The agrarian world to which I refer is the one that deals with that never fully clarified subject that, in various languages, we would call: Third World, LDC, and those entities such as national agencies for Development Cooperation, and more generally those who say they deal with "Agrarian Development" or similar issues. We find there both individuals and organizations, from the smallest local NGOs to the BINGOs, Universities, Governments, UN Agencies, Banks and Foundations, peasants' movements and a good number of experts in the various specific themes that make up the “armada” of the consultants. Many different actors with different agendas and approaches, perhaps even politically opposed.
Within this world, a large part has been interested in the question of women in agriculture (understood in the broadest sense, encompassing fishing, forestry and everything else) for several decades, some driven by intellectual interests and others by "fashions" dictated by donors from the north and finally by those who see in this issue a political dimension of power that need to be controlled.
A very diverse world where it is not always easy to understand what are the real reasons, the deep interests beyond the official positions expressed through publications, sites, videos and other propaganda material.
The only thing that is certain is that, 26 years after the Beijing Conference of 1995, the condition of women in agriculture has not improved much and that the very terminology "feminist" is struggling to catch on.
After being around this world for over 30 years, I'm still searching for the reasons why the differences between the desires, the common wishes of the official statements of all these actors and the concrete realities experienced by women in the countryside, are still so great.
I do have an idea, to tell you the truth, and it's an idea that in turn takes the form of various small ideas that are slowly making their way through my mind. I don't mean to pretend that they are truths, but I need to write them down in order to see them better, to reflect on them and to push critical reflection further. All this because, together with some friends/colleagues, we are working on a book on these themes that we would like to write by the end of this year.
By dint of reading and watching videos and/or webinars/meetings, I would say there is a fairly shared awareness of the clear separation between what is commonly called the public sphere (where the dominant protagonist is male) and the private sphere (family in other words, where the female role still remains largely dominant). Even the fact that this second sphere is undervalued is beginning to be a truth accepted by all. In order to get by, those who have the means outsource their activities to others (practically always women from poorer foreign countries and/or less affluent social classes): whether it be care of the elderly (by hiring a "nanny"), housework, cleaning, washing and ironing and/or cooking. The only sub-sector where the tertiarization is generally male (always speaking of wealthy families, rural or urban) is that of the care of the garden and/or the vegetable garden.
The solution of having others do the work of the private sphere, however, concerns an infinitesimal percentage of families of the upper-middle class and cannot seriously be thought of as the solution to the concerns of feminist thought. Of course, there are also those who think this way, but this school of thought, known as neoliberal feminism, with its recognized incarnations in Anne Marie Slaughter and Sheryl Sandberg, is not exactly the world that interests me.
However, it must be said that even if there were the resources available to outsource, this does not change one iota the social relationship between man and woman, with the domination of the former within the family (with all that this means in terms of physical or psychological violence...).
So, this cannot be the way to go. On the other hand, we have already seen it when, at the end of the second post-war period, the technological innovations of washing machines, dryers and the like arrived, which, if they reduced (women's) time for these activities, did not allow them to gain in terms of freedom of time and thought to dedicate to themselves. Simply, by improving their family "productivity", they were loaded with other tasks.
This long introduction was necessary to understand that the problem of the private sphere must find solutions within those who created that sphere. In English we would say that it is a man-made problem, so the solution must also be man-made. Even if in this sense "man" does not specifically mean masculine but human being in general, we insist rather on the meaning of "man=man" because that is where we want to start from.
The starting point is to consider the two spheres (private and public) part of the same unit: one needs the other even if, probably, it is the public sphere that needs the private sphere more than the other way around. Despite this evidence, when one reviews the material produced by the various actors/actresses, one realizes that only one direction dominates overwhelmingly: that women leave the private sphere and assume more important roles and tasks in the public sphere. The key variable, however, beyond all that concerns the male/female domination relationship, remains time. The day remains fixed at 24 hours, so those who already have an agenda full of things to do (productive-reproductive including the care of family members and the elderly, cooking, washing, ironing, tidying up, shopping, keeping the accounts in order, etc.) can hardly find the time (as well as the strength, the will, the ability) to devote to other (and always assuming that the doors to enter the upper levels open easily, which is far from the norm). The only ideas that have been proposed are those that lead once again to neoliberal feminism and that is to outsource the "domestic" tasks, i.e. make someone else do them to free up time and do what you want with it. In fact, thanks to the pittance wages paid to the staff who do these jobs, even a part of the middle class (progressive or not) has chosen this path, as I have seen in the many years of work. How many colleagues (males) who worked in the same organization as me in the Rome office said - and often did - that they wanted to return to their part of the world in the South since they could afford to have 2-3 people on staff, so as to make their lives easier, while here in Italy they "cost too much".
