A (re)construction of socio-cultural conditions in farms managed by women

Abstract

The aim of this article was to study farmers’ opinions regarding the decisionmaking processes in family farm management and identify differences between women and men, also with regards to the gender-specific cultural patterns of behaviour. The scope of rural women’s responsibilities and expectations seems to grow with their attachment to the inhabited land. Those that do not migrate but start a family in the countryside are faced with increasingly more responsibilities and have less chance to find an economically attractive job in their place of living or within a commutable distance that would allow them to combine their roles. The actual and declared patterns of behaviour tend to differ. Regardless of who effectively makes the strategic decisions in the farm, it is more important what is communicated publicly as in line with the current cultural model of the farmer. The study shows that women do both the farmwork and the housework, regularly taking decisions, large and small, and performing an array of tasks in both areas. Nevertheless, women’s diversity in terms of roles and activities seems to demonstrate their pursuit of ‘emancipation’, narrowly defined as a shift in the scope of responsibilities, rather than attest to their increasing independence