Topless 'college students' call for gender equality  

Six women stage a topless on-campus protest in Guangzhou on Monday. [Photo / Guangzhou Daily]

(ECNS) – After nearly 10 months of fruitless job hunting, six "college students" took to the streets and staged a topless on-campus protest in Guangzhou on Monday.

Some people are questioning their real motives and calling it a show staged for commercial purposes.

A netizen speculated that the women are not college students, as they refused to identify themselves. Other netizens agreed, saying the women wore caps and sunglasses and were in uniform body paint and outfits – probably models hired by some commercial group.

The women started out wearing white T-shirts with slogans of gender equality and anti-discrimination and giving out fliers to college women passing by. When more people gathered, they took off their shirts and were covered only in body paint. After several minutes, they put on their clothes and started distributing fliers again.

The group leader surnamed Chen told Guangzhou Daily that they wanted to publicly call for gender equality in the job market.

Chen said she's been looking for a job since July but hardly gets a call back. She said most women in her class suffered from gender discrimination and haven't landed jobs yet.

One of the women in the protest said their idea ran into objections from family and their boyfriends. But later they started "understanding and supporting us," she said.

The protest took place outside of Guangzhou University of Technology. Students and teachers at the university were not happy about the undue attention brought about by the protest.

"Our students wouldn't do it in such a way," a student posted on Weibo, China's social media website.

Some netizens say being half-naked isn't an effective way to press for gender equality in the job market.

"What you've got was attention from guys passing by," a netizen wrote on Weibo. "Is that the so-called gender equality you were looking for?"