We can do it all. We just can't do it all at the same moment. We have to schedule and plan."

Some other delegates also suggest women should pursue a balance between family and career, and pursue help from individuals or from the community.

Irene Natividad, President of GSW, adds they will launch two new programs at this year's summit to help women starting their own business.

"We announced two projects. One is a program called 'Business Legacies', in which we want young people to be thinking of entrepreneurship as a career by bringing to them role models from their own countries or successful people who happen to be women. The other is called 'NGO's Lead'. It will be a training program that would enable NGOs to become sustainable organizations. If we strengthen and empower them, then they can do more for women."

During the summit, several global women's leadership awards were given to outstanding women leaders in all areas. The president of the All-China Women's Federation, Chen Zhili, was awarded the Great Woman Achievement Prize.

For CRI, I'm Tingting.