Importance of Gender Roles in Agriculture - Essay Example

Institution Name Course Date of submission Introduction There are countless theories and stories that explain the origin and history of mankind and the universe. Many of them are based on religious, scientific and cultural views. For instance, Christians have the creation theory where all species were created by God while Aboriginal Australians have the dreamtime theory that explains their origin and the universe as they know it (Christian, 2011, p. 3). Science has two main different theories on the origin of man. These are evolution theory as put forward by Charles Darwin and the Big bang theory which was first proposed by Georges Lemaitre. The Big Bang theory explains the origin of the universe and mankind in a more scientifically acceptable way than the other theories. Nonetheless, it has been challenged in a number of ways. This theory has been adapted by the recent Big History developed by David Christian. Big History, which has been nick-named a “modern evolution theory” seeks to explain the very beginning of the universe and mankind unbounded by time and space. Through his series of books titled “Maps of Time”, Christian has chosen to combine these theories to explain the origin and history of mankind. The term big history has been coined to explain the history of mankind and the universe from the largest possible scale unbounded by time. Of importance in mans development is his involvement in agriculture which is cited by nearly all the theories on origin of mankind was man’s first art and major activity. The history and development of agriculture has a special place in man’s existence and development up to the current time. Agriculture has been practiced differently by geographic regions and culture and also by gender. Drawing heavily from the David Christian text and other sources, this paper will seek to show how agriculture has ushered in gender inequality. Importance of gender roles in agriculture The discussion of gender inequality in today’s societies and other societies that existed before is very important in diverse ways. The topic has received considerable attention from a number of literary works on agriculture, religion and sociology. The World Bank and the United Nations have stressed the importance of agriculture in fostering developing and fighting poverty and hunger especially in the developing world (International Fund for Agriculture Development, 2011). In fact, in the “World development report of 2008: agriculture for development” called for more investment in agriculture to promote development, where gender equality is a recognised benefit of development (World Bank 2008). In the same report, it is indicated that “women play a major role in agriculture, but these roles are often unrecognised. The design of many development policies and projects continues to assume wrongly that farmers and rural workers are mainly men” (World Bank, p. 2). Hand (p. 94) writes that emergence of agriculture was a pivotal point in the power relations between sexes as food was turned into a resource. It is during this period that food was converted from a “simple consumable” that is hunted or gathered and brought home for immediate consumption to a “resource that can be stored and controlled” by a few individuals who own it. Agriculture created a precondition for wealth and power which led to hierarchical systems in societies and differentiation of roles between the sexes. This wealth according to Christian (p. 241) could only be gathered by storing surplus products. However, this presented problems to the nomadic communities which moved from place to place. Intensified farming activities tied them to a single region as cultivated crops and domesticated animals. Christian (p. 234) says that sedentism, which largely involved settling in one place as opposed to moving from one place to another and hunting and gathering fruits and vegetables, did not amount to agriculture but was rather a “vital unplanned step toward agriculture.” Christian (2011)continues to say that nomadic communities had every reason to limit population growth as babies were added luggage which limited movement hence needed to be limited if they were to remain mobile. Sedentism changed all these as limits to child bearing could be relaxed resulting, children could be weaned earlier with grain based diets, birth intervals shortened, females reached puberty earlier and the end result was population growth (Hand p. 993; Christian and McNeill p. 240). An increased population led to higher demand for food and the need for domestication. Man needed to learn the lifecycles, the diseases of plants so that he could utilize them optimally. African societies during the agrarian revolution developed better clear cut roles for women and men. Among the !Kung people of the African Kalahari desert, men and women have similar status in the society but women are perceived to be the stronger economic providers (Hand p. 94). This is because women were assigned the role of gathering vegetables and grains while men were assigned to hunting for protein rich meat. However, living in a dry are implied that meat was very rare. This rarity of meat thus imposed more perceived power on the hunters and hunting gained special appreciation. Nonetheless, the rarity of meat and the relative availability of grains, tubers and vegetables which were gathered by women brought a bout a shift in power. As