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The podcast episode discusses the role of feminism in rural communities in Africa. The article titled "Revisiting Gender in Rural Livelihood and Development Interventions" highlights the lack of attention given to women's productivity in agriculture and the impact of patriarchy on their access to resources. The article also emphasizes the importance of considering the intersectionality of women's experiences, such as class, economic status, and marital status. It suggests that programs protecting women's assets and providing reproductive facilities can empower them in rural communities. However, there is a need for better understanding and implementation of developmental interventions to support women in agriculture. Hello, and welcome to Feminism Podcast. This is your host, Mariah Batey, and this is our first episode as of Sunday, May 5th, 2024. I am so excited to talk about how feminism has played a role in Africa, especially in rural communities. So without further ado, let's get started. So when we think of women in rural communities, especially in America, it's very easy to think about the Great Depression, World War II, things like that, places where women have played such a very vital role in making sure that they can provide for themselves, their families, and their communities. However, in Africa, despite many developmental innovations, there still is a lacking in how women are making their place in rural developments and their livelihood. So the title of the article that I'm discussing is called Feminist Africa, Volume 3. It's called Revisiting Gender in Rural Livelihood and Development Interventions, excuse me. And the publication date is October, 2022. And the authors is the African Gender Institution. They had no specific names. It's just like a collection of people at one institution. And they are based in Lagon, Ghana, and also in South Africa. So kind of spread out all over the place. And so that really speaks to their credibility on the issue and kind of just making sure that we are getting our sources from a good place. All right, so some of the points made in the article was that there needs to be a push for greater attention towards women productivity so that there can be an increase in agricultural output. Because in the article, it talks about how if women are like put on a greater focus when it comes to agricultural support, then there could be like a near elimination of malnutrition and poverty. So one of the reasons that women are failing to benefit from agricultural interventions is because of, drum roll please, the patriarchy. That's always kind of the thing, the patriarchy benefits no one. And this applies especially in rural Africa, where a woman's ability to control their earnings and opportunities by offered by the innovations, like account for their kind of lack in the agricultural field and their like lack of a presence. And the patriarchy thrives, and this is a direct quote from the article, the invisibilization of women in labor. And I think that's very much something to break down and talk about because invisibilization of women's labor is like such a strong focal point. There comes a point where you're like, okay, women are working, we know this, but they are not being showcased in the way that men are. And that is especially in commercialized farming as well as home farming. And then like I had noted earlier, that when women are not given like the equal opportunities to have protections of their own assets, things such as like land and capital and things like that, there becomes this divide in how a woman can make her way in agriculture versus a man. There also was a point made to how the different patriarchal systems even begin to play a role in women and their place in agricultural society. So the patriarchal systems, they kind of see men as like the general farmers, like they are the farmers, they are the people who are taking care of the land versus women, like they also play a part, but not in the same way that men do. And they aren't able to like sustain the benefits that they would normally get if they were men. And so that kind of causes them to like either lose their land or not be very active in farming and things of that nature. A second point that was made in the article is that women are not a homogenous group and can be further divided into classes and ethnicities, which is something that we all know. We all know that women is such a broad category, and that we can't simply be put in kind of this box of, yes, we are women, here are four, and that there are multiple things that causes women, especially like causes women to have more issues than others because of like intersectionality, for example. So in the article, some of these intersections were kind of focused on class, economic status, marital status, whether you're a mother or not, things like that. Those are also big discrepancies that kind of changed how a woman was able to go about having access to agricultural resources and innovations. Even if a woman went into commercialized farming, that would make all the difference. But because of those things that I named, like the intersectionality of things, like a woman's class or lack of, that could really put her in a place to where she isn't allowed to get certain things and certain loans or opportunities. But the article really touched on resources, that's a big word in there, like resources, resources, resources. Like if she's able to get all the capital that men are able to, so that she can sustain her own farm. But there's a distinct poverty amongst rural women despite developmental interventions. And that has a lot to do with patriarchal systems I mentioned before, and also the intersectionality of women based on where you are. So because of the patriarchal systems in place that prevents women from using the protective legislation, that makes it so that like, yes, these things are put into place for women, like I guess to protect them from different adversities that come in the agricultural society, but it's also preventing them from accessing certain resources, that's that word again. And also