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Gender and Rural Community Development II: The need for gender analysis in projects and organisations

Dr Chrissy King

PO Box 621 (BC), Toowoomba, Qld, 4350

Paper

This paper highlights a variety of gender issues that exist within the Australian rural community development domain. To illustrate these issues the author presents empirical research carried out between 1996-2000, which in part, focussed on the gender constraints to participatory learning systems. The main areas selected for this paper include (i) the involvement of women, (ii) input into decision making, (iii) communication and language, and (iv) organisational issues of power and gender. The paper concludes that there is a fundamental need for gender analysis to be incorporated into rural community development projects and activities, and within agencies that carry out this work. This is paper II of a three paper series for this conference on Gender and Rural Community Development. Paper I provides a critical analysis of different policy approaches to development that can be applied in both the Australian and Global contexts. Paper III illustrates a variety of tools for undertaking gender analysis in projects and organisations.

Introduction

The importance of promoting gender equality in rural community development projects associated with agriculture and natural resource management is widely acknowledged (eg. The Beijing Platform for Action, 1995). For example, Feldstein and Poats (1989) suggest that there are four areas in farming systems research and extension where gender analysis can make an important contribution. These areas of analysis are (i) labour or activities, (ii) resources, (iii) benefits and incentives, and (iv) inclusion. As seen in paper I, the UN decade for women (1976-1985) also highlighted the importance of women in the development process. Here, it was establishing that women perform two thirds of the world's work, receive only ten percent of the world's income, and own only one percent of the means of production (Mosse, 1993). In addition, women have had relative powerlessness in decision making about development and in many cases workloads and problems have increased due to development activities (Gabriel, 1991).

Kerby and Chapman (1997) provide an overview of the Australian context:

  • women are strongly involved in the agriculture and resource management sector. The vast majority of agricultural businesses are family owned and operated, 32% of the Australian farm work force is female (double the figure of 15 years earlier), and more than 70 000 women defined themselves as farmer or farm manager in the 1991.
  • Women’s work both on-farm and off-farm has increased substantially in recent times, in part because of the financial difficulties facing many families on the land. Not only are women replacing hired labour on farms, they are also providing additional income either through off-farm employment or through value-adding to farm commodities. In many cases, that additional income is critical to the continued viability of the business, although it is insecure due to diminishing supply of off-farm jobs for women in the rural sector.
  • Women’s participation as primary producers is somewhat hidden, often unacknowledged, and very difficult to measure. Women on the farm are poorly represented in agricultural statistics, in measures of productivity, and on decision making bodies.

This paper focuses on the gender issues within the context of agriculture and Australian rural communities. It draws heavily from my own empirical carried out between 1996-2000 when I worked as an extension agent and later, an extension adviser and trainer. The findings are compared with the work of other researchers in this area, particularly Alston (1995), Kerby and Chapman (1997) and Duffield (1997). To carry out this research I used an actor orientated approach where I specifically analysed the interactions between men and women (a) within the domain of scientists, (b) in the domain of farmers, and then (c) across these two domains. An in-depth description of this methodology can be seen in King (2000). In this paper I present four main areas that presented themselves as constraints to effective participatory learning, namely, the involvement of women, input into decision making, communication and language and organisational issues of power and gender.

The involvement of women

The involvement of rural women in research, development and extension activities organised by government agencies was substantially less that the involvement of men (Table 1). I found it difficult to record the interactions between men and women as there were no women.

Table 1. The proportion of women at participatory forums (July 1996-June 1997).

Extension activity

No. of women

No. of men

Soil water workshop (1)

1

7

Soil water workshop (2)

0

12

Rainfall simulator field day (1)

1

9

Rainfall simulator field day (2)

0

10

Rainfall simulator field day (3)

2

13

Rainfall simulator field day (4)

0

12

Organisational workshop (1)

0

1

Organisational workshop (2)

0

2

Organisational workshop (3)

0

2

Night planning meeting (1)

3

8

Night planning meeting (2)

0

7

Field trip (1)

1

12

Soil pit field day (1)

0

7

(Source: King, 2000)

In a study by Alston (1995) involving women from two agricultural areas in southern New South Wales, Australia, she concludes that traditional definitions of farm work have been narrow and commodity-based, allowing the efforts of women to be discounted because they have not been viewed as directly contributing to production. She suggests that women’s input is devalued as a result of inequitable gender relations, and this leads to women’s work being unrecognised and unrecorded. Furthermore, she argues that farming is still viewed as a male occupation and women, when presented at all, are depicted as helpers, mothers, wives, and daughters.