earlier aforementioned by Christian and McNeil (p. 239), once food is stored, it is turned into a resource. ASSSS studied the !Kung San women of south Africa and the history of these people. The !Kung San people, who were formerly hunter-gatherers, did not allow their nursing and pregnant women carry out farming activities arguing that they had a “constant backache” (Kramarae and Splender, p. 403). As such, the !Kung men cultivated the lands and their surpluses made them resource owners, thus gaining more relative power over their women. Judith Brown suggested the compatibility model to explain this. Her model claimed that women would participate in labour depending on how compatibility the subsistence work was with childcare. Fast forward into the 21st century and the same thing is being replicated in a different setting. According to a UN report, majority of women around the world in farming communities provide majority of the labour in family owned land yet have no considerable social and economic power. In Sub-Saharan Africa and in particular Uganda, 75% of agricultural producers are women though their role remains largely unrecognised. This is not unique to Sub-Saharan Africa alone. In Latin America, 70 to 90 percent of formal owners of farmland are men (FAO 2009). This could indicate that countries that rely highly on agriculture for economic purposes register higher levels of inequality between the sexes with women on the losing side. In fact a FAO (2009) report states that “by any indicator of human development, female power and resources are lowest in rural areas of the developing world” (p. 6). However, this is changing with a number of countries changing the law to allow women to own farmland. This is geared towards enabling equal distribution of resources and promoting gender equality. Empirical evidence shows that “strengthening women’s land rights can significantly increase income and families’ welfare” (World Bank p. 2). Therefore, countries taking this approach will in the long run attain gender equality. From a Big history perspective, man’s development and increased ability to exploit the environment through agriculture by whatever means or by whichever gender cannot be conclusively termed as development. Christian (2011, p. 187) writes that “humans collectively have got better at extracting resources from the environment but we cannot automatically equate this change with betterment of ‘progress.’” Therefore, the argument that has been fronted by history books that man’s development in terms of agriculture by whichever gender can be equated to a ‘development’ that has ushered in gender inequality. From this premise by Christian therefore, the issue of agriculture and gender inequality should not be limited to the emergence of agriculture but rather how different genders have adapted different means of exploiting the environment through agriculture as they evolve. Pier (p. 146) cites Christian to say that the progression in human history from the beginning to the later stages saw “increased complexity” in how humans (male and female) interact with the environment. The manner in which human males and females interacted with the environment, coupled with scarcity of some plant and animal species, changed the landscape and the behaviour of humanity at large. As this path of complexity progressed, females took up more different roles from males depending on the environment. This explains the high number of women working in agriculture today in developing countries while some of these communities (e.g. !Kung San) did not support female participation in subsistence. This type of development in the specialisation of tasks and roles along gender lines from a big history perspective can be likened to the formation and differentiation of stars and galaxies in the early universe that was in chaos. Christian (2011) explains how galaxies and stars were created from atoms into solid and large structures such as the earth. During the formation of the Milky Galaxy, denser components formed the planets closest to the sun since they responded most to the sun’s gravitational pull. These planets had their gravitational pull too that kept the particles close together. As the planets and stars were rotating, the particles and constituent elements were exposed both to gravitational pull and the centrifugal force. The centrifugal force ensured that the denser components settled on the outer side of the planets and the stars while the lighter material settled at the core. The gravitational force at the core of the planets resulted into very high temperatures that kept majority of the components at the core at a liquid and semi solid state. This analysis can also be applied to explain the differentiation of roles between the sexes. Christian and McNeill (2011) argue that agriculture limited sedentary lifestyle that the early humans were used to through hunting and gathering. This kind of lifestyle can be compared to the chaos that existed in the beginning before the formation of the planets and the stars. Therefore, their farms which tied them to a single area can be compared to the gravitational pull that the planets have. In the creation of the universe, random elements collided and formed masses that gained gravitational pull. This is the same thing that happened during the agrarian revolution. Out of the chaos and unplanned movement brought about by nomadism, there was organisation and order. Arable lands