Women and Farming

Women and Farming: Property and Power looks at women on family farms. It argues that farming culture affords more power to men than to women. This is because men and women on family farms have different relationships to property. Traditions and customary practices sanction the transfer of land from father to son, thus restricting women's access to property. Economic power follows from property ownership, and this in turns leads to political, ideological and organizational power. Access to property is regulated by farming culture, and discriminates against women. Using comparative examples, different chapters consider the transfer of land between men, the changed role of women in the dairy industry in the nineteenth century, women in farming organizations, women in agricultural education programmes, and the role of the state in shaping the lives of farm women. The common themes of power and property underpin all the chapters.