She demonstrates the importance of women’s labour in the economic viability of the family farm through unpaid family work; community work, farm work and off-farm paid work. She uses the example of broadacre-farming to illustrate women’s contribution:

The declining fortunes of Australian farm families can be noted from the Australian Bureaus of Agricultural and Resource Economics (1992) prediction that the average farm business profit for broad acre farms in 1992-1993 would be -$25,900. In fact, broadacre-farming incomes have been negative for 8 of the last 16 years. As a consequence family members are under enormous pressure to work harder in all areas of their lives on and off the farm. Australian women, like their counterparts overseas, have stepped up their efforts to gain employment away from the farm (Alston, 1993; Fassinger and Schwarzweller, 1984; Gasson, 1984). It appears that given employment opportunities, farm women are moving out of the traditional role in large numbers to take on a significant economic role in ensuring the survival of the families in farming…In Australia where farm families are experiencing a particularly severe rural crisis, farm women’s labour is crucial to the survival of simple commodity production family farms. The established gender order, however, ensures that women’s efforts are recognised as mere help to male relatives and not as quantifiable work and are not adequately documented in census data.

Women were also notably absent at the organisational level. Table 2 gives the attendance of women at organisational workshops I participated in over a 1 year period where the predominant participants were organisational staff members.

Table 2. The proportion of women at organisational participatory forums (July 1996-June 1997).

Workshop

No. of women

No. of men

Organisational workshop (1)

1

12

Organisational workshop (2)

3

5

Organisational workshop (3)

5

40

Organisational workshop (4)

2

28

Organisational workshop (5)

1

12

Organisational workshop (6)

1

22

(Source: King, 2000)

The inclusion of women in workshops was also observed to change the agenda, modifying social relationships and attitudes, and to influence the outcomes. Jiggins (1993: 109) writes:

It is a basic principle of changes in voluntary behaviour that people involved ‘own’ both the problem and the solution. It is a basic principle of building sustainable organisations that participants see their own interests sufficiently reflected in the organisation’s mandate and activities, and are rewarded in proportion to the effort they put in. If farmer networks ignore or undervalue women’s contribution, neither the technical nor the organisational process will prove durable.

Kerby and Chapman (1997) provide case material to illustrate their research into gender barriers in the agricultural domain. One case study illustrates the need for challenging the status quo and suggests that there needs to be a shift in how women and men see their farm role before there is significant change in women’s attendance at field days. Another case study illustrates how women who do attend meetings, have high expectations placed on them by facilitators (eg. as the female champion, pioneer, paradigm breaker). They use the example of a women workshop participant, who was interested in the vegetation on her farm, was seen as a prime target for group process, and assigned her a role in changing the status of women. The case highlighted the importance of involving people, women or men, in things they are enthusiastic about, and not expecting more or less from them than that.

A third case study suggests that there are many ways in which women themselves see that they can contribute to their community, and to landcare, but also, importantly, that they prefer to choose the ways that suit them best, rather than simply follow the experience of the menfolk. They also put forward that the widespread promotion of a leadership model, which singles out one person, is also unhelpful. It raises that person to the point where they are out of step with (or perceived to be out of step with) others in the community. Complementary leadership roles (eg. community leadership) are ignored or devalued.

Input into decision making

The attendance of women could however be questioned as a useful indicator of participation or participatory learning. In events where including both women and men, women had little input into the process and took on the role of onlookers. In a variety of cases, male scientists directed questions to, and communicated with, primarily the men. Guijt and Kaul Shah (1998) point out the implications of gender biased inputs to decision making:

It has often been assumed that the presence of women at community gatherings, alongside men, means that women and their issues are being included. This assumption completely ignores the dynamics of gender relations – with significant implications for the validity of the participatory process. Conversely, attempts to work separately with women and women’s projects have suffered the fate of not being reintegrated with the dominant decision making structures within the community, resulting in little social change.

