Parliament should have a certain quota of female representatives,” said a young woman. “And then what will you do if unqualified women get seats?” a man immediately responded. “But do you think all the men now in parliament are qualified?” retorted a second man.

That conversation took place in 2012 among Myanmar journalists during a training session on election reporting for by-elections that year. Three years later and those same arguments are reverberating around the country as more women than ever before – though still a relatively small number -- challenge for seats in parliament and positions in the next government.

Political parties have responded to pressure and have boosted their numbers of female candidates running in November. In 2010 there were only 101 female candidates. This year, according to the Union Election Commission, nearly 800 women are standing among more than 6000 candidates in the national and state-level elections.

The ruling USDP says 7 percent of its candidates are women, while for the National League of Democracy – led by Myanmar’s most famous woman – the figure is 15pc.

Women presently make up just 4pc of all elected MPs in the two houses of the Union parliament. Only two out of 36 ministers are women. Some of the male-dominated parties say they want to address this gender imbalance but then complain they have difficulty recruiting well-qualified female contenders.

U Aye Ther Aung, a senior official of the Rakhine National Party, said, “Some are well qualified but they can’t leave their family behind. Some are not interested and some are interested but without having qualifications.”

A Myanmar Times survey of women candidates found varying degrees of “qualification”. But asked why they were running, all replied that they wanted to boost women’s rights.

Most of the candidates interviewed did not know what percentage of MPs were women and some were weak about their knowledge of parliamentary affairs. While some knew Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the NLD leader, won a seat in 2012, they did not know her position in parliament (as chair of its committee on rule of law, peace and stability).

Daw Nyunt Nyunt, a USDP candidate in Kyauktada township for the Amyotha Hluttaw, or upper house, admits that she has a weak knowledge of parliament, does not watch its television channel and could not recall debates led by women. She could only name two women MPs.

Still she is catching up by reading hluttaw guides provided by the party.

Now 67, she retired from teaching six years ago and is supported by her two sons and a daughter. She was selected to run by USDP members in Kyauktada.

“I live in the same constituency so I understand what people in my town need. I work together with my constituents,” she said, noting that her life as a school teacher and a volunteer has given her a good understanding of the needs of parents of students. Improving the lives of shopkeepers is also one of her talking points.

Daw Nan Yupa Than, 57, is running for the Karen People’s Party in Ein Mae Township, also for a seat in the upper house. She served as a police captain for 25 years but quit in 2004 because she did not get equal promotion rights as men.

“I will complain about the situation of women who have been discriminated against in government service if I have a chance,” she said.

Daw Nan Yupa Than runs a small grocery store in Wakema, her home town, and is free from family constraints as her husband and children have well-paid jobs in Yangon, she said, echoing a common refrain among women candidates about family ties. She said she had not thought about being an MP but others had urged her to compete. She said it would only be possible to work as an MP if she did not have family cares to tend to.

She said openly she needed to learn more about being a parliamentarian and lacked knowledge of politics because she tended to read religious books. Her ambition is to improve people’s education and work on women’s rights.

“People of my township are very naïve -- they worked as domestic helpers in foreign countries in very poor conditions,” she said.

Daw Khin Myo Hla, 57, a USDP candidate in Bahan township for the regional parliament, says she will work to improve the lot of military families who have sacrificed life and limb for the country. Her husband was a colonel who was killed in battle in 1988. She used to work as a volunteer in the Union Solidarity and Development Association, the precursor under military rule to the USDP, and owns a jewellery shop in Yangon.

Myanmar ranks 128th in the world among countries according to the percentage of women MPs in the lower house, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Other Asian countries have tackled the gender imbalance in politics by setting quotas for women. For example Indonesia allocates at least 30pc of parliamentary seats to women, while China’s rubber-stamp national assembly makes space for a guaranteed 22pc.

Myanmar has so far rejected calls from some quarters for a quota system. Explaining the reasons that women struggle to take part in politics, the Asia Foundation lists lack of skills, lack of freedom of expression, time restraints, problems in travelling alone, and traditional male dominance in customs and a refusal to accept their leadership.

Mindy Walker, who is training women candidates on behalf of the Richardson Center of the US, says she was shocked by what she had heard about the experiences of women in politics in Myanmar.

“I read an article recently that quoted Khin Ma Ma Myo [a political educator] saying that the women’s wing of the party generally is there just to make coffee for the central committee. That’s completely true and tragic.”

“Women candidates need the support and training from the party to help them win those seats,” Ms Walker said, noting that women make up over half the electorate and will be excited to see women’s names on the ballot lists to get their voices heard in parliament.

Still, the candidates worry about how they are going to balance the needs of their families with spending eight months a year in the capital to attend parliament.

“We always leave our family behind. We need to make sure we know how to handle that balance,” said Daw Khin Saw Wai, an MP of the Rakhine National Party. Women also need to have the qualities and knowledge to win the respect of the male representatives in parliament, she said.

Zin Mar Aung, an NLD candidate for the lower house in Yangon’s Yankin Township, says the most important aspect for her is how well MPs understand the real lives of people and their dedication to their work, “regardless of gender”. She insists that she does not feel that being a woman is a weak point in her campaign.