Exploring the Effective Approaches for Chinese Rural Women to Participate in Community Governance

Abstract

In the research on the rural women’s political participation, it concerns why they participate in community governance and how we can ensure their real participation. With a case study of Zhoushan Village’s experience in successfully promoting the empowerment of rural women so that they may truly participate in community governance and then proceed to promote structural reform in the community, this paper examines the effective approaches taken over the past decade for rural women’s participation in community governance, and the far-reaching effects that their participation has had on individual and family status, the economy, society and culture. The experience of Zhoushan Village, which has been the result of interaction, is global and local, original and contextual, co-created and accepted by local women and villagers together. It will make a special contribution to good governance of rural communities in the transitional period of social governance in rural China.