In order to encourage women to attend participatory RD&E events in Australia, activities were sometimes put on specifically for women. At one of these events I questioned women about their attendance at these workshops. Box 1 illustrates the responses to two questions.

Box 1. Responses by women at an ‘all women’s workshop”

Why did women not attend usual events advertised by the Department?

“I used to try to go along to other workshops, but I often found that I was the only woman there…and the environment is different…its more focused towards men really…this way it is more tailored for us”

“In normal events you feel a bit out of it…even when I use to attend they [the organisers] would still ask the guys the questions…and when they did include you it was a really big thing”

“you know…they would either joke about it or introduce you separately from everyone else…like…’Gentlemen, Oh and Ladies’…then everyone looks at you”

Was it more useful to put on separate events for women?

“I would prefer it if we didn’t have to separate men from women, but I find that if I do go along to other events…you know…events for everyone…I feel really silly asking questions, because I will probably embarrass my husband”

“I come along because it helps me communicate better with [her husband]. Now we have a lot more to talk about...and when he comes in at night after being in the paddock all day…I can talk to him about his day…It is part of building a better relationship”

“My husband came early once…to pick me up…and he snuck in the back door…I think he thought we were carrying out some secret women’s business…then he realised it was just a workshop”

Alston illustrates the structural arrangements that operate to render farm women relatively powerless and to discount their contribution. The primary constraints noted were patriarchal inheritance, economic dependence and ideologies that shape women’s existence as wives. She reports that while 81% of women from agricultural area 1 (population: 50 000) are legal owners with their husbands, only 38% of women from agricultural area 2 (population: 500) were legal owners; showing that this is directly related to the fact that while extended family members are involved in the farm and that land is (usually) owned by the oldest male. For the women who marry into extended family arrangements, the likelihood of them becoming legal owners or partners is limited. In her conclusions she goes as far as to say that it may well be that women are propping up the ailing agricultural industry in this country at least. She adds that one third of the farms in her study did not generate enough income to support the family household suggesting that family farming is not as efficient as officially portrayed.

Communication and language

Differences in the way that men and women communicate (Thorne and Henley, 1975; Wood and Dindia, 1998; Keeshan Nadler and Nadler, 1990) may also be a barrier to creating effective learning systems. Colleagues as represented in box 2 noted this.

Box 2. Illustrations of perceived differences in the way men and women communicate.

Male colleague: “I ran a workshop the other day. Usually we run it for men, but [another colleague] set up a day to run it with one of the women’s groups. Gee it was different. I had to be alert. They asked completely different questions, some I hadn’t thought about before … and the dynamics … that was completely different too!”

Female colleague: “I run one group with all guys [male farmers], and then I have another group that’s mixed [female and male farmers]… its so different … The ladies are great. They give the guys a reality check and keep us all on track. The guys like talking about all the technical stuff and they get right into the detail. The women keep pulling it back to what we are supposed to be trying to achieve for the night.”

Male colleague: “Hey, I wanted to talk to you [myself] about something. I had my first experience the other day being in a group dominated by women! It was an organisational meeting I was called in for in [Central office]. I think I understand what you have been talking about. The whole process was different. I couldn’t get a word in … not that they talked over me or anything … but just the language and the way they spoke about things was not what I’m used to. I came home and felt like I didn’t contribute anything.”

In a study, of gender stereotypes, Williams and Best (1990) identified a number of cross-cultural similarities in gender identities, in 25 countries selected from all regions of the world. In most countries, the characteristics of nurturance, deference, affiliation and passivity were associated with the female gender, and autonomy, aggression, dominance and achievement were associated with the male gender.

One of the most obvious challenges is the language used by men in forums. When referring to farmers or scientists, men would often make reference to ‘he’, ‘his’, or ‘him’. This was not only apparent in the verbal but also in the written exchanges. This appeared mostly habitual, but had deeper implications. Although recorded less often, this type of behaviour was also occurring with women staff. It was evident that when we thought of farming, we often thought of men.