when it comes to that intersectionality thing, a woman's literacy, economic status, and time burdens is another direct quote, are something that can influence her access to resources. And so that is another big factor on, okay, can a woman have the same type of agricultural benefits in Africa that men do? And if she's limited by her lack of literacy, so her lack of schooling, or like her lack of economic status, or her time, whether she has a lot of children, or she has other jobs, or things of that nature, like that can really play a role. The final point of this article attempts to speak towards the way that programs put in a place to protect the assets in the interest of women will further give them a stance in rural communities and give them access to developmental innovation. So in the article, they talk about how a widow's daughter who ended up falling into teen pregnancy would have a harder time keeping her land and her capital obtained by her mother, and therefore kind of leading into that cycle of not being able to keep a secure hold on one's earnings and one's like place in the farming community. And in Africa, there are especially like such strong patriarchal systems, not in all countries, obviously, but in the ones targeted by this article, which I'm pretty sure are like Northern Ghana, like South Africa, these patriarchal systems kind of prevent women from having that security. The article also mentioned that there needs to be reproductive facilities due to the teen pregnancy, and like that way that when women are kind of giving a charge of family planning, they are able to kind of take the steering wheel in their own lives, and that would lead them to produce more and kind of wipe out what we talked about earlier in the podcast, the line of malnutrition and poverty and hunger and things of that nature that are caused by a lack of women in the rural community force. There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding when it comes to developmental interventions because that can mean a plethora of things because developmental interventions in the agricultural sense, it can mean things like technology, it can also mean things like easier purchase of land, it can mean things like machinery or whatever, or things of that nature, and that is what women are having a harder time getting access to. Now, the article did its best to kind of explain what that is, but I was still a little bit confused. I was kind of left with the questions of like, okay, why can't they just go buy a tractor? Like, why can't they just go rent out land or get a farmhand or things like that? And I think that it's because that, like, because they are women and that farming has been such like a male-dominated structure that it gets to the point where it's like, yeah, we're not going to sell you that. Yeah, we're not going to rent you that. No, you aren't going to approve of the loan. And at least that's what I think to look at it as. And that whole idea of a patriarchal system is what made me choose this article to begin with. So when I took women in gender studies last semester, it really opened my eyes to how women as a concept and a social construct have had to kind of fight on all fronts, especially with that intersectionality point that I made earlier. And when I saw this article about feminism in Africa, especially when it comes to something like farming that we don't hear about a lot, it really piqued my interest and I had to know, okay, so how are women not having a space in this agricultural society? And I was like, okay, I want to know all about it because we are all about how women are having a hard time with when it comes to reproductive health or spousal things or having to submit to their husbands and all the things like that. But I think we don't really understand when it comes to things like agriculture, how that can prevent them from also having a substantial footing. And I feel like adding a bigger labor force in agricultural, whether it's an influx of men or influx of women, would really change the way that rural Africa would operate. It would really allow people to one, produce more and then to consume more. And that would only lead to like greater outcomes. So kind of in a conclusion, I suppose, kind of a conclusion is the three main points of the article were that programs be put in place to kind of protect the interests of women, that patriarchal systems in Africa are the reason that women are having a hard time, like controlling their earnings, getting access and benefiting from agricultural innovations. And that women are not a homogenous group that like the intersectionality of class, race, sexuality, things like that. These all can lead to a bigger divide, like not just between women and men, but against women and women for what they are able to have and what they're able to not have. So the feminist article by the African Gender Institution really talked about how this phenomenon is occurring within rural Africa. And not only does it pose a problem, but also the solution. And I really think that it's very admirable of their way to kind of incorporate like women's studies in something like agriculture, because it's such a diverse, it's such a diverse subject of women's studies. It can be interpreted into so many different things. And everywhere that women exist, there is a way to have a women's studies argument. And I thought that was very interesting. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Feminism Podcast. Again, I'm your host, Mariah Beatty. And I really hope that you kind of got something out of this, that you took a second to think, hey, I didn't realize that feminism and agriculture could be two words that I heard in the same sentence before, let alone how they kind of like fuse together in Africa's rural communities, especially when it comes to women kind of being pushed out of that force and trying to come into it once more. I hope you have a great rest of your day or night or whenever it is that you're listening to this. And I will catch you on the next episode. Goodbye. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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