When students getting ready to graduate this year went round the job fairs hosted in the various universities in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, there was a shock for the girls. Again and again they came up against a "men only" barrier to recruitment.

A party of female students from the Shaanxi University of Science and Technology in Hanzhong City made the journey of some 400 km to the capital. But after visiting almost every employment stand they found only disappointment. Those responsible for recruitment would all too often only consider applications from boys. Discrimination was particularly prevalent in science and engineering. The girls spent several days in Xi'an. They bought a bundle of entrance tickets at five yuan a time but in the end they had nothing to show for all their hopes and expectations.

"The areas in which women can map out a career and make a living are becoming narrower and narrower," complained one girl college student.

Reasons for saying no to women

Gender discrimination in recruitment is most serious in the large stated-owned enterprises (SOEs). Here female applicants are firmly turned away. By comparison, the practice is much less evident in the private sector.

A member of staff with an SOE in northeast China explained, "It is just in the nature of the enterprise. In our organization the bulk of the work is not just sitting around in offices doing paper work it is workshop based. Women are simply not suited to the rigors of the shop floor and the hard physical work required in operating machines together with the lifting and carrying involved. In other words it is women's own physiological characteristics that restrict their career opportunities."

In addition there is a view commonly held by sales and marketing executives that they would be much more concerned about the personal safety of women employees as the work involves frequent business trips.

Then there is the belief that female recruits may soon get married and neglect their work as they devote all their energies to caring for family and child.

Students reject gender discrimination

In the eyes of many, such conspicuous gender discrimination in recruitment and employment is seen as both unreasonable and unfair. And what's more it runs counter to one of China's basic state policies, that of gender equality.

"The phenomenon is caused by still deep-seated traditional concepts that value men and belittle women," said a male student with the surname Xiao from the Xi'an Institute of Finance and Economics.

"Faced with increasing competition brought about by the market economy, some enterprises only consider their own narrow interests and reject female applicants. However they are missing the point that women are indivisible from the future of society and represent an essential part of corporate culture," said Xiao. "So the enterprises who say no to women lack both foresight and humanity. In terms of the wider interests of the enterprises this can only be seen as a matter of regret."

A student surnamed Cui from the Xi'an Institute of Petroleum said that some enterprises repeatedly claim that women are not fit for heavy physical labor. But the reality is that heavy lifting, carrying and loading are not always involved. Most of the work today is no more strenuous than pressing buttons and throwing switches or is just plain brainwork.

Although disappointed by encountering the "men-only" practices, a few girl students didn't flinch. One girl from the Shaanxi Normal University said to the recruiters, "I think I would make an excellent employee and I would really like this job, why reject me just because I am a woman?" Her courage and personality won the day for in the end the unit broke with convention and she got the job. So it is possible to buck the trend.

Students want stricter measures

Many college students consider gender discrimination to be totally unreasonable and unfair but they can see there are no measures in place to put an end to the practice.

A postgraduate student surnamed Xu from suggested that local governments should introduce stringent rules to stipulate a required ratio of women employees and take the necessary steps to ensure the enterprises complied. Xu would also like to see the various levels of government making use of economic and administrative leverage through the use of preferential tax polices to encourage the enterprises to recruit more women employees.