Thorne and Henley (1975) note a male dominance in the English. In the English language, men are more highly regarded than women are. The male is associated with the universe, the general, the subsuming; the female is more often excluded or is the special case. Words associated with males more often have positive connotations; they convey notions of power, prestige, and leadership. In contrast, female words are more often negative, convey weakness, inferiority, immaturity, a sense of the trivial. Terms applied to women are narrower in reference than those applied to men, and they are more likely to assume derogatory sexual connotations that overshadow their meanings. This derogation and overgeneralisation is related to the process of stereotyping and is also present in other situations of dominance.

They suggest that there is a pitfall to be avoided however, related to the importance of social context: the assumption that given speech forms are intrinsically strong or weak, valued or less valued. They quote Kramer (1974): Words, phrases, and sentence patterns are not inherently strong or weak. They acquire these attributes only in a particular context. If our society views female speech as inferior, it is because of the subordinate role assigned to women. Our culture is biased to interpret sex differences in favour of men. Thorne and Henley (1975) suggest that differences are only part of the picture. They state what they believe to be the fact of male dominance:

The fact of male dominance – built into the economic, family, political, and legal structures of society – is also central to language and speech. Language helps enact and transmit every type of inequality, including that between the sexes; it is a part of the “micropolitical structure” (Henley, 1973) that helps maintain the larger political-economic structure.

Thorne and Henley (1975) suggest that aspects of speech and non-verbal communication are distributed asymmetrically between the sexes – one cue associated with dominance, and the other with subordination. Power differences underlie gender differences (Wood and Dindia, 1998).

Kerby and Chapman (1997) list the barriers to participation that they have been in field studies, despite women’s considerable involvement in farming. They suggest that the traditional perception of a farmer or pastoralist has always been one of the ‘man on the land’. This perception has resulted in the focusing of government, agribusiness and the rural community itself, on male primary producers as the main recipients and users of information and services relating to primary production.

Organisational issues of power and gender

A number of authors have shown that the context in which participatory research emerged centred around male power, perceptions, problems and experiences (de Koning and Martin, 1996). This was evident in the gulf between the enormous body of empirical research on the extent and nature of women’s roles in farming in Australia and male project staff’s appreciation of the “women in agriculture” challenge. In King (2000) I demonstrate selected aspects of gendered relations of power in RD&E, including:

  • The de-valuing of women’s knowledge and contributions
  • Negative and derogatory attitudes towards women
  • Gender issues as project “add on” depicting little perceived importance
  • Women being excluded and threatened by the male dominant culture
  • Gender issues as politically correct, but not genuine

The analysis reported above was shared with three female and three male colleagues for a reality check. Responses of these colleagues are seen in Box 3.

Box 3. Responses by colleagues to my conclusions about language as power, the value of women’s knowledge, and attitudes towards women.

Female 1: “Well, I don’t understand. If the guys [men] try that [sexual harassment] on me, I just make sure they know straight away that that’s just not on … but plenty of them try. Most of them are good … and we all have a joke around the office now and then. I don’t know how other women put up with it … but I am glad someone’s finally writing about it, because it is a huge issue. You know, the thing that I have been thinking about lately is the role models our clients have … every workshop we have always has male presenters … it just so happens that our organisation is mostly men, but we need some women role models.”

Female 2: “Do you really think that’s an issue? I mean, I can understand it being an issue overseas, well I don’t know if it is, but I don’t think it’s an issue here. The sexual harassment stuff is, sure, but that’s only jokes, nothing really bad. But not valuing women’s knowledge … well I don’t think it happens … well I haven’t seen it anyway.”

Female 3: “Well I think the issue of valuing knowledge is a real problem … its endemic actually, but its not at all intentional and I don’t think most of them are conscious of it. There’s some lovely men in the organisation … most of them actually … but a few spoil it for the rest. But the real problem is we don’t have a structure to deal with it. Its not safe to report anything, someone will find out in the end, and once it gets around its always the woman that’s at fault. That’s just how it is.”

