The percentage of women elected to government leadership positions is similarly troublesome in both China and the United States, said a former executive vice-president of CNN.

"It is unreasonable and strange. As the world's largest and second largest economies, the two nations should be first or second in the ratio of female leaders. The two nations should cooperate with each other to improve this situation," Gail Evans said on Thursday in Beijing. The US and China ranked 79th and 90th, respectively, in the percentage of women elected to government in the world in 2012, according to a United Nations report.

Evans' speech in Beijing took place at a conference hosted by POWER: Opening Doors for Women, a decade-old organization promoting and developing women leaders. On its first visit to the capital, the organization is hoping to change the way women leaders are regarded in society.

"Although female leaders have played an increasingly important role in society, yet it is not that prominent in many places. I think the biggest challenge is that compared with males, who always push and help each other, females are more individual," she said.

She and the organization called upon American and Chinese women to cooperate and further their influence in society. About 100 women leaders from both nations participated in the conference, called POWER Beijing, to discuss the challenges and opportunities for working women.

Evans said it is important for a woman to be an individual, but it is more important to play like a team to win in today's society. "Take the United States and China, for instance. Female leaders from the two nations share more similarities than differences and we can learn from each other," Evans said.

She said the biggest differences between women from both nations are rooted in culture. Chinese culture teaches Chinese women not to promote themselves, to be quiet and hard working, while the American culture teaches women to be upfront. The tradition of being humble and obedient to authority is much more prevalent in Chinese society than in the West.

"Besides the cultural differences, it is the same in China and the United States that the higher the positions for women, the harder for them to get promoted in male-dominated societies," Evans said.

Women today still face great gender inequality in society. Women occupied 16.6 percent of the seats on boards of directors at Fortune 500 companies last year, according to Catalyst, a nonprofit membership organization providing research, information and advice about women at work. It also said that in both 2011 and 2012, less than one-fifth of Fortune 500 companies had 25 percent or more women directors, while one-tenth had no women serving on their boards.

Deirdre Joy Smith, founder and president of POWER, said at the conference that it is very important for women leaders from the two countries to learn from each other.

"The significance of this conference is to bring female executives in China and the US together and to share with their practices, so that we can learn from each other since we have some common challenges," Smith said.

She said for both American and Chinese women leaders, it is hard to strike a balance between work and life. There is glass ceiling for women in both nations, she added.

"I think women in the two nations have shared interests and have the desire to get the opportunity to lead. We are interested in our shared aspects and promote more women leadership growth," Smith said.

Contact the writers at huhaiyan@chinadaily.com.cn and chenyingqun@chinadaily.com.cn