What alternative to the model of neoliberal feminism?
If we agree that a key point is to free up time for the woman in the private sphere (after which it will be up to her to choose what to do with it), we have to think of different proposals from those that the current model of "development" has proposed to us: first technology (to increase the productivity of the housewife in the family) and then outsourcing (which brings back to other women the tasks that used to fall to the housewife, thus going round in circles without coming out).
The simple answer should be to bring men more into the private sphere. It should be a trivial statement, but it isn't, so much so that even the most extensive peasant movements worldwide are turning away from this aspect. Decades of work in the field have led me to believe that the fact that these organizations, from farmers' movements to UN agencies and/or various governments, are generally dominated by a macho culture (which can sometimes even have physical female guises), is not unrelated to the limited and insufficient vision they propose with respect to the problem.
Out of political affinity, I have been more insistent in looking into the world of "progressive" organizations, from Catholic NGOs to movements like La Via Campesina (LVC), passing through those that deal with workers or agricultural producers. Let's take LVC being the largest and the one that most claims to have made a "gender" shift in their way of being.
I therefore invite you to (re)read this text that appeared on the website of the Italian NGO Crocevia, an integral part of LVC: https://www.croceviaterra.it/donne-e-lgbt/invisibili-donne-rurali/ The fact that work spent in the care of the community has always been considered a "social duty", thus not considering it productive work, is ascribed to what the FAO says. The problem begins immediately afterwards, when the solution that is proposed is that of "remuneration". Thanks to their lobbying work, this led to the approval "by the UN Rights Council of the Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and All People Living in Rural Areas (UNDROP), presented by Via Campesina and other international social movements." While acknowledging that "women who are victims of sexual and domestic violence and harassment are left alone, without any kind of assistance or possibility of social complaint," the solution is that of a "fair wage."
It then continues with the usual calls for resistance against capitalism (which in these more recent years has become patriarchal capitalism), then recalling collective rights to seeds and land.
The point that I would like to make and that is completely missing in the global reflections of LVC (even though there are women within it who are pushing this issue) is the necessary change of pace that should bring a man (a different man) to enter the private sphere and assume an equal share of the tasks given to women. A man who should change, because if women in the family are victims of violence, this is male violence, of their spouses.
This is the only possible way to free up women's time so that they can enter the public sphere. It is the principle of communicating vessels. Of course, getting the man off his pedestal is a hard task. Whether he is rich or poor, he always has the pedestal, and the woman is always underneath. Therefore, if we want women to be able to enter the world above from below, we clearly need a cultural and educational change, but not only as far as the training of women is concerned.
I have no difficulty in admitting that this is a long-range goal; but then I think about what the goals of these movements are: to bring down capitalism! And then I have to smile. I would say that, like religions, the peasant movements also aspire (and rightly so) to a better tomorrow (the famous "lendemains qui chantent" as an old professor of mine, René Dumont, used to say). But it is a tomorrow that is slow in appearing, even if this does not take away the desire to fight. I think it would be a good idea to start here. My dear friend Octavio used to tell me years ago how important it was to "ordenar su casa" (put our own house in order), before going on to criticize others for the very things we did not do at home.
I would therefore suggest starting with this simple slogan: "ordenar su casa", that is, a change within the peasant movements, NGOs and all those who claim to have something to say on the issue of gender equality, which then starts from themselves, from how we place ourselves, we males, with respect to the wives and / or partners with whom we share home and life.
This would be a real revolution, a gesture that, counting the millions of adherents that LVC claims to have, could have significant repercussions in the agrarian world.
To do this, however, perhaps it would take a change of mentality, a willingness to listen to others, a renunciation of some small portion of power. Accepting to look inside ourselves to begin to change ourselves, to be able to say with our heads held high that what we shout as a slogan is what we do in our daily lives.
Imagine also the repercussions that this could have within the religious world: if the militant peasants of these associations/movements accepted this challenge, on the one hand they would bring new blood (in this case women), but also force religious leaders, starting with their communities and parishes, to rethink their theologies. God hates women, writes Giuliana Sgrena (Il Saggiatore, 2016), and she explains well how this domination has been historically constructed. Let's try to change by starting from the bottom.
In short, a small (big) step that could perhaps cause some change even at higher levels, perhaps even more than the slogans repeated against a capitalist model to be demolished, but that, at the end of the day, is maintained in its basic form of domination of man over man (in this case, the woman), even within the families of activists for the cause of equality.
Let's change the system, let's tear it down too: but let's start at home first!
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