Male 1: Yeah, the old boys club. It’s rife. You should see it, well I guess you do, but you’re still not made privy to most of it, you know. Sometimes I get stuck in the middle of it, and I just want to leave, but you know, its really hard, sometimes you gotta stand there and you’re forced to join in. I hate it. And the sexual harassment stuff, that’s everywhere too. Old farts trying to have their way, especially with the young ones. It will be a good thing once us oldies kick the bucket, because the young ones, they’re good kids you know.”

Male 2: “Do you really think its as bad as all that? Some of the sexual harassment stuff sure… I even had one woman try to force her way on to me once. It was a horrible feeling. But the knowledge stuff … gee, do we really do that? … I guess you would notice it … I see it with some of the young ones, they get ignored … or maybe I haven’t noticed it because there’s never any women anyway (said jokingly).”

Male 3: “You have reported only the light issues; things are much worse than that. Some of the events I’ve witnessed you wouldn’t believe. Some of the men are disgusting … but I would understand if you didn’t see it. When you’re in a group chatting, as soon as a women walks away, the comments fly, and the language … and the stories they tell, especially if they go out in the field with them. Some places are worse than others are though. There is a whole floor in [a science-based government organisation] where the women who work there don’t even walk through…if they do, they are leered at and harassed…so they go down the stairs and walk along another floor to get to their office. Something really needs to be done, it is not just women that are tired of it, but men are too. Its one of the reasons I left, not the main one, but I was sick of it. I think you should put that in your thesis.”

The above responses illustrate that both men and women can see gender stereotyping and harassment as unacceptable. Many, if not most, differences between the sexes reflect women’s and men’s unequal social power and the disparate behaviour and attached tendencies their respective degrees of power promote.

People who have less power – whether women, minorities, prisoners, or members of the poverty class – learn coping skills that reduce the likelihood of suffering the displeasure of those who are more powerful … These skills are not dictated by sex; rather they are responses to the lesser power accorded to women and other socially subordinate groups (Wood and Dindia, 1998).

Duffield (1997) documents the perceptions of professional women working in agriculture in field situations, of their jobs and career opportunities in the DPI. Her results documented a range of gender issues related to professional practice and organisational behaviour. Points made by Duffied (1997) pertinent to this paper are:

  • Relationship with clients: 24% believed “being female” affected their relationship with their clients. This was of more concern for women at the professional levels than the technical levels; 50% believed “being female” affected the way their clients interacted with them. All respondents recognised this effect, even if they did not perceive it as affecting themselves personally.
  • Relationship with colleagues: 40% of women had some difficulty interacting with colleagues. 26% believed that this difficulty was gender-related. When specifically asked about sexual harassment at work, 30% said they had been sexually harassed. Of this 30%, 75% were under 40 yrs. 75% of women at higher professional levels said they had been sexually harassed at some point in their career. There was an even distribution between women in married/defacto and single relationships who had been sexually harassed.

Witz (1992) addresses the question of how have men tried to restrict women’s access to the professions? Witz shows how class and gender have interacted in complex ways to build hierarchies of power and prestige in professional work. The point in relation to the concerns of organisations is that women, or gender issues, cannot be insulated by a professional practice from wider system dynamics. Mechanistic systems, such as the bureaucracies within which RD&E practice is currently embedded, tend to perpetuate, if not also reinforce, behaviours which are problematic from a gender perspective.

Conclusions

This paper highlights a variety of gender issues that exist within Australian rural community development domain, particularly within agricultural research and extension. In summary:

  • there is a fundamental need for gender analysis to be incorporated into rural community development projects and activities
  • addressing gender issues require the involvement of both women and men. Discussion does not just involve understanding what women do, but rather entails an understanding of the cross-culturally variable social roles of men and women.
  • there is also a need for gender analysis to be undertaking within agencies that implement rural community development initiatives. “The best place to start is with ourselves”

This is paper II of a three paper series for this conference on Gender and Rural Community Development. Paper I provides a critical analysis of different policy approaches to development that can be applied in both the Australian and Global contexts. Paper III illustrates a variety of tools for undertaking gender analysis in projects and organisations.

References

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