Xu Fengqin had already spent 15 years as chair of the women's federation in Qinhuangdao, a city in China's northeastern Hebei province, when she was appointed as the deputy director of a local industry and commerce agency.

But she was never able to assume her new post because some male colleagues were apparently jealous of her promotion and somehow managed to have her records tampered so that she would appear too old to take the post. According to China's personnel policy, women officials are expected to retire at age 55.

Xu, who is now just 52, did not put up a fight and simply quit officialdom altogether. But she did head for the Rural Women Knowing All Training School in Beijing so that, she says, other women in the countryside would not share her fate.

Xu says that she no longer cares that she was unable to become an agency deputy director. What she wants now, she says, is to "reach a large number of rural women and train them to fight against gender discrimination and for an equal say in policy-making".

That may be quite a task. Central Party School professor Li Huiying says of China's rural women, "Their voice is almost always absent in a rural community, as though they had not been in existence."

To be sure, there is at least one woman in the leading body of each Chinese province, autonomous region and municipality, and women make up more than a third of this country's bureaucracy.

Women get pushed around

But in the rural areas, even those in high positions tend to get pushed around, just as Xu was. Worse perhaps is the fact that in the countryside, it is rare to find women in politics.

"The percentage of women's representation in leading bodies of various levels is still low," observes Wu Qin, who heads the school where Xu is now the executive principal. "Traditionally in the shadow of men, many rural women in China are not conscious of their right to be involved in politics."

"If their voice is not heard," continues Wu, "their interest and rights cannot be well recognised, or rather to the contrary, their interest and rights could be violated from time to time. This eventually will handicap the attempt (of China) to develop."

Stand up for rights

Official statistics show that of China's rural population of 870 million, about 52.09 percent are women, or 450 million. Wu argues that it is, therefore, important to teach rural women how to stand up for their rights if China is to move forward.

"The changing of rural women could promise a better country in a long run," she says. "Because a woman means a mother who could influence a family and (the) family is a core component of the country."

The ultimate goal of the training school, which is actually run by the Rural Women Knowing All magazine, is to ensure that this happens.

Recently, its efforts got a major boost when the US-based International Republican Institute decided to fund the school's Rural Women's Political Participation programme.

The programme was launched just last month and runs for seven days and is aimed at heightening the political awareness of rural women. The school hopes that this would then encourage the women to become politically involved in their communities.

This early, participants who have completed the course are all praises for it.

One of them is Zhao Yanhui, a mother of two from Yangzhuangcun village, who now plans to gather together her fellow villagers — women first — as soon as she gets home, and exhort them to keep a close eye on the next election of village officials.

In previous village polls, she says, some candidates running for a position had been suspected of buying votes. But villagers used to just keep silent even when they knew something fishy was going on, says the 49-year-old.

With what she has learned from the training, Zhao says that "we won't let the illegal tricks to continue in our village election".

She also says that she would tell potential candidates, as well, to stick to legal means in wooing voters.

Big step forward

That may not sound much to some people, but Wu Qin says enabling rural women feel that it is their duty and their right to speak up for themselves is already a huge step forward.

"We don't expect them to be all politically ambitious and chase after an official position," says Wu, who also happens to an outspoken deputy to the Municipal People's Congress of Beijing.

"But," she adds, "we want them to become politically active and honour their citizens' rights to supervise the government's performance, like what Zhao Yanhui is going to do."

The training is not about how to win an election, or snag a leading seat on the power structure, says Li Tao, director of the programme. Rather, she says, "it's about casting off the conventional concept that women are inferior to men. This concept has shackled women's minds and kept them from taking an active part in public and political affairs".

"We try to convince the rural women participants that political involvement is actually exercising their democratic rights," says Li. "It seeks to get them to shoulder their political responsibilities."

Barriers

The programme also tries to alert the participants to the visible and invisible barriers for rural women to participate in politics, such as time — of which a prime example is executive director Xu's experience.

So far, about 40 women from various villages across Mancheng, a county in Hebei, about 150km southwest of Beijing, have completed the programme.

Li Yinghui, who at 19 was the youngest among the participants, says that the training has made her all the more determined not to follow the footsteps of her sisters, who both married young.

"It's very common for rural women to pin their hope for a good life on a good marriage and a good husband," she says. "But...my sisters, just like many other women in our village, become more silent after marriage. They always listen to their husbands, and don't speak out for themselves."

A group of 160 women belonging to the ethnic minority known as Man, from northern Hebei's Qinglong county, are now receiving the same training from the school.

Meanwhile, the women of Mancheng will be part of a micro-lending project, scheduled to start later in the year, aimed at enhancing economic independence.

"A micro-credit programme for rural women could be an important source of getting prosperous," says Li Tao. "They can use the loan to start a farm for organic fruit and vegetables. When they do well economically, they may win over men to their side more easily."