attracted people to settle around them and form villages and cities. The individual biological characteristics of the people that settled around the lands determined their relationships with the land. The nature of land and the environment at large shaped the behaviour of the people. During the invention of agriculture, the people who took up tasks that required higher level involvement settled closer home. The women, owing to their relatively lower strength levels as compared to men took up tasks that were more “stationary” (Christian 2011). Men on the other hand took up roles that required movement such as hunting which also required relatively more muscular strength. The rewards from each role are different. The sex that has the muscular strength to control the resources that were in terms of food had power over the opposite sex. However, this is not accepted by sociologist and other historians. Sociologists believe that gender inequality is a wrongly created social convention created that suppresses one sex (Kendall, p. 135). According to the FAO, people are born male and female and learn to be men and women as per the assigned roles in the communities that they are born in. in this regard, nature does not recognise masculine and feminine but rather accords male and female in the genetic make up. This is explained by a number o cases around the world where the differentiation of roles between men and women have been differentiated. The FAO report however contradicts the social theory, which it is founded to say that men and women are assigned roles, more so in agriculture, as guided by the genetic make up. About gender roles in agriculture, the FAO (2011) report says In traditional rural societies, commercial agricultural production is mainly a male responsibility. Men prepare land, irrigate crops, and harvest and transport produce to market. They own and trade large animals such as cattle, and are responsible for cutting, hauling and selling timber from forests. In fishing communities, capturing fish in coastal and deep-sea waters is almost always a male domain (p. 6). Similar sentiments are echoed by Kendall (2012, p. 135) who says that “gender based inequalities grows dramatically in agrarian societies.” The author explains this by saying that men tend to be assigned more physically demanding tasks such as tilling land while women are assigned home chores such as cooking and cleaning. By virtue of men tilling the land and caring for food crops and animals, they can preserve the surplus and gain power. They therefore use this power to dominate and rule over their women. On the other hand, in hunting gathering societies, men take up the more risky job of hunting leaving women to perform the easier tasks of gathering fruits and vegetables. Modern sociologists fail to explain gender inequality in its totality unbounded by time and geography. It is apparent that World Bank reports and FAO reports are keen on blaming low levels of industrialisation in some pockets of the world as the main causes of gender inequality. To these scholars, gender inequality is best perpetuated by agriculture. The modern scholars have separated agriculture from the history of the universe and of mankind. This is what Big History has opposed by choosing to explore the history of man and the universe from the very beginning in its totality. The emergence of agriculture is not solely responsible for gender inequality. Gender inequality is part of a bigger universal design explained by David Christian’s modern theory of creation. Conclusion From the discussion, it is apparent that emergence of agriculture brought about changes in how men and women were assigned duties and responsibility. However, emergence of agriculture alone did not give rise to gender inequality. Gender inequality is part of a bigger universal design that enables different sexes to adapt to certain duties better than the opposite sex. Therefore, scholars of gender inequality should delve deeper into history before the emergence of agriculture with a wider lens. The Big History approach into the development of humanity in totality shows that assigning of specific gender roles to the different sexes by society are rooted in our genetic composition. The emergence of agriculture only provided a platform on which the differentiation in roles between the sexes could be witnessed. References Christian, D. (2011). Maps of time: An introduction to Big History. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Christian, D. (2008). This fleeting world: A short history of humanity. London: Berkshire Publishing Hand, J. (2003). Women, Power, and the Biology of Peace. Sydney: Questpath Publishing Christian, D. and McNeill, W. (2005). Maps of time: An Introduction to Big History. Los Angeles: Taylor & Francis. IFAD. (2011). Women and rural development. New York: IFAD. Kendall, D. (2012). Sociology in our times. London: Cengage Learning Kramarae, C. and Splender, D. (2000). Routledge international encyclopedia of women: global women's issues and knowledge, Volume 1. Sydney: Taylor & Francis. Lombardo, T. (2011). Creativity, Wisdom, and Our Evolutionary Future. Journal of Futures Studies, 16(1): 19 – 46. Spier, F. (2011). Big History and the future of humanity. London: John Wiley & Sons, World Bank (2011) Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, International Fund for Agricultural Development. Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook. Read More